My Destiny Beta Impressions -- MMOHalo? Or Is It Something More? Find Out Here!

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PS4

If you own a PS3 or a PS4 and have pre-ordered Destiny, you have the ability to play the beta. Many people have jumped in to see for themselves what Bungie has in store for us after they left the Halo franchise -- the series that evolved the first-person shooter on consoles. It's their first game since Halo: Reach in 2010, so is it any good so far? Obviously it's not the full version, but the point of this post is to give my impressions of the beta.

I don't normally play betas because I generally just like to experience the full game on day one of its official retail release, but Destiny feels special so I thought it'd be a good time to do this. I won't make a habit of it, but here we are. I originally had gameplay footage of the first level, but I was having a hard time uploading it so unfortunately I can only have pictures.

Finally the Destiny beta is live!

I, like many others, are excited to play Destiny. It's one of the big releases of the year, and it's getting the kind of hype that only Watch Dogs can claim. Many people waited with bated breath to play it so there was some real excitement once the title screen, in all its simplicity, showed up for the first time. Finally, let's do this!

And this happened for hours.

Let's skip ahead until I could finally play it because I'm not one of these people who are going to complain that I can't connect to a beta... you know, the thing that is meant for this kind of problem. It annoys me when people rant about not being able to connect when a game is in beta because doing a stress test is literally the point of the beta.

Yay I connected! Dammit now there's the long installation.

Once the installation was complete, I was able to choose one of three classes. I went with Warlock, but as is in most games, each class plays different. I can't comment on the other two, but Warlock has a neat melee ability where you basically blast them with a bunch of energy. It looks like we'll be able to customize their abilities quite a bit so you won't be tied into one framework. Mind you, I wish there were more classes, but I guess this is the norm.

The leveling up isn't incredibly deep, but it's serviceable. You put points into your abilities, and you do have some statistics like defense, strength and whatnot, but don't expect to put points into attributes unless it's with your equipment. With that said, there is a fair bit of armor that you can wear, so it does have lite-RPG elements down.

This is the first time I see other players. They leave me... just like everyone else in my life.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, I couldn't upload the gameplay footage of the first level. I didn't take any pics of it either so we fast-forward a little bit. This is the game in action, and this is what matters the most. Once you see all the bells and whistles, a game is only as strong as its core mechanics.

I'm happy to say that Destiny plays well. Guns feel great to shoot, and the glide mechanic -- where you can essentially double jump and hover through the air -- is a nice touch. I'm surprised it has taken me this long to say it, but the game feels like Halo in a lot of ways. It's not a carbon copy by any means, but it's clear that Bungie hasn't abandoned what took them away from making games like Oni and thrust them into the big leagues of gaming. Anybody who likes Halo should enjoy Destiny because the guns shoot like it, you move like it, the atmosphere is similar and even jumping takes influence from it.

All this excitement made me tired so I sat down.

Before I played Destiny, I wondered how the online mechanics would operate. Bungie insisted that their MMOFPS -- massively multiplayer online first-person shooter to the uninitiated -- wasn't really an MMOFPS... but in my experience it's an MMOFPS.

You can play the game by yourself. There are public events where you'll need people to ease the burden, but there are always other players running around. There weren't many, but they existed and occasionally I'd be in a firefight only to have another like-minded player swoop in and aid me in laying waist to the enemies. Then, more often than not, said person would leave and go off to complete their own objective.

Destiny is social in the same way Journey was social, but Journey was truly something special and meaningful in the way it handled the social aspects. You can communicate with other players by pressing the directional pad; you can wave, for example, or sit if you're lazy like me. At one point I stood on top of a high ledge and waved at a player below me. It made me feel good about myself.

Ultimately though, it's your fight, and the thrill is going to be other players randomly dropping into your battles. This isn't revolutionary in any way, but it is solid.

This is the Tower.

The Tower is the hub. You turn in quests, get rewards, shop, etc. It's typical stuff.

Then I went back to battle.

In order to proceed to the next area, it's as easy as holding triangle and going up to orbit. This is pretty straight-forward stuff; you unlock areas and they are of a certain level. You click on them and you go there. As you progress, it unlocks different types of areas. If you don't want to play the story missions, there are areas that you can explore and do bonus missions.

