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.

Greatest Game Ever??!! A TITANFALL Review

Written By: Tyler
Platform Played On: PC

About five seconds before I begin getting my ass kicked.

Rating: 8/10
Verdict: TITANFALL is an intense multiplayer experience, but it leaves a little to be desired outside of the actual combat. 

TITANFALL -- I know it's not supposed to be capitalized, but it's something I started doing as a joke in the Weekly News Round-Up to stress how intense the game is going to be -- was hyped. Really hyped. It was going to be the Call of Duty killer. It was going to give us something we've never had before. The innovation would lead to world domination. So does this multiplayer-only shooter live up to the potential and the hype? Sort-of. 

Let's get a couple things out of the way:

• A multiplayer-only game is fine so long as the multiplayer offers something interesting. A lot of first-person shooter fans will spend hours upon hours on multiplayer alone, with some not even playing the campaign. 
• I think more than any other genre, the FPS is dependent on "feel." This means that it doesn't matter how great a game is, if it doesn't feel right to you, you won't like it. For example, Killzone is my favourite FPS series because I like how heavy it feels. Whereas, I don't got them feels for a game like Call of Duty (this is important in the review). It's just personal preference and anybody who tries to tell you different should be locked in a room with a prime Mike Tyson and told to box him.

Detractors will call TITANFALL a "Call of Duty with mechs," and that's true to an extent. The shooting/way the guns handle is very much straight out of the CoD playbook, which is no surprise considering who developed this. It's quick and there's little recoil. Where it differs from Call of Duty is the movement and obviously the Titans. You move gracefully and quickly in this game, being able to jump, double jump and wall-run. It's incredible that they got this so right, and it's absolutely a blast to jump into buildings, across buildings or onto the roofs of buildings. This is a large part of why TITANFALL appealed to me from the moment it was announced, and it's definitely a selling point even now.

The Titans are also the element that makes this stand-out from CoD. You are an extremely agile pilot but the action gets bigger when you drop a Titan into the battle and you can get in and control these beats.

This game's combat only works because of the polish and balance. If this game wasn't balanced I think it would hurt it more than most games, because both humans and giant walking death tanks occupying the same battlefield could spell trouble. So rest assured, Respawn has done everything they could to make this a smooth experience for everybody. There are clear advantages to being a Titan, like firepower, but you are not completely out of the fight if you're a pilot. You can duck in and out of buildings easily, and it's extremely satisfying jumping up a building, running across the roof and riding an enemy Titan while blowing it to pieces. Or you could always just use the anti-Titan weaponry that you are automatically equipped with, so while it takes a few shots, you usually have other people firing at the Titans anyway. Don't get confused, seeing a Titan if you're a pilot is still scary shit like it should be, but you aren't automatically dead.

Part of this is because of the level design. They did good work here, offering over ten maps that are a good balance of indoors and outdoors. This is important since going indoors is best way to not get killed by Titans. I don't know why some people wanted destructible environments because that would kill the balance, but people are strange. The combination of well-designed levels and the ability to jump everywhere means that it's hard to camp and there are always interesting and exciting ways to enter buildings or get out of them.

Your Titans actually drop pretty frequently. Even though the matches are short, even if you aren't that good you should be able to get a couple drops in at least. Kill some grunts and you can have more. I had a conversation with my brother and neither of us are sure if the frequency of the drops is good or bad. I guess it's good because honestly, the game is called TITANFALL, so it's to be expected.

I'm iffy on the bots. I understand why they're there -- anti-camping and a way to balance the game by allowing everyone to get Titan drops more often -- but I think I would have preferred just slightly larger games. There are tactical advantages to the bots, because if you kill them you get points and it speeds up your Titan drop, or you can hide within a group of them and fool your enemies, but I find myself looking at bots way too often and getting killed by a real player. That could just be me being terrible at the game, but I still think there are ways to balance the game without having bots, especially considering they're always in there, with one of the game modes being one where you only get points for killing Pilots. Seems silly, but they are there for a logical reason so I'm not outright condemning it.

Even though I actually hate how Call of Duty feels, I'm more forgiving here because it makes sense. I don't think mechanics like Killzone would be appealing here, though a little recoil would feel nice. You still feel a bit like paper, but again, since I can double jump and run across walls I'm more okay with it than I would normally be.

