Destiny

So, as it turns out, I'm revisiting this piece. I played the invitational Alpha, Beta, and general release of Bungie's new Space shooter, Destiny, and I thought I'd had my fill. But as it turns out, I was only just getting started...

I originally wrote this at the Alpha test of Destiny, so I'll pick it up from there....

Bungie, developer of the Halo series, emailed me in July last year, (it was a Tuesday) asking me if I wanted to apply for their Destiny ALPHA test. I filled in the form, resigned myself to the fact that I never get these codes anyway, and forgot all about it…

The following Thursday, I forced myself to sit through the shambles that was the World Cup opening ceremony. I was calmly waiting for the first match, Brazil vs. Croatia, and about 2 minutes before kick-off, my phones email alert goes off,

"MAIL! MOTHER FUCKER!"

I get a quick bollocking off the Mrs for the offensive alert, I check my mail, and to my delight, it’s the code! I got 2 minutes before kick-off; I quick fire up the PS4, enter the code, and put telly back on. At half time, I check the progress, and it finishes installing just as I put PS4 channel on me TV….

Sorry FIFA, world cup will have to wait, I’ve been waiting to play Destiny since I saw the unveil at the Sony E3 in 2013. I load it up and there’s a sweet message from the developers stating that alpha stage is a crucial part of the development process, and it cannot be done without you…

Cheers Bungie… I got yer back…

The alpha starts with the obligatory character creation process. You select a class from either a Titan, Hunter or Warlock. I chose Titan, and then proceeded to fanny about making his facial features just right. After I finished this process, 3 things made me face-palm…

1. What dafuq am I fannying about with this for, when I could be playing the game.
2. The dood wears a helmet most of the time.
3. It’s a first person shooter, so you rarely see his head.
4. When you do see his head, you see the back of it….

(Alright…. 4 things. I couldn't be bothered to go back and change my previous text from “three” to “four”, but as it turns out, it would've been easier to do that than to carry on typing like this, but I suppose the damage is done now… I could still go back and change it… but then I’d have to delete all this too, but then changing AND deleting would still have been quicker than typing wouldn't it… it’s a writing paradox indeed…)

So then I was in the game. You are placed in the middle of a wasteland in Old Russia, where your little floaty robot thing, like 343 Guilty Spark from Halo, talks to you about your objective. You head off toward a way-point, where en route, you bump into a couple of baddies! They are the Fallen, a humanoid shape insect looking alien, a lot like the “Elites” from Halo. I whip out me gun, which has the cool bullet counter on the back, (seems familiar) and start to shooty-shooty. The gun controls are excellent, the red dot sights allow excellent control and I found myself more on target than off, which is rare for my American style of shooting… headshots are easily achievable and I found that your character movement combined in as well, straight from the off, this was gonna be a great blast…

After a bit of messing about with the controls, I found the new way of travel available to all of Destiny’s guardians, the Sparrow. It’s a star wars speeder… and it’s summon-up-able at any point where there’s space.  It moves a lot like Ghost from the Halo games, move with left stick, including strafe, and turn with the right. No shooty shooty on the alpha build though, maybe this will be available later on in the final game (turns out it isn't...)

Sparrow around Old Russia

Flying through the wasteland, you get chance to soak up some of the environment, and it is gorgeous. Some of the aging structures which reach skyward look how you’d expect an abandoned space launcher to look, with remnants of an industrial city buzzing with life in every direction. Your little floaty thing picks up on the desolation ahead of you, and narrates of how things have gone to shit since the war. This is the only mention of the campaign of Destiny, and I’ll be honest, it’s the campaign I’ll be heading for on launch day. To me, campaigns are what make’s games great. That’s why we love Master Chief, that’s why everyone was up in arms over Mass Effects ending, we want to escape into new worlds, and Destiny’s looked like it’d rival the very best any medium has to offer…

