Early Reviews of Destiny: Unfulfilled Potential 93
Destiny is a first-person shooter set in a persistent, online world. It was released on Tuesday by Bungie, the development studio behind Halo, and billed as a blending of console shooters and progression-based MMOs. Reviews for the game are finally trickling out, and most publications say it's merely average. (Though it's worth noting that the social and multiplayer portions of the game are difficult to evaluate in such a short timeframe, and like many MMOs, Destiny will continue to see active development.) Polygon's Arthur Gies reports, "Destiny doesn't look real, but rather, it looks like painted concept art, meticulously assembled and presented to you at all times. Instead, it's the suggestion, through Destiny's concept, its soundtrack and its visual presentation, that Destiny is big. That there's a whole universe out there to explore, a reality worth discovering. There isn't, though."
Jeff Gerstmann at Giant Bomb had a similar reaction: "There are cool little flashes of brilliance in Destiny, but a lot of it feels like a game designed by people who weren't sure what sort of game they were designing. Is it a loot shooter? Sort of, but the loot isn't very good. Is it an MMO? No, but you'll occasionally encounter other players out in the field. A story-driven shooter like the Halo franchise? Sure, if you don't mind digging through the developer's website to find those little bits of lore." The Escapist's Jim Sterling concludes, "Destiny exists in the shadow of multiple games, taking a little from each, and doing nothing truly remarkable with any of it. It's a prime example of how the nebulous concept of 'content' can be used to puff up a game without adding anything to it."
Jeff Gerstmann at Giant Bomb had a similar reaction: "There are cool little flashes of brilliance in Destiny, but a lot of it feels like a game designed by people who weren't sure what sort of game they were designing. Is it a loot shooter? Sort of, but the loot isn't very good. Is it an MMO? No, but you'll occasionally encounter other players out in the field. A story-driven shooter like the Halo franchise? Sure, if you don't mind digging through the developer's website to find those little bits of lore." The Escapist's Jim Sterling concludes, "Destiny exists in the shadow of multiple games, taking a little from each, and doing nothing truly remarkable with any of it. It's a prime example of how the nebulous concept of 'content' can be used to puff up a game without adding anything to it."
"console shooter" (Score:5, Insightful)
There's yer problem.
Speaking as someone who likes shooters, AND who likes consoles, console shooters are rubbish. There's a degree of control you can get on a PC with a keyboard and mouse that you'll never achieve on your couch with a console controller.
It's just the wrong mix of controller and game, just like a mouse (by itself) would be a terrible input device for platformers.
The right device for the right game. Consoles aren't the right device for shooters.
Re:"console shooter" (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who likes shooters, AND who likes consoles, console shooters are rubbish.
If you are expecting them to give you the same experience as using a mouse, then they are quite rubbish. But they can be enjoyable, so long as they aren't trying to be both things. On the other hand, aside from the thorny issue of whether to mix PC and console players in multi (answer: no) it's often possible just to ratchet up the default difficulty for the PC. Halo was certainly a doddle by comparison on the PC, aside from segments driving vehicles where I found the difference to be negligible, but that didn't make it any more or less exciting (or the levels near the end any less boring.)
A console is a fine place to present a shooter that's heavy on story. And if you don't like those games, you can just avoid console shooters and spare yourself a lot of wasted time- wasting.
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Yep, I'm skeptical of anyone who claims console shooters are rubbish. There's a reason games like CoD, Halo, Battlefield, Gears of War and so on and so forth make by far the vast majority of their sales on consoles - people enjoy them, meaning they're not rubbish.
Which isn't to say that I absolutely agree that if I was looking for ultra-competitive multiplayer (I still have fond memories of Quake 1 DM and TF that make everything since pale in comparison whether PC or console) then I'd look to the PC with a
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It's not so much the success of the franchises year on year I was referring to but ultimately the size of the demographic in question.
Ultimately these sorts of games and most PC games (educational games aside) are decide to fulfil a simple purpose - to entertain, to provide people with an avenue to relax and have fun.
So my point is, ultimately, that if franchises like CoD, BF, Halo and so forth are routinely shifting 5 - 10 million units year on year whilst PC games only ever achieve these sorts of figures
Re:"console shooter" (Score:5, Interesting)
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And your proposed solution is....?
As a gamer that's played PC games long enough to remember when everything used the arrow keys...WASD was a considerable improvement over the horror that was using the arrow keys for games. If you're using a standard keyboard for input then WASD is about as good as it gets. If you aren't using a standard keyboard / mouse then the entire argument is invalid as you have more options available.
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GTA V would be one of those, but the shooting aspect of it was never that tough with Aim Assist.
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Play your console-shooters using a mouse+keyboard then?