Speaking of story missions, as of now I don't care about what's going on in the plot. It seems like pretty generic Sci-Fi stuff, but that doesn't necessarily mean its bad. I seem to be one of the few that don't think Halo had a great story, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Obviously its early yet and the plot could open up and become something memorable so I don't want to down on it too much yet.

I do like that you essentially are dead at the beginning and a little machine, called a Ghost, revives you and off you go. It was a nice little touch, being raised from the dead, and the game does a good job with its visuals to engulf you in its world.

I got in my vehicle and I zoomed away.

One thing I love is that the game allows you a certain degree of freedom from the very beginning. Early on, you are able to summon a vehicle at will -- with a few exceptions -- so traveling is easy. You won't have to grind for hours in order to unlock this feature. That's definitely welcome.

Another thing I noticed was the music. The title screen theme sounds so much like Halo, but in a good way. The music in-game often kicks in and is mixed quite loudly. While there weren't any truly exciting moments in the beta, I am lead to believe that there will be moments -- like in Halo -- where music and action blend together to create a thrill ride that we will remember forever. 


Overall, the way that Destiny handles single-player and integrates it with the online aspects is well done so far. I'm going a little easier on it then I would an MMORPG because the MMOFPS is not as common, so even doing quests that are familiar to people who play MMOs doesn't seem like a drag because the genre is somewhat fresh. At the same time, there is nothing here that we haven't seen before. Take Halo, throw in a little bit of Borderlands (though without the excessive amount of loot) and you have Destiny single-player thus far.


The Multiplayer

Halo has always had a solid campaign, but it arguably is more known for its multiplayer. That's a lot of hype to live up to, as many people will flock to the multiplayer mode -- the Crucible -- once it's unlocked at level five. But can we gather from the one mode that's available whether it will be the next Halo or just another solid shooter? Or could it be a terrible experience?

Here we go, my first ever multiplayer match.

The PvP is directly influenced by the story mode. You keep the equipment, abilities and levels that you have attained elsewhere. You literally keep things like your grenades, or even your special power. This will undoubtedly lead to some frustration as some people will just have more fire power than you and balance, like in any competitive game, is going to be key in the full release.

The beta only offers one game mode -- Control. It is a mode we've played a million times before. You and your team have to capture one of the three areas while shooting down your opponents. I only played a few games but they were fun. Things got intense, especially with vehicles driving around, but even though I saw other sites venting about how imbalanced it is with vehicle play, I didn't really run into it. Obviously vehicles can be an advantage, but they weren't a problem for me in the few games I participated in.

And this happened to me. A lot. Because I suck.

When you're choosing multiplayer, you can see there are numerous modes locked, but it doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of variety. Certainly not as much as there ended up being in games like Halo, Call of Duty or Battlefield. Only time will tell what these are going to be, but I hope that there are some interesting ones.


The Verdict

Though the beta only goes to level eight, we can gather a few things from it. It plays and handles well and the foundation of a good shooter is there. Yes, it does feel like Halo, but that's not a bad thing. It does enough with the genre that it can't be seen as copying Halo, which would be silly anyway considering Bungie's history.

The online aspects aren't a big deal to me. I saw someone from either Gamespot or IGN gushing about how amazing it is -- indeed, I did like the Journey comparison that I used above -- but I don't see it. To me it's just another MMO in that regard. People will show up and help you, then they'll often disappear.

Destiny looks beautiful, and a lot of care has been taken to craft a fantastic looking universe where we can travel to the Moon, to Earth, and beyond. There's a lot of attention to detail, and the different environments and maps look wonderful. It should be a joy traversing the different places that Destiny takes us to.

The multiplayer should suck some hours from my life, but I don't know at this point if it'll be the next shooter that I dedicate a good chunk of my life to. It's fun and there's no denying that, but the beta hasn't shown us anything that we haven't seen a thousand times before. Ultimately though, like any shooter, it's going to come down to what you prefer. If you prefer games like Call of Duty, this won't appeal. If you're into Battlefield, this won't cut it. I'm a Killzone guy, but my back-up shooters are games like Halo or even Titanfall. It's all going to come down to what kind of feeling you like, and if you're into Halo, I stress that you should like it.