Someone in the chat said, and this isn't a direct quote, "This is one of the only games where you could suck but you still do something cool every game." This is an intense game. People do cooler things than me, but I've done things like wall-chase a guy while shooting at him. I've been in frantic Titan battles, ejected onto a building, shot a rocket and blown up the Titan. I've seen an enemy Titan, ran to the other side of a building, jumped on top of it, ran to the edge, jumped off onto the enemy Titan and blew it up. I've seen people jump kick me in incredible ways. I've gone into Titan battles four Titans deep, and it's very cool being part of a large Titan march like that. It doesn't matter how bad you are, you'll probably do something neat, and the action will remain fast and absurd at all times. Believe me, I suck badly, but I still have a blast.

There are also little touches that I enjoy. I like having to evacuate at the end of matches by running to a dropship that can be blown up by the other team. It adds to the frantic nature of the game. I also like how it shows you jumping out of the dropship at the beginning of games because again. These are little touches but I like them.





So why is this game only an 8 then? Read on, my son.

For being a full-priced multiplayer-only game, it doesn't offer a lot of content. Sure, the combat itself is some of the more interesting FPS combat because of how it blends together a bunch of different games within the genre, but the rest of the game leaves a little to be desired.

If you're going to charge regular game price for a game that is dependent solely on being able to go online (meaning if the community ever died, well, you're shit out of luck... not that it will for a long time), you need to add some depth.

For example, the character customization is Call of Duty-lite. You pick your gun, attachments, and your tactical abilities and whatnot, but there's not much to it. There aren't many guns or attachments, and while being able to customize your Pilot and Titan loadout is fine, it still operates on the same progression system that we're all used to... and arguably does it worse than some of these other games. Love it or hate it, Killzone: Shadow Fall tried to do something different and abandoned the typical XP system we are familiar with. I'm not saying they should have done something so drastic, but this is a multiplayer-only game. Do something intriguing. I could be remembering MAG wrong, but I seem to remember it having a much better progression system. Hell, Dust 514 is incredibly (maybe overly) complex, and while the progression in that is dampened due to the free-to-play nature of gaining points, it's still a game that tried something big. I'm not saying TITANFALL needs to be Dust 514 -- TITANFALL is a better game -- but I'm left disappointed regardless.


If you're looking for game modes, TITANFALL doesn't give you many, and the ones it does give are pretty standard, outside of Last Titan Standing which starts you in Titans in a round-based game where you only get one life per round. The normal modes enter the fray like Capture the Flag or Hardpoint (which is Domination), but honestly this doesn't bother me much on a personal level because I only play a couple modes in shooters anyway. Still, again, this is a multiplayer-only game so they should have stepped their game up here as well.

The campaign is good in spirit but is ultimately just a bunch of multiplayer matches. The story doesn't matter because you don't pay attention to it while you're fighting because who has time? There are Titans everywhere! It's a nice thought, but it was unnecessary. Still, you might as well play it because it nabs you stuff that you wouldn't get just by playing the Classic mode.

The game looks fine. I'm not in awe of the graphics, even on high settings, but there are things going on in the background and they do a good job of making the game look busy while you're playing. I know TITANFALL has gotten criticized, but it's pretty enough. Visual design is more interesting than graphical power anyway, but that's beside the point.

This is one of the weirdest 8 out of 10s I will probably give a game. The fact is that I enjoy the hell out of the game when I'm in a match, but after the match I am left disappointed with what the game has to offer. The movement adds a layer to the game that most games in the genre don't have, but it's a pretty shallow experience out of the actual combat.

The Little Indie Game That Could - A Call of Duty: Ghosts Review

Written By: Tyler Selig

"AH I CAN'T SEE, EVERYTHING IS BLACK. Oh wait.."

Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Call of Duty: Ghosts is not a new experience. It changes up the formula a tad here and there, but not enough for me to get back into the series. Fans of the series should eat this up as a fun, fast, action packed game… while people who hate the series will find yet another bland military shooter that feels like paper. Pick your side, because Call of Duty is here to stay.

            I’m of the mind that a reviewer should embrace his or her biases, and make them known. I’m not trying to start an argument here (or maybe I am, I don’t know), but I don’t understand this obsession with objectivity. I’m not trying to say that you can’t try to break down the pros and cons of a game in the most unbiased way that’s possible, but a game that is boring for one may be an intense experience for another. Objective turns subjective pretty quick in a lot of cases, and that’s why I will always be upfront with anybody reading this about my own personal prejudices and desires (sounds sexy). It’s also the reason I’ve always enjoyed a system built upon multiple critics reviewing the same game, because that will give a more balanced opinion. Nobody reads my blog, so as much as I’d like to have multiple people reviewing things, it’s just not possible right now.

