There is no argument that Destiny is perhaps this years biggest game, one could even argue its one of the biggest of all time. Acclaimed ex-Halo developer Bungie's long awaited return to the gaming scene in collaboration with one of the industries biggest publishers, Activision, in an attempt to bring you the next big MMO in the form of a Sci-fi/Fantasy FPS.
Its the most expensive game ever made with an estimated budget of $500 Million, that's nearly $200 Million more than the most expensive film ever made. But does that mind numbing figure provide live up to the hype surrounding the game, will it become legend?
Destiny starts things off on the wrong foot by giving us a crap story. I mean I have seen some bad stories in my time but Destiny's may as well not exist. What little story is there is extremely cliché and outrageously shallow. That being said it has a good and interesting premise.
Modern day space exploration takes humanity to Mars where we find a large floating ball called The Traveller. The Traveller journeys to Earth and bring humanity into its 'Golden Age' wherein our technology propels itself hundreds of years into the future. However there is a force wanting to destroy The Traveller called The Darkness. As The Darkness enters our solar system The Traveller awakens chosen ones called Guardians, those who hold the light and are the only ones capable of pushing back The Darkness.
Now when I said interesting premise, I didn't say original. But nonetheless its a good opening to what could have potentially been an interesting storyline. However Destiny has no storyline, not really. You are never given purpose behind any of your quests, you never know why you are doing what you are doing and you never see any effects of it.
Characters are bland and have less personality than a bowl of dry Weetabix. This isn't only evident in the lack of memorable characters but also due to the boring voice talent (which I will touch on more later).
This lack of story is surprising, I mean this is coming from Bungie right off the back of Halo. You only have to glance at anything Halo and you are given sheer truckloads of lore and information on the universe. Destiny doesn't have that, you don't know who you are, what The Traveller is, what The Darkness wants with The Traveller, why there are aliens trying to kill you and why you should even care about trying to save Earth, I mean its abandoned apart from one city, its pretty much worthless that this point.
Luckily Destiny's gameplay is much more interesting and in-depth than its story. To the point where it even starts to make up for it.
One the surface Destiny is a typical FPS. You have Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Snipers, Pistols, Rocket Launchers & Grenades at your disposal, you point them at aliens, you shoot aliens, you kill aliens. However, get past the surface layer and you have a whole wealth of MMO features to explore.
First of all you have three classes to choose from, each with two subclass variants. You have the Hunter, a bounty hunter style class (with variants of Gunslinger and Bladedancer). Warlock, a mage class (with variants of Voidwalker & Sunsinger) and Titan, a tank class (with variants of Striker and Defender). Each class plays pretty similarly to each other, even to the point of having access to the same weapons as each other; but what varies is the special abilities and armour traits.
The more you do things the more a bar in the bottom left corner fills, once full you can unleash your special ability which varies depending on class and variant. For example the Titan Striker ground slams causing massive damage in a set area, often clearing enemies in its radius; whereas the Hunter Gunslinger receives a three shot revolver that deals massive damage with each individual hit. You have access to the other subclass once you reach level 15 with the one available during character creation allowing you to swap out your abilities during missions in order to best fit a situation.