I think Destiny will be a great game. I predict that I'll end up giving it an 8.5 or a 9, but that's basically because it's just really good at what it does... even if it's mostly been done before. It does enough to keep you coming back, and the gameplay works. I look forward to September, when we can finally sink our teeth into the full thing.



So what did you think of the Destiny beta? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Mildly dislike it? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @ArtBathednCrime. Thank you for reading.

Coming Through The Door Blasting Volume 1: "Fluff" Gameplay, Battlefield 4, Dark Souls 2

Written By: Tyler

In "Coming Through The Door Blasting," I will be taking aim at various video game issues, whether it's in the form of rants or confessionals... maybe a mixture of both. Consider it a series of video game related brain droppings (pixelated poops?). A lot of the opinions that I express in the "Coming Through The Door Blasting" saga (ha) will be reactions to what I've been reading around the net or hearing in person, so obviously there is a lot of generalization going on.

There's no rhyme or reason to when I will release each volume of this because I write them when I have some stuff I need to rant about and/or when the blog is low on content.


I Don't Think Dark Souls 2 Is For Me

I'll begin this with a full disclosure: I haven't played this game enough to feel like I can write a full review of it, and I probably never will. It's like a light version of a review-in-progress that will never bloom to a completed product. I would love to write a review of it, but I am just having an incredibly hard time getting into it, and some of that is on me and not the game, but I can't look at Dark Souls 2 as a masterpiece either.

I'm playing the PC version right now, and I've read that it's buggy in comparison to the console version, but since it's my point of entry on DS2, it's all I can talk about. The mouse lag is terrible and in a game of inches like this one, it's incredibly frustrating that you can't attack like you plan and intend to. The game is hard enough as is, this extra difficulty doesn't help because it's cheap. They also clearly want you to use a controller because the commands on the screen come up as, "Press A." My controller is broken, plus I'm playing on PC, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect developers to optimize their PC games for the PC.

But that isn't why I can't really get into the game, that's just a port issue (I'm assuming) that doesn't exist in the console versions. This is going to put me at risk at receiving proclamations from people that I am a "casual gamer," but I think I'm past the point where ridiculously hard games appeal to me. I grew up with hard games, and I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older and feel like I've done my time with hard games, or if I just don't have the patience that I had when I was a kid and could only afford one game at a time -- thus making me play that same game for hours on end, regardless of how difficult it is. Or it could be that nowadays there are so many games to play that it's hard not to be pulled in a million directions, making me dedicate less time to games than I may have in my younger years. Maybe it's a mixture of all those things, but I don't like struggling my way through a point only to die and have to do it again. And again. And again. There's a death penalty where your life decreases whenever you die, though admittedly you can get a ring pretty early that helps with that by only allowing it to go down to 75%. I still don't like the idea of the death penalty. The game is hard, and each battle is difficult, and this was just unnecessary. Keep in mind, this is the point where I will concede that this whole paragraph is more of a personal problem than a game problem, except for the death penalty which I will defend as being pointless and stupid.

I don't actually think the game is this amazing accomplishment in game design either. I think it's a completely solid Action RPG, with some occasional thrilling moments and aspects I admire like the multiplayer (which I've enjoyed since Demon's Souls). I admit that when you finally complete an area and get to a bonfire it's a rewarding experience. The combat is difficult but I don't see anything awe-inspiring about it. Block/dodge, then attack. Sometimes there are multiple enemies which increases how stressful it is. I'm not saying the combat is easy, I'm just saying it's not really that in-depth.

I read somewhere that Dark Souls 2 puts its best material halfway through the game. If this is true, that doesn't actually excuse it. A game is different than a movie. Slogging through half an hour in a movie to get to the best part is different than slogging through a game for 20 hours.

Please keep in mind before you read the rest of this paragraph that this is literally just me asking questions and pondering out loud. These aren't concrete statements, they are hypothetical musings. I wonder if the game would be getting the accolades that it has been if it wasn't for the difficulty. If games back in the NES days had the same technical advancements that games of today do, would Dark Souls 2 really stand out? Or is this a moot point not even worth mentioning because the point of Dark Souls 2 is that it exists today and promises crushing difficulty and it's impossible and just plain dumb to compare it to games of yesteryear?

