Destiny - Review Thread

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I don't get it, I'm normally a huge story guy, but Destiny > the new Wolfenstein game for me. It's like, I spent a few hours with Wolfenstein and was bored to tears, despite that game featuring some admittedly great exposition. Destiny on the other hand - and I am only low level, so perhaps premature in my judgement - should surely win awards for coaxing such a flat and emotionless performance from Peter "I get nominated for Emmys for my pitch-perfect turn as the supremely witty Tyrion Lannister" Dinklage.

When I say I am enjoying Destiny more, it's purely because I prefer the feel of the gunplay and the MMO-lite gameplay mechanics. The single-player storyline is... not very compelling. It has the beauty of Mass Effect's universe, but fails on populating the world with meaningful characters, or a sense of purpose beyond progressing your own character. The atmosphere is top-notch for what it is, but it fails as an RPG. I'd like to see them build on this aspect, because imagine Mass Effect, set in a persistent online world... pretty much my dream game.

I think 6/10 is harsh. At least wait until more content drops. They can improve on a lot of the complaints within this game, because the core is solid. Just need to listen to customer feedback and carefully implement changes.
 
Absoludacrous said:
Yea, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my point. Destiny has awesome combat, I agree.

The poster said Borderlands drop rates were a bad thing. I disagreed, because Destiny is a clear example of why Borderlands drop rates are a necessity.

Just wait until the majority of the player base gets to level 20 and throws their hands up in the air because they don't want to run the same 40 minute Strike over and over again to get one piece of armor they're going to destroy anyway.
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BL drops have a very similar ratio of useful to redundant as Desitny IMO. That's the important part to consider.


Steel said:
.

You're pitting loot vs gunplay, when borderlands is more than just loot. The actual RPG part of borderlands has more depth. There are a variety of builds for each character that greatly effect how you play the game, what weapons you favor etc. The enemies in Borderlands have a great deal more variety than Destiny. There a ton more bosses in Borderlands. There are a ton more objective types in Borderlands. Traveling the world is a more significant part of the game in Boderlands. There are NPCs in the wild in borderlands.

If the only thing that can engage you is gunplay, then sure, Destiny is better(if very very similar) than borderlands.But there's a lot more than that in these types of games.



*sigh* I thought they were pretty competent as 3d platformers go, but w/e.
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BL has more depth to its skill trees, but its combat and AI is nowhere near as refined so it makes very little use of that extra depth.

BL combat is spam. Like Warframe.

Destiny, like Halo, is more simplistic in terms of mechanics but has much not interesting encounters and AI that reacts more to your input.

That's so much more rewarding.
 
raziel said:
Destiny is about having the same encounters with the same enemies in the same environments.

Halo is about having the same encounters with the same enemies in the same environments.
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Halo is about taking advantage of enemy composition - prioritizing targets that drop weapons that you can then use against the other enemies. Its about smooth movement around and over cover - timing those movements behind cover to reload or shift direction. Its about fooling the AI, or suppressing them before tossing a grenade at their feet. Its also about knowing their behaviors and using them to expose their weaknesses (hunter attacks exposing their weak spots, jackals planting themselves into the ground when fired upon, grunts being routed when taking down their leaders, brutes enraging, etc.)

Destiny is all about the weapons you brought, and keeping the ammo supply flowing - you take out low level grunts to stay supplied with standard and secondary ammo - use the secondary ammo to help take down the larger sub boss targets to drop heavy ammo - spam heavy ammo on boss units in critical locations (for fucking ever) or to immediately take out sub bosses (satisfying). Destiny is also about properly timing your melee, grenades and super - and this ties into your gear, which will affect the speed of your cooldowns. You're really into the flow when you're nailing the timing and opportunity of those special attacks - you don't want to keep them saved up and never use them, but you also don't want to waste them on one or two low level enemies either.

They're very different styles, and even where the shooting feel, grenades, and strafing feel straight out of Halo, the fact that you always have a jetpack-like capability at all times with a nearly nonexistent cooldown means the combat in Destiny can be far more vertical and spread out, especially with a mixed fireteam. And of course supers change the equation, but not so much when soloing since the cooldown is so damn long. In a group you'll use it more often because of light dropped by players who pull their specials - those globes of light reduce your cooldowns.
 
74 on Metacritic? Damn, didn't expect that. Apart from the lack of story missions, it's pretty good.

Bungie, add more story missions, FREE ONES!
 
