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What the heck's a Destiny?
By Vince IngenitoWe're all done with our second day of the Destiny review-in-progress livestream and I'm still having a good time putting holes in fools. But a question keeps coming up in my brain that doesn't really have a perfect answer: does Destiny have an identity problem? It's easy to say "it's like X mixed with Y" but no matter what values you plug into the equation, what you get doesn't add up. So I sat down with my IGN wingmates, Dan Stapleton, John Ryan, and Naomi Kyle to discuss.
We started off by looking at the many genre's and gaming experiences that Destiny pulls from. One of these is the sci-fi shooter, specifically, the Halo series. But even among Halo fans, you see different people coming to it for different things. Does the person who plays Halo, or any other shooter strictly for the story campaign get what they need out of Destiny?
John Ryan likes the feel of the world, (and my is it a pretty world) but isn't sure if Destiny's interesting lore is going to pull together tightly into a well-told story. Dan and I both feel pretty strongly that the answer is a simple "no" though. While the gameplay fundamentals are undoubtedly there, and the level designs are excellent, the actual missions that comprise the main story are little more than "go from point A to point B and shoot." There's barely any dialogue, practically no scripted events to effectively tell a story. Exposition dumps from Mecha-Dinklage are pretty much all you get.
That said, from the perspective of an MMO player, there's as much or more story here than you've likely come to expect. Go play World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, and you'll get little more than an NPC standing in front of you with some dialogue bubble dangling from their mouths. Compared to that, Destiny is a narrative tour de force, but once you start comparing it to an MMO, a different can of worms opens up.
In just a couple of days of solid play, I'm half-way to level 20, where endgame content supposedly begins. That's not the long-haul of eventual power-growth MMO players look for. The levels are huge by single-player shooter standards, but compared to an MMO landscape, they feel limited in scope. And of course, where in any other MMO you'd be able to shout across an entire zone to communicate with people, you can't so much as talk or write a message to the strangers you see coming and going unless you join their party. No MMO player would ever accept that.
Of course, Destiny isn't an MMO. Its structure just feels similar enough to make the comparison, but once you make it, a lot doesn't add up. You run into the same issue no matter which angle you choose to ponder Destiny from. Take any individual element and ask "does a player who's looking for X find it here?" The answer in most cases is "kind of." There's no denying that Destiny brings you to gorgeous worlds, and feeds you an endless buffet of exciting firefights. But the structure of that experience is so nebulous, so in-between the established ideas of what its various influences are supposed to deliver, that it becomes hard to imagine the person that Destiny is "perfect" for.
And for as negative as that sounds, I'm still having a great time with it. I like all the things Destiny draws from, and though it doesn't do any of them (save the combat) as well as games that focus strictly on them, it does them all well enough for me to get what I personally want out of it. However, something tells me that Destiny is going to be one of the most divisive games in recent memory. People just can't help but bring heaps of expectations to games like this. In some cases those expectations will be easily met, but in others, Destiny will struggle to measure up.
Be sure to tune in to our livestream again tomorrow morning at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT as I keep the Destiny review-in-progress rolling, and feel free to leave any feedback or impressions in the comments below. See you tomorrow!
Vincent Ingenito is IGN's foremost fighting game nerd.*Follow him on Twitter*and argue with everything he says about them.
Cheats & Secrets Destiny
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What the heck's a Destiny?
By Vince IngenitoWe're all done with our second day of the Destiny review-in-progress livestream and I'm still having a good time putting holes in fools. But a question keeps coming up in my brain that doesn't really have a perfect answer: does Destiny have an identity problem? It's easy to say "it's like X mixed with Y" but no matter what values you plug into the equation, what you get doesn't add up. So I sat down with my IGN wingmates, Dan Stapleton, John Ryan, and Naomi Kyle to discuss.
We started off by looking at the many genre's and gaming experiences that Destiny pulls from. One of these is the sci-fi shooter, specifically, the Halo series. But even among Halo fans, you see different people coming to it for different things. Does the person who plays Halo, or any other shooter strictly for the story campaign get what they need out of Destiny?
John Ryan likes the feel of the world, (and my is it a pretty world) but isn't sure if Destiny's interesting lore is going to pull together tightly into a well-told story. Dan and I both feel pretty strongly that the answer is a simple "no" though. While the gameplay fundamentals are undoubtedly there, and the level designs are excellent, the actual missions that comprise the main story are little more than "go from point A to point B and shoot." There's barely any dialogue, practically no scripted events to effectively tell a story. Exposition dumps from Mecha-Dinklage are pretty much all you get.
That said, from the perspective of an MMO player, there's as much or more story here than you've likely come to expect. Go play World of Warcraft or Guild Wars, and you'll get little more than an NPC standing in front of you with some dialogue bubble dangling from their mouths. Compared to that, Destiny is a narrative tour de force, but once you start comparing it to an MMO, a different can of worms opens up.
In just a couple of days of solid play, I'm half-way to level 20, where endgame content supposedly begins. That's not the long-haul of eventual power-growth MMO players look for. The levels are huge by single-player shooter standards, but compared to an MMO landscape, they feel limited in scope. And of course, where in any other MMO you'd be able to shout across an entire zone to communicate with people, you can't so much as talk or write a message to the strangers you see coming and going unless you join their party. No MMO player would ever accept that.
Of course, Destiny isn't an MMO. Its structure just feels similar enough to make the comparison, but once you make it, a lot doesn't add up. You run into the same issue no matter which angle you choose to ponder Destiny from. Take any individual element and ask "does a player who's looking for X find it here?" The answer in most cases is "kind of." There's no denying that Destiny brings you to gorgeous worlds, and feeds you an endless buffet of exciting firefights. But the structure of that experience is so nebulous, so in-between the established ideas of what its various influences are supposed to deliver, that it becomes hard to imagine the person that Destiny is "perfect" for.
And for as negative as that sounds, I'm still having a great time with it. I like all the things Destiny draws from, and though it doesn't do any of them (save the combat) as well as games that focus strictly on them, it does them all well enough for me to get what I personally want out of it. However, something tells me that Destiny is going to be one of the most divisive games in recent memory. People just can't help but bring heaps of expectations to games like this. In some cases those expectations will be easily met, but in others, Destiny will struggle to measure up.
Be sure to tune in to our livestream again tomorrow morning at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT as I keep the Destiny review-in-progress rolling, and feel free to leave any feedback or impressions in the comments below. See you tomorrow!
Vincent Ingenito is IGN's foremost fighting game nerd.*Follow him on Twitter*and argue with everything he says about them.
Cheats & Secrets Destiny Destiny Characters IGN Destiny Walkthrough Tips and Tricks Destiny Dead Ghost Locations Gold Loot Chests Destiny Locations
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