I know that if On The Gamely were a popular blog I'd start getting a lot of hateful comments here saying how I'm whining or crying, but if I were to give Dark Souls 2 a rating right now, I'd give it somewhere between a 7 and an 8. This is taking into consideration the fact that I believe a rating should consist of how "objectively" good the game is and your own personal taste. It is entirely possible to acknowledge a game is really good while also accepting the fact that it's just not for you. I am like that with Dark Souls 2, but I still see some problems with it. I'm glad there are a lot of people enjoying it though and I hope the series continues and makes a shit-ton of money because the variety of games is nice.


So I Took A Step Into The Realm Of Battlefield For The First Time This Past Week

I never played a Battlefield before because there are already too many shooters and another military shooter wasn't that appealing to me, despite the fact I'm in awe of the destructible environments and think it could add tremendously to the experience. I actually almost bought Battlefield 4 when it first came out but my computer couldn't run it. I consider myself lucky considering the difficulties the game has had since release.

Regardless, since it's currently on sale for $25 I reckon if I'm going to get it, I better get it now. And getted it I did. I really dig it. I'm iffy on vehicles in most competitive shooters, but depending on the game you're involved in, they can help create some truly exciting and memorable encounters. On the flip-side, it can lead to getting completely dominated in the most frustrating way possible, but my experience with BF4 has been mostly positive.

I don't want every FPS to have destructible environments, but holy crap it adds a lot. One of the first games I played, I ran into a building, the wall got blown up, so I ran into the next room and that wall got blown up. This level of destruction wouldn't be at home in certain shooters, but it's welcomed in Battlefield.

I like the game looks, feels and sounds, too. It doesn't pass my favourite shooter (Killzone), but the battles are chaotic and intense, with explosions and death everywhere you turn. Battlefield and Call of Duty compete directly with each other, despite offering different spins on the military shooter, but Battlefield stomps all over CoD.


Not Every Game Has To Be 200 Hours

I'll try to make this one quick because the article is already longer than I intended, but I don't think every game has to be long, non-linear or open-world. I don't need a million side-quests and I don't need a lot of replay value. Replay value used to come from it just being a great game that you want to experience again, though I'm not saying that another type of replay value isn't a positive thing because it is. I'm completely okay with a "short" game -- within reason -- so long as it's a memorable game.

If Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 only had the campaign, that'd be a rip-off because even though I have turned my back on CoD, I still think the campaign was great though incredibly short. Two and a half hours is too short for a full-price game.

Ten hours really isn't too short. My favourite RPG of all-time, Parasite Eve, clocks in at rougly ten hours. Mind you, games were cheaper, but the economy was also different back then. I'd be completely fine with Parasite Eve being released today with the same length because the game was fantastic from beginning to end.

We, as gamers, demand more and more from a technical standpoint these days. Games are held up to different standards because the technology is so much more advanced and we pay for that. Unfortunately this means prices also increase due to various factors, so even though cheaper games would be welcomed, you just can't expect a AAA title to do that. At least we have indie games for an alternative.

That's not to say I'm going to bat for companies pumping out short games, and unleashing unfinished games and expecting us to buy DLC is definitely not on my agenda. Bravely Default had a pretty decent runtime, and I enjoyed the hell out of that (until the end, ugh), and games such as Watch Dogs will demand lots of hours from me. There are always going to be open-world/sandbox games and I welcome that, but there's also something to be said for a concise story. If a game can do all that at once, more power to it.

My problem with a lot of longer games is that the gameplay just gets boring at some point and I end up ignoring side-quests and just doing the story. Someone could argue that since these side-quests are just extra material that you don't have to do them, but in some games you could miss out on a bunch by not doing them. I can't put the amount of time that some people do into MMOs because there's a lot of "fluff" gameplay that is just trying to extend the playtime, like stupid level/world design that makes you walk farther than you should have to. Making long-ass hallways just to make the game longer isn't appealing. Doing a million repetitive side-quests is only fun for so long most of the time.

There are exceptions to this rule, and I can be hypocritical, like with my love for Diablo-style Action RPGs. It's not an exact science. I guess my main point is that developers shouldn't stretch out the game if it doesn't make sense to do so, because it actually has the adverse effect and detracts from the overall product.



The point of these articles is to encourage discussion, so please, comment in the comment box below or tweet me @ArtBathednCrime. Let's... get this party started?