I took a lot of time with reviewing Destiny. For over a week, I still felt like I didn’t know how to properly talk about it. Despite how I have so many negative things to say about Destiny, I also have many positives that seem to weigh equally. Destiny is not a perfect game, and it is far from a revolution in gaming. If anything, Destiny is the new high class of average games. It is truly, one of the most enjoyable yet underwhelming games of the year. It makes strides in avoiding creativity and furthering itself into a cookie cutter form that almost makes me beg the question for why I am even talking about it here on a site called Artistry in Games. It feels almost like a joke by a snide hipster trying to talk about how the AAA industry has nothing new to add.

Yet, somehow, in spite of doing everything it can to turn away from being the great experience we were promised, Destiny somehow still thrives and remains the game I’m loading the most on my Playstation 3 right now. Against all odds, and a number of amateurish failings, Bungie has managed to produce a game worth playing, even if only -just- making it worthwhile.

Let’s start with the game’s story; it is an impressive mountain of cliches. In the world of Destiny, you are a Guardian (Jedi/Spectre/Spartan), who must protect The Traveler (Jedi Temple/Citadel/Earth), from the forces of The Darkness (Sith/Reapers/Covenant/Mike Patton). If you think this is an understated description of Destiny’s premise, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Even games like Call of Duty have put more effort into their plots than this.

The game is so enamored with selling you itself that it forgets that it actually has to back up those promises. The actors are bored, the cutscenes are completely uneventful lulls in the action, and there simply is no story arc. You become a Guardian… then fight some aliens… and fight in the Crucible… and that’s all there is. There is no resolution, there’s not even an explanation for half of what’s going on around you. Even the pathetic excuse for a final boss fight seems so haphazardly tossed in that I had flashbacks to Mass Effect 2‘s Human Reaper fight. The game tries to act as if a major accomplishment was made when you reach that final cutscene, but then immediately goes back to talking about how “the end is the beginning” and selling you on “what’s to come”.

I understand this is an MMO. I understand, that there will be expansion packs and further content down the line for this game. That is not an excuse for leaving the initial offering so threadbare. There are blatantly promising plot threads that never get picked up, from the Warmind AI Rasputin to the mysterious fate of the planet Mercury and the time traveling robot race the Vex, and Bungie just leaves compelling ideas spiraling in the air. The game doesn’t even have an internal codex you can refer to, instead limiting all lore reading and knowledge to a website outside of the game, which you can only progressively unlock by killing enemies repeatedly. It’s almost as if they’re holding the story hostage, afraid that we might not like it. The result is a completely bland narrative that stutters out before you’ve reached the Moon levels. Peter Dinklage does his best as your robot companion Ghost, but not even a Lannister can twist the story into something with any sense of wit.

There’s not even much in the way of sidequests to flesh out the world. Favoring to instead diversify the types of raids and missions you can take, Bungie has left all non-hostile NPCs as storefronts. Everyone, even people like the Speaker for the Traveller. That’s like making Ghandi a gift shop vender — you just don’t do that! It destroys any sense of immersion in a game already stressing your patience with a badly executed narrative. This is a basic dissonance, something Bungie shouldn’t be having this hard a time grappling with. It’s nigh-impossible to get invested in a world that comes across like a highly decorated Wal-Mart with a franchise of laser tag arenas next door.

The world of Destiny looks like it could be full of fun lore, and you can tell there’s plenty of storytelling opportunities, but they simply are not being properly utilized yet. There’s no reason to assume the story will get better soon either, especially with unreleased content apparently having been featured in previous trailers, showing clearly that the story was built in piece meal rather than as a cohesive whole. It might take years into the game’s lifespan before it truly brings us a plot worth caring about, and by then many players will have moved on. MMO or not, first impressions matter. Without a connection to tie the player to the world, they have that much less investment and that much less feeling of agency in the game. You’re not the hero here, you’re barely Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Now, that all said, not everything is so gloomy when you get at the heart of the gameplay. At its core, Destiny really is Halo set to the scale and grinding focus of Borderlands. The melees are hard hitting; the levels are expansive if a bit bare of anything besides enemies; the guns range from fantastic to feeling like discount Hasbro toys; and you’re going to do a lot of jumping and vehicle sections over the course of your journey. The difference is that with grinding tossed into the mix, you see a change in tone to the combat. Levels seem to have less of an impact than in most games — mobs of level 15 enemies can still challenge a level 20 player if they’re not on the ball — but then you hit the higher level content. To date, the game’s first raid took over ten hours to beat, by an entire guild using voice chat and being highly coordinated. The difficulty curve for end game content just either is this monolith of challenge or is just as pedestrian as most of the game’s missions. Only a few cooperative Strike missions test you fairly, and even then they resort to bosses with giant health bars at the end.