Deku Tree said:
"@PeterMolydeux: Maybe I should give Destiny a chance? GiantBomb gave Destiny 3/5. They gave Beyond:Two Souls the same score, is Destiny really THAT good?"
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This still makes me laugh.

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I took a break during the week but will dive back tomoorow. I used the time as a "deep breath" period but now my body is ready once more.
 
Zakalwe said:
Except Destiny has engaging combat and BL just has passable combat but incredible drop rates. That's not good gameplay to me.

Destiny is flawed, but the important part, the part you're engaged with for the majority of the time (the shooting) is actually great.

Diablo 3 I could never understand.
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I don't know about you, but both Destiny and Borderlands' gunplay are the exact same. You aim at an enemy and shoot, with all kinds of guns giving off various mechanical changes (though Borderlands had far more variety). Saying that Borderlands doesn't have engaging combat and then saying Destiny does is just weird to me, because they are both the same. Where does Borderlands fail?

You have grenades that you throw, you have switchable weapons, weapons give off a feel of impact, you have class abilities and even class talents to customise. Where is the difference?
 
AlfredX1990 said:
I would say that Jak and Daxter 1 was below average compared to everything else in the genre around that time. Jak 2 was the one that changed everything
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I was referring to it as a series, I preferred 2 personally, though a lot of people preferred 1.

edit:

Zakalwe said:
BL has more depth to its skill trees, but its combat and AI is nowhere near as refined so it makes very little use of that extra depth.

BL com a this spam. Like Warframe.

Destiny, like Halo, is more simplistic in terms of mechanics but has much not interesting encounters and AI that reacts more to your input.

That's so much more rewarding.
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The AI in Destiny may react to a lot, but I hardly feel like the AI is pushing me. The enemy design just makes it pretty simple to figure out what they're doing. On the other hand, the variety of enemies in borderlands forces you to change up your tactics constantly, regardless of the quality of the AI.

Let me put this in context: The common enemies in Dark Souls have terrible AI's. What makes the game difficult? Enemy variety, placement, and area design.
 
All in all I will agree with the 75-80 range the reviewers have put out. It's a great game and I am enjoying my time in it. My only issue with the reviewers is were they so sucked into the hype that the beta and info we had that they never saw this coming. If the disapointment comes from "Well what is here is far too repetitive and the variety is a bit off" that is fair. But from expecting greatness to expand from what the beta never implied is where I will wonder what were they expecting....
 
HowZatOZ said:
I don't know about you, but both Destiny and Borderlands' gunplay are the exact same. You aim at an enemy and shoot, with all kinds of guns giving off various mechanical changes (though Borderlands had far more variety). Saying that Borderlands doesn't have engaging combat and then saying Destiny does is just weird to me, because they are both the same. Where does Borderlands fail?

You have grenades that you throw, you have switchable weapons, weapons give off a feel of impact, you have class abilities and even class talents to customise. Where is the difference?
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Things like how the game handles recoil, hit reactions, weapon balance to more minor things like sound design all impact how good the gunplay feels.
 
Sillverrr said:
I think 6/10 is harsh. At least wait until more content drops. They can improve on a lot of the complaints within this game, because the core is solid. Just need to listen to customer feedback and carefully implement changes.
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So, where is that invisible line of clearance to have an impression of this game?

Edit: NVM, misread, though I think some people are being more forgivable than what they would be for any other game.
 
HowZatOZ said:
I don't know about you, but both Destiny and Borderlands' gunplay are the exact same. You aim at an enemy and shoot, with all kinds of guns giving off various mechanical changes (though Borderlands had far more variety). Saying that Borderlands doesn't have engaging combat and then saying Destiny does is just weird to me, because they are both the same. Where does Borderlands fail?

You have grenades that you throw, you have switchable weapons, weapons give off a feel of impact, you have class abilities and even class talents to customise. Where is the difference?
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The AI in Destiny is far superior. it reacts to your input in ways that makes it feel like it has a level of intelligence, whereas BL AI feels like rush down spam mode.

There's such a a massive difference.

Steel said:
The AI in Destiny may react to a lot, but I hardly feel like the AI is pushing me. The enemy design just makes it pretty simple to figure out what they're doing. On the other hand, the variety of enemies in borderlands forces you to change up your tactics constantly, regardless of the quality of the AI.

Let me put this in context: The common enemies in Dark Souls have terrible AI's. What makes the game difficult? Enemy variety, placement, and area design.
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You're talking up BL far too much. There really isn't that much variety either.

Dark souls is only difficult because the AI is so precise and requires you to stay utterly focused at all times. It's really very basic pattern recognition. The difficult is that it's so damn relentless.