Proceeding on with the first mission see’s you head into the derelict buildings. More gunplay…. Great stuff. Heading through some dank corridors, every so often you come across some would be dispatchers to dispatch, and one of them bastards has a Needler gun from Halo, where the now white (not pink) needles home in on you as you move, so staying close to the walls, you can disappear round corners to deflect the needles into the wall. With some wall hugging, strafing and some excellent controls helping you get some frequent headshots, you can easily clear up. Delving deeper still, things get quite dark, with just your gunlight to lead the way. The little robot thing, called the Ghost, warns you of some impeding danger, still in darkness. Then the enemies come. Fast moving weaklings in large numbers run straight at you, easily taken care of with your rifle. They act a lot like the Flood from the Halo series. There are a few Elites, sorry, Fallen to take care of, but then you meet your first real challenge. A Fallen Wizard. He floats around the room making it difficult to shoot, so I employ a quick “True Grit” approach and run him, plant a plasma grenade on him, (almost, it doesn’t stick like it does in other games, like Halo) then head back for cover, changing mags as I go. All the time we duke it out, you have to mop up any stragglers, you didn’t want it too easy did you? Eventually, it’s just you two to the death. After a decent 5-6 minute scrap, which feels like an eternity, I emerge victorious. Mission ends, and then it all fades to black and I’m whisked into orbit to decide my next location.

During the Alpha, you encounter a few big buggers. Most notable is the last one you see, which introduces you to Destiny’s trump card…

Destiny is a Massive Multiplayer Online game. An MMO. And it’s seamlessly woven into the core of the game. The moment you are dropped into the Alpha, you can see the familiar hovering name badge of an online player. You can approach any player, at any point, and request they join forces with you, and then you can take on the individual levels as a team, Co-op Style! During the wanderings around the vast areas of Destiny, you may stumble upon 3 or 4 more players, and even while you are not teamed together as a “Fireteam” you can all suddenly be thrown together in a “public event” where the enemy may drop in a Tank, and its upto you all to take it down. And it’s proper fun, but not enforced, as if you want to, you can just walk away. Other areas require you enter as a team, how this affects the single player campaign experience, we’ll not know until the full games release. But the Fireteam mission was a blast, and it took fecking ages, the boss was a right hard bastard and it took the combined firepower of 3 of us to stop the ever spawning onslaught of the Fallen, while not getting a kicking from the big boss. When we took it down, we all must have felt the same feeling of elation, as everyone’s avatar broke out the games dances moves.

Happy times.

So this is where I revisit. I picked up Destiny on launch day, (from Tesco, with a free T-shirt, which is probably a sign of me showing my age, as I immediately thought "cool, free clothes") I was impressed with what I'd played so far. I played the campaign, and I gotta say, It's very underwhelming. The story is strung together with a bit of narration here and there from the now infamously boring Dinklebot. Occasionally you are treated to a cut-scene, but there are boring too, just everyone standing around talking to each other. The game is a solid blaster, visiting the Moon, Mars and Venus, each area having its own distinctive setting, like the giant fissure on the moon, and my favourite, the Mars missions, where you see Phobos, Mars' asteroid-like moon, ominously dominating the sky. Each planet is populated by ever increasingly difficult baddies, The Fallen, the Hive, the Vex, all staple videogame baddies, The Cabal of Mars seemed a little refreshing, reminding me of the nice chunky aliens from The Fifth Element. AI is OK, minions line up to be shot down, Difficulty in enemies is as simple as "shoot for a long time" with the end of level adversaries are just bullet sponges...

Phobos!

I finished the boring campaign, played a couple of strikes, but unfortunately, most of my PSN friends hadn't made the move to PS4, so I was alone, the equivalent of knocking on everyone's door when you were a kid, but no one would come out to play....

So I Fucking sold it.

Then Christmas happened.

I fired up the station to start on Dragon Age, (review coming soon) and I found that most of my friends list was now dominated by Destiny. I shrugged my shoulders, resigned myself to the fact that I'd been there, and (literally) got the T-shirt, and started Dragon Age.

But I got that Nagging feeling.... "all my friends are playing a game designed for Co op, And I Love Co op!

So, over the Christmas break, I bought a Second hand copy, and re-joined the fray.

And I'm hooked, Co op play with yer mates has always been on the back-burner for many games devs, but now, here was possibly the biggest AAA new IP launch for ages, and everyone is playing the Co op strikes! My idea of gaming heaven.

During this spout, I have said the word “Halo” seven times. And it’s not hard to see the Halo influences. But that shouldn’t be taken as “another Halo” because it takes the very best elements of the Master Chiefs tale, ie, the gun mechanics, and along with the best MMO experience, Bungie has crafted another classic which deservedly stands up to its previous endeavours. The social/multiplayer experience will be genre defining, as I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking sick of COD, and have been aching for something new, and from my renewed experience, I feel as though Bungie have just the right medicine for my ache…

Pre-friends list getting it... nearly 8 outta 10

Now Co-op with me mates... 9 outta 10