Destiny, Bungie’s highly anticipated first person shooter was released just two weeks ago on September 9th and it’s finally time to see what all of the fuss is about.
Destiny is anything and everything all at the same time. On the surface it appears to be just the average First Person Shooter (FPS). However, it also incorporates many role playing elements into the game as well.
The player begins by creating their very own character known as a “Guardian”. Choosing between three different races: Human, Awoken, and Exo, along with three different classes: Warlock, Hunter, and Titan. These classes give each character their own special abilities that change each players experience. For example, the Hunter can jump extremely high and can even double jump for an extra boost, while the Titan has a powerful jet pack that allows them to reach high areas of the game.
After each player creates their character, the game opens with a little robot known as a “Ghost” (voiced by Peter Dinklage) awakening our hero. After fighting through multiple waves of enemies known as “The Fallen”, the protagonist comes upon a ship that allows the player to travel to multiple planets including Earth, The Moon, Venus, and Mars.
It is these locations where the player can complete a multitude of story missions, cooperative modes called strikes, raids, and can even freely roam their environment using their fun-to-drive futuristic speeder called “The Sparrow”. Throughout these many activities, players will earn experience that will level up their character and find better gear to use on future missions in chests and on fallen enemies. Players can also compete in the competitive multiplayer mode known as “The Crucible” where players can fight against each other in several classic modes including team deathmatch and free-for-all variants.
However, Destiny’s story, unlike the rest of the game, is lacking extremely. Only given the idea that a giant orb known as “The Traveler” has been injured and taken refuge on Earth from its ancient enemy, there isn’t much else to it. The game mostly consists of players running around, completing missions, and attempting to reach the max level of 20 with their friends.
Destiny’s biggest problem is its identification. Bungie truly attempted to create something original and new with this game however, sometimes it seems as though they just took many ideas from different game genres and combined them into one final product. Taking the RPG elements of a game like World of Warcraft and the FPS styles of Halo may sound like a weird idea on paper, but when finally given a chance to experience this concept first hand it felt a little lazy after a few hours of repetitious missions and playthroughs, but it certainly was fun.
Which is exactly what Destiny is: just pure, simple fun. It delivers a strong gameplay system with extremely fun cooperative and multiplayer modes that can engross a player for hours on end. Destiny may not be groundbreaking, miraculous, or game changing. Destiny is Destiny, there is no other way to describe this interesting, fun game.
Verdict: 9/10