Enemies across various plants are mainly isolated, so the difference in levels and health bars at least fits the new sense of challenge. You still encounter recolored, harder to kill variants of regular enemies here and there, but thankfully this is kept to a minimum in most places. While you learn very little about your enemies, and they feature equally cliche names as the rest of the universe, they are really a prime example of what Destiny does right. They feel distinctive when you’re fighting them. I know the difference between fighting in the darken caverns against zombie-like The Hive and dodging teleporting giants in a jungle while battling the robotic Vex, and that’s what keeps the world feeling fresh.

It’s this counter-intuitive method of personality conveyed purely through gameplay that helps Destiny break its monotony. This saving grace applies not only to your foes, but the vast majority of your weapons, missions, and alternate modes of play like the cooperative Strikes and competitive Crucible mode. The Crucible in particular remains a highlight just like in the game’s beta, hindered only by a few spectacularly bad maps mixed in with some of the best Bungie’s ever designed. Shooting and gliding around Venus, pounding opponents with your first on Mercury, and dueling high above a cliffside on Earth are just mere tidbits of the player versus player battles. While the current mode count is limited (and some modes are only available at certain times of the week/month for some reason), the variety of playstyles should keep combat fresh for months to come. The only major concern I have is with the Bladedancer subclass for the Hunter, which currently is majorly overpowered in player versus player battles. Every other class and ability always seems to have a counter move. Scout rifle beats shotgun. Titan ground pound beats overwhelming odds. Warlock vortex grenade beats campers. It all just fits together so well in the on foot sections that it makes the vehicle combat feel all the more jarring.

There are only three classes of vehicles, those being the Sparrow, Pike, and Interceptor. The Pike is just a Sparrow with guns and added speed to what is basically an anti-gravity motorcycle. The Interceptor is what could best be described as the most lame yet exploitable tank in all of existence. It feels like Bungie were trying to reinvent the Scorpion Tank from Halo, and instead ended up ruining it. The alternating side cannons, the awkward boosting, and a completely exposed canopy just make it feel pointless and awkward. Only a few people do well at using the tank, and they usually do so by picking off random players who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The maps made for vehicles feel awkward as well, especially the “First Light, Moon” map that returns from the beta, and the best moments in the combat never really involve vehicles. There’s an entire game mode devoted to a Battlefield-style vehicle/infantry control point mode, but I couldn’t tell you why it exists. Destiny works fine without vehicles, so thankfully at least the majority of the core modes don’t require you use vehicles. Other than that, all I can really say is, it’s good. Really, the Crucible is just good. You could just sell it separately, for say… $20, and I think it would do well. All the right pieces are in there, you can actually grind through factions -much- faster by playing Crucible, and it’s got the right kind of gameplay for lots of dynamic moments to happen. So if you’re like me and weren’t entirely happy about your purchase, at least rest assured that you can get some time out of the Crucible.

This is not to undersell Bungie’s brilliant choice to make a Strike Playlist co-op mode. Instead of having to manually select ever Strike you want to go on, and selecting the difficulty you prefer, you can just start playing it. You get a randomly selected one each time round, and you can choose from Level 18, 20, 22, 24, and for Raids, 28. Alternatively, you can take on buffed up daily Heroic Difficulty missions if you prefer solo missions but still want to be hands off about the selection process. It’s all a very solid package, and like Crucible it actually makes the game feel a lot more enjoyable than in the free roaming sections. While this makes one grimmace and imagine what Destiny would have been like as a more traditional AAA shooter, just with these modes added onto a solid single-player campaign, but at least they exist to begin with. If they didn’t exist, there would be pretty much no reason to pick up Destiny.