There is nothing technical in the current and previous console generations that keeps you from using a USB or Bluetooth mouse in shooters. The game-developer might have decided to not support it, but that is a question of the game, and not the platform.
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I always thought they should stick a trackball on the gamepad, or laser-tracking against a thumb perhaps. And more back buttons - fingers are wasted. Really, I think gamepads have got a long way to go and the current creators of them are rather narrow-minded.
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I had one of these. It made great use of the fingers: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/188/retro-scan-of-the-week-the-most-complicated-video-game-controller-ever-devised
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They really should allow you to use a mouse and keyboard from the getgo instead of going out of your way to buy dongles, people do it anyway.
You can use gamepads on the PC, why not a mouse and keyboard on a console?
Where have you been for the past 14 years, you don't need a dongle. Consoles DO allow you to use a mouse and keyboard, but as drinkypoo says, the question is whether the game supports it.
The PS2/PS3/PS4 have USB ports for a reason. I have games for all 3 that have mouse and/or keyboard support.
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If you don't know how to head shot one who is approaching behind a wall, then you should not complain about cheating.
Obviously besides the skills, you lack basic knowledge about games, especially FPS.
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The 40 +/- 10 age group is full of people who grew up playing games, and still want to play games.
But...we've played them all. We were there when the shooter was born, and when the MMO was born. We saw them all grow up and die.
We are all looking for something truly novel, with the magic that Wolfenstien had and the "second life" feeling of WoW.
And nothing on the market today lives up. Star Citizen looks like a noble attempt, but I remain skeptical seeing as how it is just a grander scale assembling of al
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When Planetside 1 came out it was a utopia for the FPS fan + MMO fan crowd for the first month. Then the first subscription time hit and the population dropped like a rock. That first month was a wonderful thing though... Giant battles with firm lines (there might as well have been trenches) and the hotshots darting between the two. There was so much that was new to FPS games at the time. The array of vehicles, choosing your skills to spec in vehicles or weapons or body armor suits. Hacking to take ove
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Destiny's problems have nothing to do with it being on a console. If this exact game were released as a PC exclusive, all of its problems with gameplay, story, and end game content would be identical.
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I had a subscription to PC Gaming Magazine in the late 90s. Even then the reviews were more like advertisements. I've not trusted them since. These days I just look for gameplay footage on YouTube if I'm iffy about a game. No amount of news articles or fancy CG trailers will convince me a game is worth buying. I rely on direct, face-to-face word of mouth and gameplay videos.
Call it what it is... (Score:5, Informative)
As I stated when I watched the first couple of people playing the game on twitch.tv the reviewers should call a turd a turd. Bad AI. Many NPCs were simply standing in the open firing 1 shot a second while allowing the players to shoot them with 10 in the same time frame. The entire goal of Destiny is to extract $60 from your pocket with very little care given to ensuring that you are satisfied in the end. I think that most serious gamers will walk away from Destiny in the first week, two at the outside; and be left feeling wanting.
Re: Call it what it is... (Score:1)
Watching the higher level 28 show it is a challenge to teams of level 26.
Re:Call it what it is... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Aardwolf and others are still going strong. I'm still writing code for one to this day (not Aardwolf) and it's a lot of fun taking things that were good in MMOs and easily incorporating them into a MUD.
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a legit question as i'm somewhat new to consoles after last owning a SNES ... are there *any* reasonable MMOs for modern consoles?
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Or maybe the game just isn't that interesting?
That title needs work, for one thing (Score:5, Funny)
Early Reviews of Destiny: Unfulfilled Potential
I'd have gone for a more confident title, for a start.
Re:That title needs work, for one thing (Score:5, Funny)
How about "Destiny: It turned out that it was better working for Microsoft than Activision, all our best staff members quit, oh yeah enjoy the game"
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I was ready for this game as I loved Bungie's releases previously (been with them since the Mac days), but the always connected part put me off (hate having to pay a subscription to Microsoft just so I can connect
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The problem is Activision. That's the problem with Activision - they are all about the money, and even Kottick's admitted to it. And they've already forced Bungie's hand - it's presumed Activision put pressure on Bung
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I've heard that Destiny has a storyline and RPG gameplay mechanics on a par with Doom.
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It's not a waifu simulator and it has no memorable personalities.
It's also a last gen shooter optimized for graphics, expect corridors ...
Why not a comparison to Defiance? (Score:2)
When I first heard about this game I was thinking, "Oh, someone's going to try to do a more successful Defiance"? Defiance being the sci-fi MMO shooter based on the Syfy TV series of the same name. I played the Destiny Beta, and it's basically Defiance.with faceless master-chief-ish characters. It wasn't equal to Defiance during the beta and I was wondering how they'd get it done in time because it wasn't "ready" and needed more work. I actually told someone that "unless they put a lot of work in it, yo
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Warframe's more like Dust514, a more traditional team based pvp shooter with some RPG elements.
