Destiny
Posted: September 28th, 2014, 2:45 pm
With all the hype, and having watched a friend play a bit of this, I decided to give Destiny a rent and a good couple of days trial.
I must say that from the onset it had an uphill battle with me: I am not a big fan of online death match (I will play, but prefer co-op or gaming against close friends), I hate Halo (I have played and beaten 2, 3, odst, and reach), and I also dislike games that require a constant internet connection.
First things I quickly created a character by picking one of the three classes, choosing Warlock because I felt magic in a first person shooter would be interesting. I also played as a robot because the choices were: Human, Blue human, and robot. Then I watched a nonsense intro and woke from the dead. I immediately noticed that this game played better than Halo, seemingly possessing weight to the characters movements and weapons that actually feel like you are attempting harm.
And then I began to grind. I had read that the warlock was designed as a glass cannon, weak but possessing powerful ranged abilities. It seemed odd to me that my apparent special abilities were to throw a magic grenade and slap people to make my magic charge faster. Surely being a glass cannon represents a desire to not get up in the thick of it. I later learned that all classes have a special grenade and melee, so no real special ability just a different adjective to basic skills.
I then began to wonder, since each class could use the same guns, how it was that my warlock was meant to have really powerful ranged attacks. I have yet to figure this out, but I will say that armed with a hand cannon I became quite adept at head shots. I don't know if the warlock gets a damage bonus to use guns at range...
I also feel annoyed at my movement ability. I knew that the Titan class received a jetpack and I really, really like jetpacks. But the warlock gets glide. Now gliding can be cool, Batman can glide and he's cool. But Batman has a grapple that allows him to quickly ascend to something he can jump from. I eventually discovered that I could activate my glide on the up-jump and I would jump higher. So really it is less of a glide maneuver and more of a gravity commentator. So if you simply double-tap to jump you can turn a silly two-foot arc into a gentle ten-foot leap. And then I thought I had a handle on why the warlock was a good sniper: just leap up and calmly start sniping from a self-imposed high ground. That idea died the moment I aimed my gun, which turns off glide and sent me careening back towards ground. Later I became really excited as I went to the moon because I wanted to see what kind of jumps I could pull off, but alas the gravity on the moon is the same as anywhere else.
So I had a warlock whose magic was barely more than an adjective and was very fragile and good at shooting guns like everyone else. Also any customization I did was lost the moment I went into combat by the helmet you must wear. You also can not choose a color scheme for your armor and armor modifications have practical effects so you must sacrifice aesthetic for capability. I was really hoping for something more akin to Halo: Reach's armor system. It seems like they didn't really commit towards an artistic vision. You have small ways of identifying yourself, typically meaningless. The big things that define you pretty much just fade together. You are just one of many faceless protagonists fooled into thinking you have an identity.
It's all very much the same. There is a decent shooter inside, but nothing exceptional. It's better than Halo, but has no real personality left over to drive it.
If I were to rate it i'd say it's worth maybe $40. To be honest i'd spend $60 on it if it that was split into $30 a copy so I could play it online with my girlfriend.
But a single copy for $60 bucks is way to much for so much blandness.
I type all this knowing already that it has made mass bank and none of it means a thing.
I must say that from the onset it had an uphill battle with me: I am not a big fan of online death match (I will play, but prefer co-op or gaming against close friends), I hate Halo (I have played and beaten 2, 3, odst, and reach), and I also dislike games that require a constant internet connection.
First things I quickly created a character by picking one of the three classes, choosing Warlock because I felt magic in a first person shooter would be interesting. I also played as a robot because the choices were: Human, Blue human, and robot. Then I watched a nonsense intro and woke from the dead. I immediately noticed that this game played better than Halo, seemingly possessing weight to the characters movements and weapons that actually feel like you are attempting harm.
And then I began to grind. I had read that the warlock was designed as a glass cannon, weak but possessing powerful ranged abilities. It seemed odd to me that my apparent special abilities were to throw a magic grenade and slap people to make my magic charge faster. Surely being a glass cannon represents a desire to not get up in the thick of it. I later learned that all classes have a special grenade and melee, so no real special ability just a different adjective to basic skills.
I then began to wonder, since each class could use the same guns, how it was that my warlock was meant to have really powerful ranged attacks. I have yet to figure this out, but I will say that armed with a hand cannon I became quite adept at head shots. I don't know if the warlock gets a damage bonus to use guns at range...
I also feel annoyed at my movement ability. I knew that the Titan class received a jetpack and I really, really like jetpacks. But the warlock gets glide. Now gliding can be cool, Batman can glide and he's cool. But Batman has a grapple that allows him to quickly ascend to something he can jump from. I eventually discovered that I could activate my glide on the up-jump and I would jump higher. So really it is less of a glide maneuver and more of a gravity commentator. So if you simply double-tap to jump you can turn a silly two-foot arc into a gentle ten-foot leap. And then I thought I had a handle on why the warlock was a good sniper: just leap up and calmly start sniping from a self-imposed high ground. That idea died the moment I aimed my gun, which turns off glide and sent me careening back towards ground. Later I became really excited as I went to the moon because I wanted to see what kind of jumps I could pull off, but alas the gravity on the moon is the same as anywhere else.
So I had a warlock whose magic was barely more than an adjective and was very fragile and good at shooting guns like everyone else. Also any customization I did was lost the moment I went into combat by the helmet you must wear. You also can not choose a color scheme for your armor and armor modifications have practical effects so you must sacrifice aesthetic for capability. I was really hoping for something more akin to Halo: Reach's armor system. It seems like they didn't really commit towards an artistic vision. You have small ways of identifying yourself, typically meaningless. The big things that define you pretty much just fade together. You are just one of many faceless protagonists fooled into thinking you have an identity.
It's all very much the same. There is a decent shooter inside, but nothing exceptional. It's better than Halo, but has no real personality left over to drive it.
If I were to rate it i'd say it's worth maybe $40. To be honest i'd spend $60 on it if it that was split into $30 a copy so I could play it online with my girlfriend.
But a single copy for $60 bucks is way to much for so much blandness.
I type all this knowing already that it has made mass bank and none of it means a thing.