Had a good time on Destiny last night. In a way it raised more questions than answers in regards to how certain things work. What's more important though is just how the moment to moment game feels, and I like it quite a lot. Gunplay feels quite good, as does moving around the world, which feels fairly open. The visuals aren't mind blowing but I like the aesthetic and it's sufficiently different in look and feel to other shooters.
I went for the Titan class and Exo race and made a mean looking robot. For me it sort of feels like a missed opportunity not giving Humans, Awoken and Exos unique characteristics like the racial bonuses in Elder Scrolls games. It wouldn't need to be constrictive, just a few passive buffs in certain areas. Without any of that it seems like a purely cosmetic choice, which is odd considering you can only see players with their helmets off in the Tower. I doubt your chosen race will affect side quests or anything like that either.
There are mechanics in the game that I didn't know about before playing and couldn't find a lot of information on in game. There are these called engrams which are a kind of loot that needs to be decoded before you can see what it is and equip it. Decoding it of course costs money. It seems like you're more likely to find high quality stuff in an engram than at a vendor; I decoded one and got a chunky belt fed machinegun as a heavy weapon (I don't think vendors sell those.) Heavy weapons are obviously more potent than your primary but it's rare you'll find ammuntion for them so (as I suppose is intended) you'll want to cling onto that heavy ammo until you need it against a tougher enemy or boss.
Another mechanic I'm still not 100% on is Crucible Marks (there's a second one too, I forget the name). They seem to act like a sub currency you need to get higher quality kit. Along side that I think there's some kind of reputation score you can gain which again allows you to get better equipment. I'm still none the wiser about the factions, which have interested me from the start. I found NPCs representing all of them in the Tower, and they all sell exclusive stuff but there seems to be no other interaction with them; it doesn't seem like you can go up to a guy from New Monarchy or Seven Seraphs and ask for a quest.
Most of the time I spent outside of the Tower was just exploring. There are beacons dotted around the map that offer you small quests like go to this place, hack that, kill this many enemies, collect x amount of y from z enemies etc. These seem like mini quests which will refresh often but have no impact outside of doing them and getting a reward, so you'll always have something to do. I performed a number of these and they give you a suitable amount of purpose in your exploration; I might have missed a chunk of the map if a quest hadn't taken me there.
Overall I'm enjoying myself and, while I always suspected I'd get Destiny, now I know I want the full thing. Before my interest had been fluctuating as I was at turns intriqued by the promise and frustrated by the vagueness of the information surrounding it. My lasting memories of my first session were three things; being pleasantly reminded of S.T.A.L.K.E.R in some of the dark sub-terranean sections, dancing with 10 other players in the Tower: you can use buttons on the D-Pad for gestures, so you can wave, sit down and yes, dance. Lastly, I had en enormous amount of fun instantly killing low level aliens by punching them hard in the face (which is how the Titan class seems to melee.)
Will be on again tonight but only for so long before I go out to watch Spain vs Holland.
