Today I'm taking a look at last year's most-mediocre most-hyped PS3 game! Also on PS4.
Destiny is the latest project from the makers of Halo, so I had some high hopes for it. It's more MMO than shooter in some ways, with some pretty blatant World of Warcraft influence. There's a character creator where you can customize your physical look, but since the game immediately covers you up from head to toe, your look means absolutely nothing. Modern gaming! Next you're going to tell me that there's almost no music, no vibrant colors, everyone is covered in dirt, and the primary enemies are zombies. ...oh, all of those things are true? Modern gaming! Fuck you, Mario and Sonic!
After the wholly-wasted character creation, you play through repetitive missions that all generally transpire within the same small areas. Where most games would have hub zones that have mission zones branching off of them, this game cuts out the middleman and just has the missions in the hub zones. Which means you get really sick of running the same area over and over with slightly different objectives.
At least the game looks pretty good.
Speaking of the objectives...stuff like "kill ten dregs" or "collect ten cloths" were already old eleven years ago when WoW first did it.
Long story short, I played through the game and found it dull and mediocre. I did like Venus (seen here) though. The game sends you to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, so there's at least some environment variety. Still, the only particularly impressive locale is Venus, and the limited number of locations just highlighted the fact that this game, quite literally, fails to reach for the stars. They could have had levels all over the solar system, and maybe even had you travel to another solar system for the final battle.
There's limitless potential when we're doing a game set in space like this. However, the designers chose to limit the game to the closest planets to Earth instead. And where are the laser beams? Halo had laser beams. We're in the far future and still using ballistic ammo? Seriously?
In this shot we can see that I got the "Dragon Slayer" trophy and a Grimoire card. This is a good time to bring up how poser this game actually is. Nearly everything in the game has a name that might remind people of World of Warcraft or Game of Thrones. "Grimoire"? Seriously? The names are wildly inappropriate for this setting, as they're all straight out of AD&D. It's poser at worst and pretentious at best.
Whoa! I found a speeder bike and got "A New Steed"! Because it's like horses in Warcraft, guys!
I'll admit, riding the speeder is pretty awesome. Had a lot of fun with this, but it's only really useful for quickly running to mission start markers. They might as well just put in fast travel / flight paths for that and go the full monty with their MMO ripping off.
Aside from all the MMO aspects, this is a shooter when you get down to the nitty-gritty. Here I am fighting "Phogoth, The Untamed" (because "Giant Bionoid #4" didn't sound neckbeardy enough).
You can't really see the boss because I'm hiding up on a platform and sniping at the top of his head. You kinda have to when the bosses are such ridiculous bullet-sponges.
The PVP is pretty awesome, at least. One of the random PVP battlegrounds takes you all the way to... Mercury! The sun is a bit too close for comfort here. Gotta admit, THIS is cool, and - unlike the rest of the game - to some extent imaginative.
At level 15 you get the option to switch to a higher-tier class (you beat the game at 18-20, so this is late). I went from Gunslinger to Bladedancer, a more powerful melee-oriented specialization for the Hunter class. Still can't tame mobs as pets, plzdon'tsue us Blizzard.
Unfortunately, a class change is actually a humongous step down at first because you lose most of your previous abilities. It takes a couple more levels to break even, which makes the lateness of the class change pretty weird. How about level 10 instead?
Back to the ridiculous names that permeate this game. Here we see me battling Thralls on the King's Road en route to the Gate of Souls or something. Rephrase that sentence without pretentious bullshit, and I'm fighting drones in a boring cave on the way to a big metal door where I press a button and get Mission Complete.
Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better. Soon as it finds enough Guardians, we'll descend into The Summoning Pits and battle through to the Ocean of Storms!
Rephrased without bullshit: Soon as it finds enough players, we'll descend into another cave, shoot at each other a bit, and fight through to a wasteland with nothing in it. "Ocean of Storms", my ass.
Then there's stuff like "House of Wolves" (a generic faction of robots) and enemy names like "Goblin", "Hobgoblin", "Minotaur", "Harpy", "Acolyte", and "King's Guard". All of the above are generic 'bots, which would actually be okay if they had ANY distinguishing characteristics to liken them to the things they're named after. Harpies could shriek, Minotaurs could have horns... GET AN IMAGINATION, ASSHOLES.
Ya know, you could pretty much poser-up ANY game like this. Let me give it a try!
Here we see The Mage descending onto The King's Hunting Range in her Epic Warsteed.
The Mage travels across the Road of Souls en route to the next area.
Here we see The Mage doing battle with an Orc and a Kobold. What? They look the same? Shu'up! You do not question Bungie, infidel!
Behold! Our heroine has found the Winter Sage's Boots.
Egad! Deep within the Pits of Lightning, The Mage discovers the Scepter of Wolves.
The Mage's quest comes to a halt, as they must battle The Master of the Huntsmen.
Watch out behind you, Mage! There lurks The Snow Wyvern.
The Mage now battles a Forest Troll and a Cyclops Of The Black Gate.
Okay, I'll stop now. I hate Destiny for everything it represents. Dressing up mediocrity as Game of Thrones shows a distinct lack of respect for the fanbases of both that series and Bungie, and that's all I've got to say about this game. Go read my Super Metroid post instead.
Hey, you got a trophy for using weapons.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty good looking for a crossgen game, at least.
It was fun to watch you rename all the Metroid things, nice payoff for all the name talk in this post.
ReplyDeleteMercury looks terrific; makes me want to see how they'd render the skies on other planets.
Hope Bungee gets its groove back for the next game.
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ReplyDelete