Destiny may not be as difficult, but it does react in more intelligent ways and feel so much more alive from encounter or encounter.
 
ShinMaruku said:
Why is it nonesene to expect 7's and 8s for a new franchise in a age were iteration on a new IP is key, aside from a few exceptions it's always takes until 2 for the game to blossom. Funds can help but you need experience to use those funds properly. Perhaps it's just that I have no faith in them to knock it out the park on first blush.
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I could name quite a few newer IP's that didn't need an iteration before being considered a great game.

Batman Arkham Asylum
Gears of War
The Last of Us
Bioshock
Red Dead Redemption
Demon's Souls
Dead Space
Mass Effect
Dishonored
Sleeping Dogs

I realize that it does sometimes take a sequel or two before before a developer get it right, but that doesn't mean that a new IP with a budget of $100 million+ should get a pass in terms of expectations. Especially from a developer like Bungie.

I'm sure a Destiny 2 could improve on all sorts of things and be a legitimately great game and I super hope that happens, but I was kinda hoping that the first one would also be a great game. I don't think that was really so unrealistic of me.

Zakalwe said:
BL combat is spam.
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It totally isn't.
 
Zakalwe said:
The AI in Destiny is far superior. it reacts to your input in ways that makes it feel like it has a level of intelligence, whereas BL AI feels like rush down spam mode.

There's such a a massive difference.
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That is all I've seen in Destiny. The AI is just as stupid in that it will congo line to you just so you don't have to worry about flanking. Hell, they have some enemies holding guns just run up to you for a melee hit because that totally makes more sense. Again, I can't see the difference in AI or combat for Destiny and Borderlands because to me they are both the same. I never felt like Borderlands weapons were weak, neither with Destiny as they both gave off a power of impact when you shot.

My main difference with the two is the loot, in that I felt far more interested to pick up loot in Borderlands because it was presented far better and the frequency was far higher. Destiny just makes me dread every time I finally see a loot crate because I know it will be useless (that is if it even drops off end bosses).
 
Z.. said:
Uncharted 1 was quire average. As was every Naughty Dog game ever except Unch 2 and TLoU. Don't ever box them in with Platinum.
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You know how to separate personal opinion from popular opinion, right? You seem to be confusing the two. Particularly considering Naughty Dog games pretty much always are more well-received than Platinum games.
 
Don't disagree with the reviews. I wasn't impressed by the beta at all. I am enjoying the "campaign" but will most likely not touch the game beyond that.
 
Marcel said:
I just did that it felt like I was just swinging a new version of the Gravity Hammer around in third person. It was a cool distraction but it's not really anything new.
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I suspect a lot of people didnt even think of trying the melee button (PS4 R1)...
 
Mr Moose said:
74 on Metacritic? Damn, didn't expect that. Apart from the lack of story missions, it's pretty good.

Bungie, add more story missions, FREE ONES!
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I still have no clue what the story is.

Occasionally Dinklage will yawn out some nonsense about things he seems to think the game has told me about.

Here this shit with wizards and knights is happening and we need to go to a garden for reasons.
 
HowZatOZ said:
That is all I've seen in Destiny. The AI is just as stupid in that it will congo line to you just so you don't have to worry about flanking. Hell, they have some enemies holding guns just run up to you for a melee hit because that totally makes more sense. Again, I can't see the difference in AI or combat for Destiny and Borderlands because to me they are both the same. I never felt like Borderlands weapons were weak, neither with Destiny as they both gave off a power of impact when you shot.

My main difference with the two is the loot, in that I felt far more interested to pick up loot in Borderlands because it was presented far better and the frequency was far higher. Destiny just makes me dread every time I finally see a loot crate because I know it will be useless (that is if it even drops off end bosses).
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You think that's how Destiny AI is? I feel like I'm playing a completely different game to you...

Useful loot ratio is the same in my experience. The downside with BL being that you had so much more trash to manage.

Seanspeed said:
It totally isn't.
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Sorry man, I usually agree with you but BL AI is an utter spam fest. It has a few cool interactions between units, but overall it doesn't react to you in intelligent ways.
 
Just completed the first...
Venus mission

The game,finally, has some beefy combat situations and feel more tasty, but all the flaws I disliked in Beta are still here. From A to Z. If I should give it a score, would be 6.5.

BL2 Slaughter House alone has much more interesting combat mechanics and stuff going on than all the stuff Destiny has shown me so far.

