Destiny is Disappointing

No, not the woven threads of fate, but the game by Bungie.

How can it be disappointing? This was the most hyped-up game in the known universe, everybody and their dog was lined up waiting for the release, it almost reached iPhone 6 pre-release fervor!

Plus, it was made by Bungie, creators of one of the best games of all times, a game whose innovations defined first-person shooters for decades. How is it possible for it to be disappointing? Why, why?

Why it’s disappointing

The simple answer is that Halo is better. Yes, that’s right, Halo, the first one, the original, a game released on an inferior console by 2 generations 13 years ago! That game is much better than this brand-spanking new, next-gen console release.

Destiny promised innovations and lasting appeal, Bungie is even on record saying that Destiny is a game that you will play for 10 years. Well, after not even 10 days I’m ready to put it down like a rabid dog, it holds very little appeal for me. Yes, yes, I know, I’m old and I don’t like Multiplayer, I’ve said it many times before, but I’m not alone in that sense (the not liking Multiplayer bit) a lot of people I know still buy games for the single-player campaign, and if your game doesn’t have a compelling single-player campaign, then guess what, it’s a multiplayer game, might as well just call it an MMO, be truthful, damn it, so we don’t have to spend good money because we’ve been mislead.

Good News

That’s the good news: if you like Multiplayer, you’ll love Destiny.

If you have a couple of friends to play the so-called the single-player campaign with, then you might also enjoy Destiny. Just make sure you play with them all the time, going it alone is boring, repetitive and grinding.

Repetitive

If there is one adjective to describe Destiny it would be repetitive. I’ve run missions on Earth, the Moon and Venus and they are ALL the same: Run to some location, shoot some aliens, deploy your ghost so it scans for who-knows-what and protect the useless little fuck while it takes its sweet time and hordes and hordes of aliens come at you.

That’s it. That is the sole extent of every single mission I’ve played so far. The only variant I’ve seen to all this is exactly the same template as above but you have to kill some big bad dude who comes out at the end.

Oh, and as a big thank-you for playing 10 repetitive missions in a row you get to do the exact same thing as above but this time with a sword, whoopee.

Halo

Take any mission in the original Halo, any mission at all and it shows way more creativity and attention to level design than anything I’ve seen in Destiny so far.

Apart from Halo’s myriad innovations, the best thing about it was its level design. I can still remember, 13 years later, The Silent Cartographer level. It was awesome (in the literary sense of the word, not the overused street sense). I remember you had to go into some kind of tomb and there were 2 huge, terribly difficult beasties guarding the entrance. It wasn’t simply a matter of gunning them down with your whole arsenal (as in Destiny) but you had to figure out how to defeat said beasties. It turned out they had a vulnerable spot in their backs, but it was a very small spot, hitting it was very, very difficult and the things had huge weapons that would decimate your shield with one hit. You had to use strategy, hide, come at them from another angle, shoot them, then run away screaming like a little girl pissing your pants, hoping they didn’t nail you from behind. It was definitely a good time. And if you played it with a friend in split-screen then it was an epic time.

This was just one level in a series of wonderful levels.

I fondly remember sneaking up to the little alien dudes who were dozing off while on duty, sitting with their backs against a pillar and clocking them over the head with my gun, some would wake up and run off screaming, it was great. But my fondest Halo memory has to be the Sticky Grenade, which is a grenade that, as its name implies, sticks to stuff. Sticking it to one of the little dudes would make them run away towards their friends screaming and flailing their arms, not ony was it hilarious but it also had the added benefit of exploding amongst a group thus decimating even more enemis for free.

Destiny has no such thing. Nothing even remotely similar, there is no comedic or creative element whatsoever. My Guardian is at level 12 already and I have yet to encounter an enemy that won’t go down with a hail of fire. I mean, I’ve seen enemies that your weapons don’t affect, OK, that’s interesting, but no enemy where you have to come up with a different strategy to defeat it other than emptying your weapon’s clip on it, or any enemy that displays any intelligence or behvaiour at all other than sidestepping your bullets. It’s beyond disappointing, it’s sad and depressing.

Innovation

Let me save you some reading: there is none. Destiny is Halo, it’s so similar it’s eerie. It’s like Bungie had one good idea ever and that’s it. The aliens are very similar, the weapons are similar, hell, even the story is very similar. It differs from Halo in that your character levels up and so do some weapons. Oh and they stole the life bars over enemies and the damage display from RPGs.

Other than that, no innovation whatsoever.

Connectivity issues

The worst part about Destiny? I get kicked out a lot. Often in the middle of a mission and it does not save your progress, you have to start the whole mission all over again. I’m playing the single-player campaign fuckers! There is absolutely no need to kick me out, I’m by myself, not even part of a fire team so if there are connectivity issues, just make the other players disappear, what do I care? I’m not playing with them. The system should be able to detect this and not kick you out, I mean it’s stupid, you’re playing the game locally, the only reason it would need to be connected is to show you what the other assholes (the ones who refuse to join my Fireteam, thus leaving me all alone) are doing. And I don’t care what they’re doing, I hope they get killed, eaten by a giant Phorgamoth and shat out as cosmic pooh (bastards won’t joint my Fireteam then they deserve that and worse). Bastards.

The Best Part

The best part about Destiny? Dancing. Dancing is awesome (not in the literary sense of the word, but in the overused street sense). What could be better than killing a bunch of aliens and then dancing over their corpses with another player who, though not part of your Fireteam, will dance with you for a while before leaving you all alone again? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing. Dancing is awesome. Even more awesome, each race has different dance moves. Awesome!

Conclusion

So, get Destiny if you love Multiplayer and dancing. For my part, I’m already bored with it, don’t know how much longer I’ll be playing it. I actually had more fun playing Watchdogs and that is a shit game.