Let's just cut through the normal crap of a boring introductory paragraph. If you've been alive and a gamer for more than 15 years, you know who Bungie is. More than 25 years, and you've played a Bungie game or two. At more than 40 (and a Mac user), you've played games from the company that shipped on 3.5-inch disk. Bungie is now freed from the clutches of Microsoft, and under the thrall of a new master -- Activision.
Destiny is the first title from the thrice-born company, and it's -- different. Is it any good, and more importantly, how is the experience on the seemingly-omnipresent previous generation of console?
We got our hands on
Destiny for the Xbox 360, and played it in conjunction on the Xbox One. All we're going to say about the graphics between the two is that the Xbox 360's fidelity is lower -- but we don't even care about that, as Bungie has taken steps to keep framerate high on the older hardware. Shooting is solid, given Bungie's 20-year history developing first-person shooters. Guns feel appropriately weighty in impact, and the core mechanics around it are solid. Hit-boxes are precise, with guns not using the hitscan (meaning the bullet takes zero time to arrive), as projectiles take time to arrive. Grenades are unusual, and are on a timer, with refresh based on player attributes, rather than a true consumable scavenged for in the field.
In some titles, loot gathered by fallen enemies is a free-for-all.
Destiny does its best on many fronts to minimize players griefing one another, and as a result of these efforts a loot drop is universal, and can't just be grabbed by the first person on the scene. Everybody gets something from it, but not necessarily the same thing or the same rate. Poly counts for loot are kept down by a 12-sided polyhedron in various colors representing gear -- some of these are a tangible item, known to the player on pickup. Others come in the form of "engrams," which require heading back to the only city left on Earth to decode. This has met with some Internet denizen resistance, with players complaining that the system is too random, or too stingy with the goods that pop out of the bad guys like a meaty piñata. More on this in a bit.
You'll note that we haven't yet discussed the plot of the game, which is generally a very early paragraph in most reviews. Bungie is known for universes rich with detail --
Destiny is no different, but it's not that obvious at first glance. In-game cinematics are rare, there's only a handful of them from start to finish (which isn't all that final). Users unlock cards, viewable at Bungie.net, discussing some details of the ne'er-do-wells, friendly factions, firearms, and locations in the game. This paucity of in-game exposition has also met with some hate and discontent in social media. If Bungie had gone the other way, towards a
Metal Gear Solid-series of epic cinematics, they'd have gotten slammed too, so this is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation.
Star Wars starts
in media res. In 1977, a big ship appears under fire from a mysterious force, which turns out to be a bigger ship, helmed by Darth Vader and his minions of the Empire.
Destiny does the same thing. The war is all but lost, the forces of evil are massing for a last assault, and it's up to you -- and the rest of the Guardians -- to stop the assault as best you can.
The first level begins with players being resurrected by a robotic "Ghost" at first running from, then gunning down, the first enemy faction in the game, the Fallen. This serves as a control tutorial and an introduction to the game universe, apocalyptic as it is.
As far as the game universe itself goes, as we have consumed all the card text, humanity is teetering on the edge of being wiped from existence. One city on one continent remains, protected by the ambiguous Traveler, who is sick, quiescent, or dead -- that's not at all clear. The upshot of all this is most of history is lost, and the fate of humanity is left in your hands, a Guardian resurrected by your "Ghost" pal in the start of the game. What happens over about 10 hours of campaign play, and 20 hours of plot-unrelated patrol missions through character level 20 is about history-recovering, and piecing together what's going on in the universe.
Gameplay on the Xbox 360 is identical to that on the Xbox One, which is no small feat. We didn't experience any frame rate drops, other than a single one near the notorious "loot cave" where Guardians sit around and slaughter the Fallen by the dozen to farm gear. To be fair, we got the same very brief slowdown on the Xbox One version of the game.
Destiny is a game that seemingly has fused the visual atmosphere from dystopian visions with a helping of '80s album art from prog-rock bands
Yes and
Asia (or ancient Psygnosis title covers), and tossed in robust shooter mechanics. Initially, the color pallet is grey and rust, with color added for terraformed Venus, and back to red and rust for Mars. Dreary and absent of character, but intentionally so.
Destiny isn't trying to be the hyper-realistic, cel-shaded
Borderlands, but rather paint a picture that portrays seriousness against the ruined landscapes of celestial bodies.
What could be called an obtuse loot system designed to channel players into certain activities beyond simple grinding is part of the game, but is more "old school," or familiar to slogging away for hours in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. It's serving to irritate some gamers, used to more generous doling out of equipment and goods. We had previously mentioned that the good equipment is given to players as "engrams" that need to be decoded back in town. The engrams themselves are of varying quality, with better ones theoretically giving better gear.
The randomness of the engrams is what is annoying the Internet -- a legendary quality engram doesn't always result in legendary gear. Regardless of delivery, a random number generator spitting out loot gives the same results regardless of when the player finds out what it is. The slow pace that gear is handed out, which ultimately determines how powerful a character can become both in strength of equipment as well as maximum player level, is carefully metered by Bungie. Invoking old-school
Dungeons and Dragons, which would you rather have for a robust game universe: eighteen +5 swords of ultimate mayhem clogging the game economy, or increasing rarity of powerful artifacts?
Destiny is not for everybody. Due to the "always online" nature of the game, pausing is impossible. The best you can hope for is a quiet corner to sit down in to manage inventory or check a new gun, hoping you don't get blasted in the process. While the penalty for player death is virtually nonexistent (you teleport to safe spots with no loss of gear, currency, or experience), if you're in any kind of group as Bungie wants you to be, sitting quietly to check the new shiny equipment is a major problem. This is especially troublesome in "shadow zones" during story missions, that limit respawning after death and kick you back to the last checkpoint.
Multiplayer is included, and its balanced - mostly -- as long as you're level 20 or above. While class benefits are equalized, gear is not. Teams will be balanced, but player-to-player? Not so much. We've played both "balanced" play as level 20+, and also as less. We cannot say this strongly enough --
do not play multiplayer until you hit level 20. Avoid the temptation! The quests and perks you get for playing there will still be waiting for you after you've hit the "endgame."
Post level 20, by all means, jump in! Bungie has taken their experience in designing multiplayer play spaces to heart, with maps holding nooks and crannies to lurk in, and wise players can even use the "sit down" command to hide even further. We've got no real complaints about the multiplayer, and it has its own currency to purchase legendary gear with, giving another avenue to devoted players to earn the sought-after gear.
Bungie succeeded in making a game that will be played and talked about for a long time, and not just because Bungie and Activision promised that the franchise will run for at least 10 years. It has defied conventional reviews because of choices in game design, with numeric scores all over the place, simply based on what one reviewer or another calls a show-stopping design choice. Just because Bungie implemented some unusual or not-currently-popular game play mechanisms doesn't make it a bad game. It isn't the end-all be-all MMO-shooter hybrid people think was promised, but instead, takes elements of both for an overall enjoyable experience with satisfying, entertaining gameplay.
Who is
Destiny for?: Shooter fans that enjoy a hard science fiction universe that isn't yet transparent.
Who is
Destiny not for: Intolerance with slow progression after a certain point. Haters of grinding.
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