The Cohhilition

Hey guys I am here making a post in which I will review Destiny with an honest and critical opinion.

I talked to Cohh about it a few times, warned him that I can be overly-critical on games since I'm pretty tough to satisfy, and he then encouraged me to do this write up.

So when the Beta happens I will play it for a few hours, come back here, and give my truthful first impressions.

I'm making this preliminary post to give you a guys an idea of how I rate/review games (I used to blog reviewing games a while back) and what I mean when I say something like "originality", "concept", "execution", when giving scores.

So here's my basic system:

Each game is scored on principles I think are core to all games:

1. Execution (Quality)
2. Game-Play (Anything you can physically do)
3. Originality
4. Flow (Story-telling)
5. Style (Art/Audio)
6. Atmosphere ("Feel" of the game and it's Universe it lives in)
7. Immersion (How connected I feel to the game)

If you have a keen eye you may notice that as the list goes down the principles I grade get more opinion based and less factual; or rather, it's ordered by ambiguity/tangibility. This is important because I like to do something a bit different and split games into two scores:

• "Raw Score" Technical aspects, the bare bones of the game. First three on the list.
• "Artistic Score" What I felt about the overall art direction and how it spoke to me and/or what the artists were attempting to represent (I try to be as open-minded as possible here).

I usually don't bother making an "Overall Score" as I find that to be really miss-leading. I find when judging things that are technical as well as artistic it's pretty bad practice to put those two together when they accomplish different things entirely and instead see them as two pieces of a whole.




Hopefully this is well explained enough for everyone to understand me (I have a tendency to be a little vague with what I say) and I hope you guys enjoy a review from a jaded gamer.

If you guys want I can briefly talk about some of the games I've played and what I thought of them to give you guys an idea, but other than that I'll come back here on the 17th when I've played a good amount of the game.

After around 4 hours worth of playing here's my first impression of "Destiny":

Execution:

We start off with a great note here (for a Beta at least). I was unable to find any bugs/glitches of any sort that were not attributable to networking issues.

The game is pretty well programmed and there's not much else to say about that.

When it came to the graphics there were some points where the shader wasn't exactly working correctly. Again this is Beta so I'll just list that as a technical issue that they are working on and so didn't really dock points for it.

One thing I liked the best, Inventory. They found what I think is the perfect system for consoles and possibly PC when it comes out. It was so easy to operate, perfect to equip/unequipped even in the heat of battle that it really doesn't require a pause feature to what's going on outside the menu. That's the best part, there is no pause button to this game and it is genius. Executed beautifully.

As far as quality is concerned, for a beta, this gets a flawless score. I haven't seen something pulled off this smoothly in many years.

Gameplay:

The gameplay was one of the things I was extremely worried was going to be to similar to Halo, Borderlands, or a mix of the two. I'm glad to say I felt like I played an entirely new game here. I was loving the way battles played out and especially the "Beefiness" behind the guns. Try a shotgun out, trust me when I say you'll suck at aiming the first time. The kick back in guns feel like they are really kicking back as Bungie utilized the rumble pack in the PS control EXTREMELY WELL!

The combat flows so incredibly that I felt like a kung-fu master mixed with a badass gunslinger that could barf magic on a whim. You really have complete control whether you win or loose in PvE even if the enemy is a severely higher level.

There is also the explore missions which I love, you go in and can go ANYWHERE. No joke, explore old Russia it's a blast and the further you go the more dangerous it gets. There are actually secret passages everywhere that lead to enemies with "???" where their level should be which is incredible. I couldn't even touch them, no one can yet, which leaves the player wanting more and something to truly stop us.

Stop us, that's another thing. If you think you're going to be the super-powered badass who can't be touched, you're dead wrong. Even with enemies a few levels lower than you if you happen to be a strategic idiot you'll die and very fast. There are areas in which if your whole team dies you restart at checkpoint and they couldn't be more perfectly placed.

Those death-walkers? They are called that for a reason. No more are the tanks in Halo that you could wipe with no guns/grenades. These things will take your ENTIRE arsenal to dispose. I got one down to a sliver of health and my whole team got wiped out after an intense half hour long battle. We had to start over and I had never been so excited to fight a boss before.

That's another thing, boss fights, events, ambushes. They are all very real and very epic and you will die a lot. Nuff' said.

