Destiny - A fulfilling path to 'Becoming Legend' or fistful of repetition?

Destiny - A universe of absolute marvels

I am not here to tell you what you should already know about Destiny. It has been over one week since the global release of Destiny and the gaming world has been littered with information on Bungie's latest release. Instead, I want to guide you through tales of my own personal and planetary massacres of Dregs, goblins and large god damn purple floating orbs of solid stubbornness!

Having played the Destiny Beta I was instantly familiarised with atmospheric music score in the final game. The enchanting orchestral sounds that radiate through the menu systems, loading screens and key battle moments; never before have I felt so impressed with how a musical score can enhance my experience of a game. For me, my perception and anticipation were heightened, particularly in darker closed corridors. I felt satisfied with this but ultimately it became easier to predict a situation. The darker and scarier the score became usually meant that a Knight or a wizard were lurking in the shadows. I've read forums and other bloggers note this point also.

Destiny Enemies - The Cabal Class. Cabal Legionary, extremely powerful weapons

Destiny's mission range is made up of 'Story, Patrol and Strike' missions with a choice to fly back to the Tower to collect messages, bounties and purchase weapon and armor load outs. I naturally gravitated to the story missions over the side quests. Why? I felt that they offered slightly more variation over the Patrol missions. Nonetheless, choosing what type of mission I could tackle gave me the choice I like. I have always said that 'player choice' is something that I find imperative to amplify my experience! I soon learnt that my choice became stifled by repetition. This was because most of the learning about Destiny happens very quickly thus limiting your choices later in the game. The ability to 'choose' becomes stale. Depending on which planet I was in orbit of, I found my trusty Warlock thrusted upon the exact same plains in most of the Story missions starting in the exact same place. There were slight differences in the lighting and overall ambiance however, this did not negate from my head saying "here again!, Really?" Despite this, small detail, I could not help but to dive back in to the beautiful and majestic world of Destiny. Destiny holds a certain luring charm that kept me coming back like a boomerang! I wrote a blog about 'my first 60 minutes with Destiny Beta' and logged how well Bungie made fantastic use of the lighting, shadows and transitions from dark to light. All of this contributes to the 'luring charm' of Destiny.

Destiny - Getting down to business in The Tower

Returning to the Tower felt like taking a 'day off' to soicalise and shop. In Destiny terminology, however, the Tower was a place to maximise your arsenal before launching back in to orbit. The weapons and armor range seemed comprehensive enough for me to feel spoilt at times. My star picking from the weapon range fell under the 'Special Weapons' category of which was 'The Sniper Rifle'. The Tarjan-C to be specific! I found the Tarjan-C to be the most easy to maneuver and whilst the impact was lower, the stability of the weapon allowed me to be more accurate. I can honestly state that there was nothing more satisfying than slicing through the head of a Dreg from long range. Adding to the advantages, Destiny allowed me to fluctuate between the stealthier modes with snipers and 'running and gunning' approaches with a selection of fully and semi automatic weapons. Result!

3D view of The Ghost, Destiny.

What would a blog about Destiny be without a mention to the most important piece of AI, The Ghost? The Ghost provides support for guardians in the form of hacking, lighting darkened areas, illuminating the way/objective and providing data about the current mission. I found the Ghost to be a credible source of help especially when I was forced in to a shadowy area. I'd whip out my Ghost in order to provide a soft, yet pixelated blanket of light that illuminated the path. The Ghost reminded me of Navi from Zelda, Ocarina of time but not as annoying. Slotting this in further, the world of Destiny was littered with dead Ghosts that I was able to revive in exchange for a small amount of XP. I was not motivated to find the locations of these as it felt like a mundane task. Instead, I found myself accidentally stumbling upon them. There is a trophy available for reviving 50 of the 62 dead Ghosts so maybe I'll go back through and find these at at a later date.

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Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Destiny. There was a luring charm that made me continue to play. I don't usually give a quantifiable rating to a game but with Destiny I am going to. For its comprehensive loadouts, stunning environments, flawless music score I'd rate Destiny a 7.9 out of 10. This would have been higher if Bungie had avoided the repetition of missions. I'll do a separate review on the multiplayer aspect of Destiny soon.

Destiny is available on Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360.

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