Destiny and Defiance are PvE centric.
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Warframe has no PvP worth mentioning at all. It's full on cooperative PvE shooter.
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Oh? Thanks for the info. The impression I got from the early media/promotion was that it was PvP, not PvE. I'm more of a PvE type so I basically ignored the game.
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If you're into PvE, Warframe is your game. The only PvP content in the game (conclave) is utterly barren because all skills and weapons are balanced for PvE. As a result you have things like full invulnerability to all damage for a long time on Valkyr frame, invisibility on Loki and weapons that basically one shot other players when they crit.
Since abilities and weapons, when maxed out, are designed for clearing entire rooms worth of enemies that have health pool that in end game is hundreds of times more t
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Because not enough people have played Defiance for them to get that reference/analogy.
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A more successful Firefall is more like it.
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/me googles. Ah, it's Windows only, thats why I hadn't heard of that. Unlike Firefall, Destiny and Defiance are cross-platform.
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Rage is fun; of course, I only paid 9.99 for it, so I didn't feel screwed.
If I'd paid 60, I'd be pissed.
I recently replayed DNF, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered, lol.
Re:Borderlands meets Halo (Score:4, Insightful)
I have watched level playthroughs.
Describing Destiny as the love child of Boarderlands 2 and Halo is pretty apt if you add to it that it takes the worst aspects of both.
It's like Boarderlands 2; except that the bad guys do not drop as much loot of either ammo or weapons, even when you're at a higher level they are bullet spongy so imagine how much more they will be when at or below their level, Guns have ammo pool types but you will run out of ammo faster than borderlands 2, at the end of each mission like Boarderlands 2 you can have one or several gun or item loot chests but the game only gives you 30 seconds to find it and take what you want before being booted back to the mission selection menu, and to get anything decent you have to grind.
It's like halo; except the bad guys are different in name only, the good guys no matter how you can customize their look will look like spartans, Well wait.. no it's just halo by any other name.
Hulu ads (Score:1)
Shades of... (Score:5, Interesting)
This game smacked to me of Titanfall marketing. And appears to have delivered the same level game. Nothing bad but not anything near the level of hype that the marketing inspired.
But the marketing DID deliver the hype level sales and that is all that matters to the publishers. So while the culture of pre-orders based on marketing hype that is backed up by paid for "reviews" exist this cycle will repeat.
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When marketing accounts for a greater than 50% of the development costs (One figure I read said $180Mil and $100Mil on top for marketing) then yes, there's going to be huge hype of an average game. What happens when the marketing budget is tiny compared to the development costs? You get a cheap, great game but it might take a bit of searching to find it (Example: Terraria and many many other indy games)
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did the marketing lie? did it show content that doesn't exist? gameplay that doesn't exist? how were you fooled?
I own the game (Score:2)
I bought the game when it came out (digital download, who needs line ups or EB?) and I agree with the reviews.
I play FPS on both console and PC so ignoring the argument people like to have, which isn't the issue, the game is lacking. The thing is it actually has a lot of potential, and I really want to like it, but its just.. Boring. If they had of had more variety of quests, a real open world, any sort of story, and public match making for campaign it would have been a lot better. A shame, really.
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I should mention I have it for 360, and really appreciated they made a version for my old console. I refuse to upgrade, and I guess eventually I'll only be able to play PC games.
I prefer Warframe (Score:2)
Warframe for PC and PS4 is a much better semi-mmo shooter (although I most frequently play with just a sword) than Destiny. The updates are good, the new missions are interesting and the challenge is high. Its also free to play.
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Warframe is coming out on XBONE as well afaik.
Though it's a bit closer to third person shooter version of diablo than MMO. But honestly, if you want a proper warframe with all the pretty graphics, you have to have a decent PC with nvidia card in it. Harware physx particles for skill effects are pretty.
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How is first or third person relevant to its MMO status?
Have you watched the game played on PS4? The graphics are quite impressive. The framerate is smoother, which would be nice, but not enough to do a PC upgrade and force myself to run Windows.
cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] for a graphics comparison
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They had to cut down on graphics on PS4 and XBONE. And obviously remove hardware physx. PS4 is about as good as PC on medium settings.
You video shows early gameplay with no fancy elemental effects or visually impressive skills in play and the in-game trailer. A pretty bad comparison even if you choose to ignore the whole "youtube video compression makes comparing graphical fidelity impossible".
Plus, in the ads (Score:1)
Just don't forget who did it to you (Score:1)