SCORE:
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 7
Final score: 8
Pros: Exceptional graphic quality / Coop open world multiplayer.
Cons: Poor Story / Too many repeating quest and scenarios.
Big productions always disrupt the media industry. Destiny can boast about being the most expensive videogame in history as its development has a cost around 360 million Euros, which makes it the most expensive cultural product too, ahead of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean or Avatar, something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Bungie and Activision, makers and distributors of Destiny respectively, have already recovered their investment and announced a 10 year sustained development with regular updates and content additions.
Destiny is a grandiose game regarding its concept, story and visual aspect and thus we have taken time enough to test it thoroughly as a big work like this deserves.
What we found in Destiny is a first person shooter with a close resemblance to MMORPGs, which means you will need an internet connection to play it as it is set in an open and shared world. During the game you can meet other players who can join you for different missions in a similar way to how Defiance worked, although graphical quality makes a huge and fundamental difference.
The story takes us to a universe in which humanity has evolved due to the planetary changes made by a city-sized sphere that hangs over the Earth, known as The Traveler. This evolution allowed humanity to reach the farthest reaches of the galaxy. The galactic expansion happened long ago and now there’s a darkness moving forward through the planets that threatens the destiny of the different races.
The character creator is simple enough and doesn’t provide a lot of different aesthetic options. There are three different species to choose from -Humans, Exos and Awoken as well as three different classes -Titan (close combat expert), Hunter (long range fighter) and Warlock (magic user)-. These classes differ from each other in the special skills you get to use whenever you hit your enemies a number of times but also in the different abilities you unlock as you level up. At level 15 every character gets the chance to unlock a different specialization subclass which grants some advantages but has to be trained from scratch so it’s something for those who want to get the best out of the game. Your gear can also be improved throughout the game and while each piece has its attributes these are quite simplified compared to other games. Nevertheless, the three different classes share mechanics and since it’s a first person shooter game, they are all similar to each other.
Graphic-wise, this title is a cutting-edge product although it’s not a shocking Next-Gen change since it had a shared development for old and new consoles and games in this situation tend to make gradual improvements. Despite this, the most remarkable thing about Destiny is probably its awesome graphical quality. Worlds have been shaped to be spectacular as well as to make the player feel the emptiness of desolate or sparsely colonized lands. During the game we will visit the remains of the old battered planet Earth -in particular, a part of the Old Russia-, the Moon, Venus or Mars; all of them with an outstanding texture and shadow quality and a slight resemblance to some of the Mass Effect scenarios.
The gameplay is not very different from other shooter genre games and makes apparent that Bungie had a big success with Halo. The only addition to the classical mechanics of aiming and shooting is a double jump glide that adds some degree of vertical dimension to combat and allows for easier exploration. There is also a hover-bike but it’s only meant for faster travelling as it doesn’t have any combat capabilities. Most of the scenery is indestructible except for some energy cubes that explode when they get shot.
The campaign is one of the weakest points of the game. The story is not that good and not really immersive and there’s repeated missions in every place you visit. Maps seem to be huge but when you explore them thoroughly there are not many different zones.
There’s also a different game mode which is closer to a sandbox game. In this mode there are different tasks that appear in the different worlds but they are not really interesting enough. The multiplayer part of the game somehow improves this as you can complete tasks, missions or public events with a fixed group of up to 3 players or join up with other people you find around, but here comes another problem: due to its outstanding graphical quality and the size of the world you play in, there are not many players sharing each instance. This will make people used to other MMO games feel like they were playing on a European server at 4am. There’s more fun to be had in assaults which are instanced adventures for three players that have a simple story but put you up against huge final bosses which require good cooperation to be beat.
There’s also an orbital city, called the Tower, which serves as a social hub. But since interaction with other players is limited to a few emotes you just visit this place to get missions, buy from a store, use the bank or get some reward from time to time.
The player versus player in Destiny takes us to the Crucible, there we can find several 6 vs. 6 arenas with the typical deathmatch, team deatchmatch, capture the flag and control point modes. Some of these modes include vehicles, but their use is still limited.
Music is another strong point in Destiny as it includes a number of extraordinary and motivating tracks, there’s even an exclusive track composed by Paul McCartney. Sound effects are not so good, but they are decent enough.
Besides the different factions you can join when you reach level 20 and you can fight for in the Crucible, Bungie has recently announced and released the first of the Raids to keep the game alive and updated. The only released one is said to take around 10 hours to complete but it requires you to play it with a group of people that must be the same every time you play it.
CONCLUSION
Destiny is an open-world FPS which gives one of the most satisfying and entertaining experiences of this genre. Its outstanding visual prowess creates an amazing atmosphere that will probably please even the most reluctant players. Its music enhances this atmosphere a great deal, but the weak story and the repeating missions and scenarios give the game a lower rating. Destiny would also benefit from having more players around you and better ways to interact with them although this could be due to the things it shares with MMORPGs which makes us compare it with those.
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