Mute Protagonist
As excited as I was to see that yes, you do get to design your character’s actual face which is on display during un-helmeted, non-combat segments, namely those in the Tower, I’m troubled by the fact that your character doesn’t speak. I understand that a colossal amount of voicework that goes into making MMOs as is, and recording male and female voices for three different races probably would have quadrupled Bungie’s workload in that department, but it’s just strange to play a game that literally has everything but a talking hero. For a game that is supposed to be story driven in many aspects, a silent hero seems really dated. I’m guessing it’s just a technical or budgetary impossibility, but it’s disappointing all the same.
The Dinklagetron 3000
Since your character is mute, the voice you’ll be hearing more often than any other is that of your AI, Ghost. As many players will recognize immediately, the computer is voiced by none other than Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage. The actor is indisputably phenomenal on that show, and in his films, but his voicework here is…odd. I suppose as an AI it makes sense to have a relatively flat tone, but Dinklage’s Ghost doesn’t sound like a droll computer, it just sounds like Peter Dinklage reading lines from a script in a studio. Compared to his video game AI competition in the form of GLaDOS, Wheatley, Cortana and others, the voicework is weirdly off-putting and out of place, which is strange given the actor’s obvious talent elsewhere.
Race/Class Diversity
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Each class has a different type of grenade and a super melee attack, both on lengthy cooldowns, and much of your skill spec-ing and gear is based on lowering said cooldowns. I don’t really understand why this system is better than just finding grenades or throwing knives in the wild to be used at will, and it just feels overly restrictive.