Still nothing is more satisfying then charging in headfirst, using your special ability, wiping out a whole battalion and then punching in the face of the last dude standing in your way until your knuckles bleed alien blood. That is, if you didn't forget about that sniper who's about to take your head off. Yes they can do that and they are very good at it.

One big lesson in this game. Use cover, ambush/flank properly, revive if possible and location, location, location.

However I did experience a few things I didn't quite like and I hope change.

The aiming is not so responsive or to put it better is too responsive. That may sound confusing but the game tries to help you get head-shots by fixing your aim and auto following the target. It just does not work and ends up ruining my strategy.

I understand what they were trying to do here but I dock an entire point for this for one simple reason. Once you get into PvP this will seriously hinder your ability to adjust to random player movement that the system simply cannot compensate for.

The weapons are iffy on balance especially in multiplayer however that is slowly being worked on. I do think the special abilities could be toned down but that's just an opinion so no points there. Now I was level 5, and everyone in PvP was level 8 so most things one-shoted me. It left me to wonder though if there is any match-making for PvP. If not expect to grind to end-game before you can play PvP with any chance of doing anything useful.

I'm going to dock one point here simply because it is beta and I think they didn't have a good grasp on how PvP worked in their game, so lets hope it changes by launch. However making PvP end-game for me is a big no-no and should count for a lot more points, still lets give them a chance to remedy that.


Originality:

Alright so I was scared for this section the most. The game comes off very Halo-esque when I watched reviews or gameplay reels. However they seemed to completely avoid that. The gun names, abilities, combat, social hub, and even the inventory management are completely unique and incredibly well done.

I don't think the story could be any more original than it is. There's this ominous darkness come to suck everything dry that follows the traveler where-ever it goes. You're in the midst of a 5 or perhaps 6 way war where all enemies hate each-other and you equally. The last hub of civilization truly feels like the last bastion of hope and is a great place to converse with other players, meet up, make friends, and go out to blow everything up.

Not just that but the way the story is told is truly unique. The Ghost that you own is a great narrator for events and gives you historical run through when it is appropriate. He also shuts the hell up when it is appropriate which is something Dragon's Dogma pawn system could have used.

As far as naming weapons, armor, abilities go it is very original and the way the system is setup is a totally unique RPG experience. You are kinda sort set on this linear skill tree but still there are significant ways to customize your experience especially through the armor/weapon load-out you choose which honestly is how it should be.

Though a less linear tree wouldn't hurt and this still feels too much like Borderlands for me to accept as "OK", I dock a point here since it's not major but still takes a bit away from the game.

The only other thing I didn't quite like was that they seemed to mostly stick to modern weapon styles. It's supposed to be 700 years in the future, I was really hoping for a laser gun of some sort. This I'll only take half a point since it's not game breaking by any means but really should have been in there and I'm hoping it will be by launch.

Good job Bungie for listening to RPG fans and not letting our characters rely solely on skill trees and or weapon stats. It really does matter what you use and how you use it.

So is this a review? Or a first impressions. There's quite a big difference between the two and it's very tough in a game like Destiny to get a good taste of things in only a few hours.

Kiratze wrote:So is this a review? Or a first impressions. There's quite a big difference between the two and it's very tough in a game like Destiny to get a good taste of things in only a few hours.

I guess I can see how that was a bit badly explained.

If you really want to be technical it will be a first impression, but honestly I'd argue you can get a feel for a game and what it will be after a few hours of play. 3-4 hours (for a game this size) to me is more than enough to judge if the game is worth it at all which is really what this is all about. So I guess I'll rename the thread, thanks.

If you're looking for in-depth reviews about "End-game" I never really bother with that because if a game is good there shouldn't be a need to play all the way through it to get to the good content, it should be ready and available from the first play and slowly added onto as the game goes.

Nothing wrong with the way you do it! Just gotta make sure people know it's more an initial subjective review rather than a fully fleshed out objective one. Some people enjoy hearing about end game and some might just want to know if it's easy to get into! You seem well versed in the latter which is perfectly fine . Looking forward to the first look!

Kiratze wrote:Nothing wrong with the way you do it! Just gotta make sure people know it's more an initial subjective review rather than a fully fleshed out objective one. Some people enjoy hearing about end game and some might just want to know if it's easy to get into! You seem well versed in the latter which is perfectly fine . Looking forward to the first look!