About Halo comparison, please:
This is seems its retarded cousin, in almost every comparable regard.
And not even talking about the atrocious PvP. An insult for what Halo MP has achieved, especially Halo 2.
 
Alienous said:
Things like how the game handles recoil, hit reactions, weapon balance to more minor things like sound design all impact how good the gunplay feels.
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Basically this. It's something Bungie has always done fantastically well, that and having AI which doesn't make you feel like you are fighting braindead mobs. Sure it could be better but I find the enemies in Destiny engaging and fun to fight. So much so the lack of variety in weapons doesn't bother me a lot, it just doesn't give me that 'loot em up' feeling. I do wish there were a lot more enemy types/AI behaviours though.

With Borderlands 2 it's mostly just braindead mobs to shoot at and the chance of a bit of super loot. The combat is OK but it's feedback, handling and reactions are much poorer. I still enjoy the Borderlands games greatly but it's really due to a mix of things and mostly because I love getting loot. Hell in Borderlands 2 they actually tamed some of the elemental reactions I loved in the first game to get one 'universal' copy of the game certified worldwide (for example when you electrocute someone their head doesn't turn into a skeleton and pop anymore :( )
 
Big_Al said:
Basically this. It's something Bungie has always done fantastically well, that and having AI which doesn't make you feel like you are fighting braindead mobs. Sure it could be better but I find the enemies in Destiny engaging and fun to fight. So much so the lack of variety in weapons doesn't bother me a lot. I do wish there were a lot more enemy types/AI behaviours though.

With Borderlands 2 it's mostly just braindead mobs to shoot at and the chance of a bit of super loot. The combat is OK but it's feedback, handling and reactions are much poorer. I still enjoy the Borderlands games greatly but it's really due to a mix of things and mostly because I love getting loot. Hell in Borderlands 2 they actually tamed some of the elemental reactions I loved in the first game to get one 'universal' copy of the game certified worldwide (for example when you electrocute someone their head doesn't turn into a skeleton and pop anymore :( )
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You're right and your username is perfect.

Seanspeed said:
There's a ridiculous amount of enemy variety. There are actually very few games with a greater variety of enemy types than Borderlands has.
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In that there is very little variety with how you engage with them, so it's incredibly surface level and not really remarkable.
 
What betrays Bungie fans the most is how the developers constantly preached "its just an alpha/beta... wait till the game comes out, there's a lot more variety in there."

That was a plain as day lie.
 
Seanspeed said:
There's a ridiculous amount of enemy variety. There are actually very few games with a greater variety of enemy types than Borderlands has.
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Variety types sure there most certainly are. But none of them are particularly clever and they tend to rush you or just stand back. There's nothing really clever at play in fighting them. Still fun, but not clever.
 
Any word from Bungee yet? Addressing the large criticisms of repetitive and boring content?

They can't be feeling too good about these reviews.
 
Yahoo Tech - 4/5

What’s hot: Gorgeous environments; fantastic combat; loot, loot, loot

What’s not: Baffling story; often repetitive; terrible waste of Peter Dinklage
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Edit: Didn't realize taking the 4/5 out from the link would kill the URL tag. Apologies mates.
 
Big_Al said:
Variety types sure there most certainly are. But none of them are particularly clever and they tend to rush you or just stand back. There's nothing really clever at play in fighting them. Still fun, but not clever.
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As opposed to swarmers, snipers and heavies in destiny. Only difference is weak points.
 
What’s hot: Gorgeous environments; fantastic combat; loot, loot, loot

What’s not: Baffling story; often repetitive; terrible waste of Peter Dinklage
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Loot, loot, loot?

Man, the loot in Destiny ain't good enough to bear repeating it as a positive three times.

Destiny needs Loot Goblins. That's it!
 
Vespene said:
What betrays Bungie fans the most is how the developers constantly preached "its just an alpha/beta... wait till the game comes out, there's a lot more variety in there."

That was a plain as day lie.
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there was a brief moment of measured scepticism in the "only one area per planet" thread, which was quickly derailed when a bungie employee graced the thread with their presence and did a quick bit of fluffy PR wrangling; causing everyone to drop to their knees in starstruck reverence, chastising themselves and others for ever doubting.
 
ghst said:
there was a brief moment of rational scepticism in the "only one area per planet" thread, which was quickly derailed when everyone when a bungie employee graced the thread with their presence and did a quick bit of fluffy PR wrangling; causing everyone to drop to their knees in starstruck reverence, chastising themselves and others for ever doubting.
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I hate when this sorta shit happens. Some developers use NeoGaf as testing grounds for PR talk and manipulation.
 
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