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My Before Shot Review of Destiny- ImpressionsNReview

Writer's picture: Ellen &  JonathanEllen & Jonathan

My heart skipped a beat as I heard about Destiny and saw the trailer. Even more excitement came when the Beta released and I got to play-pretend by being a Q/A tester. Speaking as a fellow gamer, I am sure we all anticipated this beta since we first heard about it being announced. I dare say this is quite a diverse reaction from everyone whom was following Destiny. A variety of matters come to mind, but the foremost which captivates me to play, is the story. Then again, I am a sucker for stories.

 

As I progressed through the story, I felt even more confused and started questioning, was the missions out of order? Or was the story itself left with holes? Then more questions flooded my mind. What is the full explanation of “traveler”? Let alone what or who is behind the darkness? Why does everything seem to be in a post apocalyptic state? How did it get to that point? Why do I want to know the story so badly?!? See many questions indeed. The player does learn that they need a ship for long distance space travel where you select a variety of destinations*not going to lie but kickass* and learns the voice of the traveler is through the speaker *but can he be trusted?*. It had its run-of-the-mill usual missions to figure out what the fallen were and what they were after or trying to hide/protect, and somehow an old possible historical figure, aka Rasputin, has for some reason risen from the dead as a radio signal. Very interesting story time! The introduction was done well but that seems to be the only bit of the story that made actual sense. My emotions and thoughts are quite mixed towards the story because I do count in the fact that it was beta. From what I played in the beta, I feel like I have been introduced to the idea of what the story represents, however, it concerns me wondering if the entire game will remain this way when it is released. Hopefully not!

 

From the start I adapted to the game play and the controls quickly with the little tutorial they gave us. If your genre/style is First Person Shooter preferred, you can quickly pick up the game play more easily and even challenge yourself with Destiny’s hard mode, *yes that is a sexual innuendo *after going through tutorial phase. The overall style was heavily influenced with Bungie then adds a dose of Activision. I love that you are able to customize your character looks from the start because that is not common in most FPS.The guns featured in the beta were all simplistic in their way and characteristics. Each weapon has different types of upgrades and shooting styles. Tidbit of information, if you find the same type of gun, both guns with each will have their specific upgrades. For upgrading the guns, the ladder system that is used is fairly straight forward. The amount of kills you score with that weapon unlocks the upgrade, and from there you can choose to use it if it suits your character.

 

Now onto the best part of my reviews, THE WEAPONS! Maybe due to the beta, there was not a vast amount of different weapons. Of course you have the standard: rifles, shotguns, snipers, rockets, heavy machine guns, and hand cannons. Although the game only allows you to use only three weapons (Primary slot, Special Slot, and Heavy weapons slot) at a time, it’s a nice challenge to discover the balance between them and what works for you. I prefer to takedown the enemies quickly when they start to swarm me with my trusty auto rifle and get a little up close and personal with my shot gun. Although, my more preferable style of playing is hanging back and picking them off one by one, and skip on by their carcasses to see what loot I can collect. One feature I questioned though was the grenades being on a cool down timer. The game provides you one to use and have to wait for it to cool down in order to use another, making the use of them more valuable and crucial. While playing and collecting new weapons, some stood out to me. These weapons had a certain symbol in the top left corner of that weapons description, possibly nature attribute will be implemented into the full game, or maybe different ammo/bullets are used to make it more powerful. Makes me wonder more what this game has in store for the players.

 

I’ve been waiting to talk about one of my favorite parts to this beta, the overall design and layout of the world itself and full exploration of the area we can play on. The scenery of an open community of players in the tower and overlooking the last safe haven of the human race with the traveler floating above was exquisite to the eye. Then whist away to an open wasteland of old earth to search for the randomize loot, discover answers to storyline, and to kill all who get in my way, then transporting from moons to planets. *yes haas!* Each area of the map had their different and natural looks. Bungie has delivered a beautiful world to travel and fight through, full of breath-taking cinematic moments that are brimming with colorful detail. Due to this, I want to go through every inch of what Destiny has to offer with its open world to explore. A Tidbit of information to make exploration more enticing, the addition of gold loot chests and how each one has a valuable piece of gear that is for your character only. A possibility that may arise is professions and/or quests items that you are able to pick up from plants. Makes you want to look literally everywhere, am I right?

 

In the beta, there were three classes introduced. The three classes are Titan, hunter, and warlock. I started with Titan, but my friends played warlock and hunter. Since I played Titan I noticed how the class is higher on the defensive and beefy side, and because of the class abilities using the combo of rifle and shotgun worked well. The abilities were when you hit someone with melee; you electrocute their faces and they turn to crisp. Another ability that the titan offers was my grenade. I was able to create an electrical blast that was combined with a focused flash bang. Last but not least, the ability to use my jumping-really-high-into-the-air-and-make-sure-to-time-well-but-electrifies-every-enemy-near-me-once-I-land-on-ground-that-makes-it-a-one-shot-kill satisfied me hardcore. Once the game is released, I would love to try the other classes that are available.

 

There were two things, which I did not like about Destiny beta. I did not like how the PVP system worked and the communication during the open beta from Bungie/Activision. PVP was a challenge because of the abilities that each class has, makes the field uneven. I’d imagine that once the game comes out, the PVP system will be more balanced out. The communication during the beta was terrible. I mean there was a message indicating that you would get a surprise on a set day and time but only for a two hour time-slot to play, which you would have to go on the internet to find out. Any communication that you had questions for, you needed to go on website to find answers. I find this to be poor communication simply because of they had the ability to send a message about a surprise, yet not able to send messages of when the beta was going to end, or etc.

 

Overall, I am still waiting to see what changes will be made, and what the game has to offer once the game is released. Hopefully, by the time it is released, it will be a completed game. For the beta play through of Destiny, I like the direction of the game being an FPS combined with MMORPG elements (because of the multi-player and looting system) but I believe implementing changes like these towards to FPS’s, is good direction for hybrid genres.

 Proofed by: R. Arias

 Device used for gameplay: PS3

Review on: Destiny Beta

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