[rwp-review id=”0″]
Pardon me for a moment as I start my Destiny review by talking about another game. Bear with me, it’s relevant.
Halo. Halo is my favorite video game, of all time. It’s right up there with Curse of Monkey Island. I’ve logged in countless hours playing both the multiplayer and the campaigns; a Halo poster adorns my living room wall (to the annoyance of my wife); and while I don’t read much, I’ve read all the Halo lore.
Why do I love Halo? Well, the gameplay of the franchise is actually not that great. Cortana/Important-General/Admiral will tell you to reach an objective. You’ll walk through a maze, reach a choke point, shoot it up, walk some more, reach a second choke point, more shooting, little more walking, final choke point, get Cortana’s input on a device, and fight off 3-4 waves of enemies with a big baddie/minor boss in the final stage. Ta-da. Next level. Rinse and repeat for the entire franchise.
Even speaking aesthetically, while Halo is cool, there are larger, better gameworlds that have seen the light of day and easily overshadow the universe created in Halo. Where then, you ask, is the lure that has snagged all of us Halo fanboys?
The simple truth is that the rush comes from Halo’s narrative. While the gameplay is just slightly above average (decent enemy AI, easily figured out, good variations in guns, ammo and health etc.), it is the narrative of the story that draws you in. The franchise’s story is so intoxicating, it ensured that gamers like me spent hours playing and replaying, reading books and wikis, and watching animations and live-action video content.
The universe that Bungie created with Halo made me fall into a love so strong with the game, that it continued even after 2007, when Bungie moved on and Microsoft retained the IP rights. So when I started hearing whispers of Bungie’s next big project and how they were going to mesh the first-person shooter platform into the MMO world, I wondered if I would have a second amazing love in my life, and began the long wait.
9.9.2014.
Enter Destiny. This is it. This is the next narrative from the same team that brought us Master Chief and the Halo universe. Coming a good 14 years after the then untested Bungie team first released Halo, this game had to be awesome. Color me desperate, I wanted in so hard. When the beta was offered to work out the kinks, I signed up and played as much as I could. Though it was obviously incomplete and there wasn’t much story to experience, I could see the ‘bones’ of an amazing game world. It had great promise. And I couldn’t friggin’ wait.
And that’s why Destiny is just so bad. There. I said it. Destiny disappointed me. Having played and loved Halo, and having heard and read all the hype in the run up to its launch, I was ready to fall in love again. But I didn’t. Because that story, plot and soul the beta lacked never showed up in the final mode.
Destiny’s story is a poorly-patched together narrative, with Peter Dinklage as your Ghost (a sentient AI a la Cortana) leading every mission with a half-assed paragraph of why we need to go to X and do Y. The gameplay, just like Halo, is repetitive. Walk a little, choke point, shoot shoot shoot, more walking, more choke points, more shooty-shooty, Ghost needs to analyze something, takes time, waves of enemies with a big baddie/minor boss in the final stage. But the characters are flat, and the story is confusing and strange. My wife asked me to explain it to her many times, and I never really was able to.
The end result is that Destiny never pulls you in and converts you. It stays shallow and basic. I can forgive the repetitive gameplay; it’s part of the territory when you’re playing a first-person shooter. But the fact that Bungie spent so much time, money, energy in creating this beautiful universe but then completely slacked off with the thing that I was looking forward to the most – the story – is what makes Destiny such a complete and utter disappointment. Before the game launched, I was pushing all my buddies to make sure they got it. On the day of the launch, this was my Facebook status:
One week into playing it, I knew I wasn’t going to be writing a glowing review. Knowing and loving Halo like I have, and going by the amazing marketing from Bungie and Sony, I can’t be faulted for expecting more from this game. Bungie took their time creating Destiny so surely its wizards would have come up with something worthy. Alas, they didn’t. The MMO aspect is a joke; 2 hours of running around the surface of Mars, the Moon and Venus showed me only 3-5 other players, none of whom were around when I happened upon the open world events. Promises of an engaging storyline, massive multiplayer engagement and an open world have been broken with a dull, lifeless and amateur script, mostly empty gameworld and not much of an open world (a la Far Cry, World of Warcraft etc.).
And now nearly two weeks into playing Destiny, I kind of feel robbed. Sure, I’ve gotten 13 days of gameplay out of my purchase but I’ve been robbed of the lore that I was promised; that immersion into colors, sights, sounds, characters and histories of an amazing fictional dimension. And I’ve been robbed of hours of conversations with my wife, where she’s blankly listening and I’m babbling on about the latest plot twist, who the Speaker really is, the truth behind the Vault of Glass and how badass Exos’ are.
Yet, through all this clutter and disappointment, somehow I am still playing Destiny despite having finished story-mode. Though the narrative was uninspiring, Bungie did manage to build on its expertise to produce fluid and vibrant gameplay that you stay within for hours. Every day I’ve had the game, without fail, I’d power up my console and resume my journey as a Warlock. When not playing the story missions, I’d dabble in the open world side missions (which are, all of them, the same), constantly upgrading my Guardian with new (and awesome) gear and armor. It wasn’t what I expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s terrible.
And as the rumors come out about Destiny’s upcoming expansion packs, I can’t help but once again find myself excited and hopeful. There are whispers of Destiny having a twisted, brilliant narrative that is yet to unfold and Bungie themselves acknowledged that Destiny’s narrative will evolve with time. I’m not so fussed that Destiny faults in the MMO category of things, but I do want to be mesmerized. I am hoping Destiny’s plot is only just beginning.
