Destiny is a game which is just as beautiful and fun as it is flawed and frustrating.
Oh Destiny, where to begin? It's been a long time since such a divisive game has been released by a developer with a profile as high as Bungie's. Before I get into any specifics I'll just say that I am still playing Destiny, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I will also say that it is not at all what I thought it was going to be and it's extremely disappointing in some very important ways, how can both of those statements be true?
Since there are a million reviews out there for this game and this one likely won't ever even be read by anyone I'm going to keep this brief.
I feel that this game was marketed to all of us as if it was going to be an epic, sprawling space opera like a Mass Effect game made by the guys who changed the world with Halo. That is not what we got. I actually have longstanding gripes with the lead writer of ALL of the Halo games and as awful as it sounds I think the guy is a hack. Look it takes one to know one OK? Like many people in the world I partially feel like I had to fake to make it in my industry and now I actually know what the hell I'm doing. It was my hope that the same thing would happen with the writing in Destiny. Clearly it did not. If you want to pick up Destiny because you liked the story telling in Halo and you felt some affinity for the "characters" like MC and Cortana and so on, DO NOT pick up this game. There are a host of other issues but I think that is my biggest one, it's just a completely fragmented story with no real bread crumb trail that leads you to any kind of understanding at all. It really comes across as a story which got pushed through the editing room but in the editing room was just a bunch of monkeys who were promised some snacks as soon as they finished the job.
Now that I've talked about what the game is not, lets talk about what it is. This is an age old promise from several other developers back at the beginning of the 360 era. Promises from games like Huxley (what ever happened to that?) or even that game from some of the original Diablo developers, Hellgate London I think was the name. This is a very interesting concept in that it follows some of the most addictive attributes from the thriving MMO genre (well some of them thrive anyway) while incorporating some pretty damn solid online FPS game play. I honestly thought we'd have to wait much longer as consumers to get our hands on a game of this type which works this well. The shooting is absolutely a riot. If you played Halo for any length of time and then picked up Destiny the mechanics will feel very familiar. Familiar is a deliberate choice as a descriptor because it is not the same, but you can feel that it's a logical and desired evolution from that old albeit solid structure. So we got great shooting, what else? Well there is a pretty high level of loot lust in this game, your loot shows on your body so that you can prance around in the "Tower" (town) and show how badass you are, but also the loot is so stingy in the game that when you get those purple drops (which shoot up in the air out of the body of a fallen foe before he hits the ground) it's a pretty great hit of endorphin I have to say. Additionally when you go to do one of the many mission types, Strike, Story, Crucible with a friend, the fun just amplifies. I especially love the strikes because they feel like a bit more focused version of the Firefight modes from the latter Halo games. You get scored against the other 2 party members even thought you are not actually competing with each other. I love beating other people or even better, beating friends in those co-op missions. The game also creates incentives for coming back by having set up a series of systems of currency which over time will allow you to straight up purchase Legendary items. Since Legendary items (purple dodecahedron in game) drop so rarely it makes a lot of sense to just jump in for a couple of hours, play a couple strikes or crucible (PVP) matches and get out. If you do that for 3-4 days in a row you are basically guaranteed at least one Legendary, I usually get between 2 and 4 per week at this point.
It's easy to look at these systems and simply see that it is a very deliberately constructed game play loop which is meant to keep you barely hanging on to that thread of hope (getting better loot than others) so that you keep coming back to play. With that said, that's what every single MMO out there is. I sunk tons of hours and money in to WoW, FF14, GuildWars and others that I just attempted to get into but couldn't. These games cost infinitely more than Destiny and honestly don't even come close to offering the same level of gratification in the combat. Actually I should be careful saying that, just I guess for ME and my money, this style of combat with all of those MMO hooks are a dream come true.
That is my primary take away from playing this crazy game. It's a damn riotously fun time especially with friends, it's got the good MMO hooks that keep you coming back for more, and it costs a pittance in comparison. If you ever wandered what MMOs were all about, but couldn't get behind the whole "I click a ton of hot buttons on a taskbar" combat then look no further than Destiny. It's just FUN, and not much else.