Thanks man I'll be sure to be as un-biased as possible. You're also right that I'm mostly versed in first impressions, most game today aren't good enough for me to go 100% or even 80% through.

I'll check back the 17th and reply to everyone after I've updated just so this doesn't clutter. Thanks!

Will be updating Sunday the 20th. The Bungie servers are so horribly prepared that I cannot even play. Sorry for the delay.

Now for the artistic side of things. This part took a little more time of me spending time inside of Destiny simply b/c all the missions right now are for Earth only and the only other venues for other places are in PvP and the social tower hub.

Flow:
The "Flow" of this game, or rather story-telling, is done in a unique way which leaves a lot of room for mistakes. They introduce you to most of the story elements and events through the Ghost that you travel with so he acts more like a narrator of everything while you are right there with him. At first I was a bit worried it would become annoying to have someone explain everything as you see it in missions but honestly they found a way to pull it off that doesn't suck you out of the action.

It's very easy to relate what he is saying to what you are doing at that moment and it wasn't difficult to keep going through enemies while he was explaining something about the world. They do their best to keep the two from over-lapping, which is good, but even when he is talking while I am fighting I don't find myself missing out on what he is saying or making mistakes while fighting.

They obviously introduce and use other characters for parts of the story where it is necessary; however, it may just be because it's beta that there aren't many cut-scenes of characters introducing the story or much of any interaction with them. For now it's fine and I don't see a problem with it even if they keep cut-scenes to a minimum.

Style:

First things first, the art of the game. Being it's the first thing you experience and understand about the game it is essential it makes sense within the universe and also looks cool while doing that.

I have to say the weird mix of fantasy "knighthood" midevil type theme mixed with mech/robot warrior and a post-apocalyptic future Earth sounded like a bit too much was going to be happening for it to all work together. There are some places that have too much going on but it's few and far inbetween and for the most part the style really works to my surprise.

The environments are beautiful to say the least. At every turn there is a sense of a grander land out there you have yet to explore but almost magically it's never a distraction. I constantly felt as if I were in that world and the background art was just an extension of the area I was currently in, not some nice art that is there so I don't see the end of the level.

The armor, weapons, vehicles do have a "Halo" feel to them and don't vary too much in style. Here I do dock two points because honestly they should have tried a bit harder to make this part look more unique. Don't get me wrong everything looks badass but it's a badass we've already seen before... in around 6 different games. There really aren't any weapons that speak "future" to me, they all feel like modern counterparts of today which is ok as long as you have those other futuristic type weapons for the player to use. Maybe that's just Beta but being it's so close to launch they should've squeezed in a few, or at least one.

Atmosphere:

Here is where Destiny truly shines and for a Beta this is an amazing feat. I always thought the social hub area was going to break the immersion with players spamming emotes and in general acting like idiots ruining the fun for some. That's not what happened. In fact, this game manages to suck people in so well into its universe that no one wants to feel like they are anywhere but in Destiny.

The world truly feels like it is on the brink everything looks absolutely trashed on Earth and even the social hub as a great venue that gives you an idea of what the last city on Earth would feel/look like.

The universe this game lives in is great and I can see many great stories being told within it.

Immersion:

Even when people were using the mic (you can only here those in your party, and yes I partied with random people to get a general feel for other players) there wasn't any immersion breaking attitude. Not with anyone at all which speaks volumes for how well this game will keep you hooked on playing a character that lives in the world.

You feel like odds are against you at all turns because not only do enemies out-number and out-gun you, many times they out-class you in abilities and strength. You feel many times there is no chance for you to get out of this one without dying numerous times and it's great. It all adds to the feeling of how hopeless the human race is to survive without you there.

The way the game immerses you in not just battles and the story but how you equip your character, what skills you prefer to use, what armor you like the look of and so on is great.

However there aren't very many options as of yet so I couldn't fully test out this part of the game. They have said by launch that most of the customization will be available (that they are planning for the game in it's life time) so I will have to come back then to give this a real score. For now it wont factor in the total Artistic Score.

If I had to give it a score for now it would be around 7.0/10. The immersion is great when it comes to fights, places, characters but the customization is seriously lacking which is not good for an RPG.