In truth though, Destiny really is a Call of Duty game for someone like me. By that I do not mean it is a grungy, tired old military shooter. No, by that I mean that it is an entirely baseline experience to my tastes as a gamer. This is the absolute minimum of at least most elements I’ve enjoyed across many shooters and RPGs, distilled into a completely average experience with high production values. It isn’t so much a Transformers movie as it is Pacific Rim. There are plenty of people who enjoy Pacific Rim, but that does not mean it is in any way smart or deep. It is perfectly fine for Destiny to be a dumb, fun game in of itself. However, Bungie’s going to be living down the disappointment from what they promised us for a long time now, even if the game is successful. Anyone interested in story and free roaming is gonna need a lot more convincing to put more money down, and they are already receiving a lot of ribbing for the game’s often frustratingly barren loot drop system (to date, I have received -two- Legendary items, one of which wasn’t even for my class. This is a rare occurrence for most people who have played -longer- than me). They’re trying to fix this with post-launch events, but it just feels like their putting a bandage on a huge gash wound.

There are a ton of smaller things I could also say that are wrong with the game, but also a ton I could say that are right. The upgrade system is way too linear but also makes investing in every boost to your gear feel worthwhile. The lack of crafting systems makes you wonder why they even bothered with planet-specific resources. The factions have no point but offer some great gear and role playing opportunities for players. The lack of proximity chat is awful but the emoticons just are so good at conveying the basic “hello” and “h*** yes!” in the moments they need to. Not only because its an MMO but because of just how complicated it’s state of being is, we’re not going to have a real final say on Destiny for easily a year or so. After the patches roll out and we finally see all this supposed planned regular content that Bungie will be rolling out, then we’ll know if Destiny could ever pay off on what it advertised. Until then, what you’re going to get is a perfectly acceptable, but in no way spectacular first person shooter. It’s really disappointing to say this but you really don’t need to look into Destiny if you haven’t already. Better luck next time, Bungie.

Addiction Warning: This game is built like traditional MMOs such as World of Warcraft. These games are custom made to work like Skinner Boxes, and are designed to suck your time away from you. If you have ever had an addiction issue to gaming, you should watch yourself carefully around this game, as I even noticed I would start playing even when I had no interest to. It’s a fun game, but it’s got a n**** underbelly that most traditional shooter fans may not be prepared for. At least limit your play time to three hour stretches, and only that long on the weekends.

PSA: If you are planning on playing it though, and you’re on the Sony platforms of PS3 or PS4 — BRING A MICROPHONE! It’s an MMO. It will cost you ten dollars at most to get a USB headset, PS4’s even come with a headset built in, so you have no excuse, PSN community. Just dancing in reply is not enough. The multiplayer scape is not full of annoying twelve year olds. This isn’t a Call of Duty match on Xbox Live. In fact, most of those I’ve met who do communicate are quite friendly and cordial.

Summary

Despite failing to meet its promises, Destiny does well as a shooter. It nearly falls into the category of mediocre, but climbs back out of that pit with enough solid gameplay to keep you playing for hours. The grinding is excessive to the point of rivaling Borderlands and the combat is more or less Halo 2 with RPG elements. An abysmal story and cliche universe don’t hold back a fantastic visual palette. While it certainly was made to appeal to everyone, Destiny isn’t necessary for anyone. Destiny is really just there for if you want some fun.

Moment of Artistry

When a  boss character explodes as Martin O’Donnell’s score swells in the background. It’s definitely a Bungie moment if nothing else.

Pros

+Crucible PvP mode is fantastic

+Cooperative Strike playlist is likewise fantastic

+The Soundtrack. Listen to it. Yeah, it’s -that- good.

+Distinctive visual styles for every race and world give some life to an otherwise static universe

+Looks and plays fantastic on current gen and last gen

Cons

–  Fractal amounts of grinding

– No proximity chat. You do realize it’s 2014, right?

– Bladedancer needs balancing

– Bad load times even on next-gen

– One of the worst told stories this and last generation

– Cliches upon cliches, upon hackneyed plot devices

6.5/10

Destiny was developed by Bungie and published by Activison. It is available on, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.

This was a review was conducted with a consumer copy of the digital PS3 version acquired by the reviewer.