                So with that out of the way, let’s talk the newest entry in the blockbuster series – Call of Duty: Ghosts. Most people will know what this is, but for those few who don’t, Ghosts is a first-person military shooter based around an elite group named Ghosts, who are known for their great war skills, be it stealth or gunplay.  There’s also a tiny, insignificant sub-plot where the game takes place a few years after the US of A has fallen and the soldiers are fighting to get their country back.

                Call of Duty: Ghosts should please CoD fans, unless they’re the jaded kind that haven’t liked a game in the series since the first Modern Warfare but keep playing each new entry anyway -- there is no hope for them at this point. For the rest of them, I can’t see them being overly unhappy with the game as a whole. I got out of Call of Duty during Modern Warfare 3… just one day I stopped enjoying it as much as I had, and I wasn’t even a massive fan to begin with.        

                This is a major reason for the 6 out of 10. As a Call of Duty, I’d rate it very highly because the developers do what they do really well. If you want a more arcade-style twitch shooter, then CoD is fantastic. For people like me, who now feel that the game just feels like paper and doesn’t feed me like a heavier shooter like Killzone does, then it’s not that enjoyable. I do like it, just not that much, and I feel the game does some things better than previous entries, and some things worse.

                Firstly, I would say the campaign is a step down from what I feel is the best campaign in the series – Modern Warfare 2. I felt this way during MW3 as well. Many have criticized MW2 for its length, but I felt that it was fast-paced and exciting, partially because it didn’t really have time to wear out its welcome. Ghosts is a normal length campaign (8 – 12 hours like most games), but there’s a lot of “been there, done that” going on. There are action set pieces galore, but somehow it just manages to not be thrilling. When I wasn’t so familiar with the series, I could handle the format, but I have a harder time now.

                For example, the series has pretty much always told you what to do. “There’s a helicopter coming, get down,” and so you do. Rinse, repeat. It would be nice if it could get changed up a bit so we have more control over what goes on in the single-player. Let me call some shots outside of, “waiting on you, take the shot.” The game is linear and just gets you from Point A to Point B. Some don’t mind this, but after a game every year, it drains me. I don’t even find the big action movie-esque action as much as I used to. The one level where they open up the game a little bit for you is a welcome change, and I give them props for including that. However, in the end, I’m just a little tired of their brand. I feel that a lot of it just ends up falling flat.

                 The premise of the fallen Amerika is a good one. Setting you up like an underdog fighting for your country should make the game a little more personal and interesting, but it only achieves that mildly. Right from the beginning they stress the idea of family, but really, I couldn't bring myself to care that much because I know that Ghosts is focusing more on blowin' shit up. That's fine, but it just means another Call of Duty campaign with a story I don't care about.

                And you might as well forget about the dog. The dog was an unnecessary addition. There wasn’t really much potential to be extraordinary there, anyway, but you only use him in a couple missions. One of them is a boring stealth mission, however most of the time you just press a button and he attacks enemies. Okay, cool, I guess? It’s not bad, but it’s not good.

                Fair enough though, Ghosts, I know that multi-player is where you excel. Some people don’t even play the Call of Duty campaigns. So does the multi-player hold up? I would say yes, again, if you like what the series has always done, there’s a lot to like here.

                I give the series props for being like Halo and offering a bunch of interesting game types. As much as I love Killzone and their warzones, I’ve always hoped that Killzone would do a little more like Call of Duty in that regard (but only that regard), and offer more choices of games to play… even if I mostly play deathmatch, having the variety is nice. There is variety here. They’ve added some new games, and kept the classics. I can’t criticize them at all for this. There is still a lot of excitement to be had here.

                They also shifted the levelling system around a little bit, and this too is a positive, because using their new point system, there’s less of a gap between level 50s and level 1s, outside of skill. Never found Call of Duty to be as much of a skill-based shooter as some others, and this does a decent job of rectifying that a little bit. Good job on that too, but I still get murdered by everyone because I suck!

                They’ve also made environments a little more destructible. I’ve always said that making things more destructible is a next-gen idea that I can get behind, because it vastly improves the gameplay. Ghosts is no Battlefield, and even the combustible environments are a bit scripted and unimpressive. But they aren’t bad… they are an improvement, ultimately. Shooting a pipe and having smoke fill the area is a welcome inclusion, so I won’t hate on it or make fun of it.

                They also have online split-screen, which I loved about MW3 (and was the main reason I played it as much as I did), and since it returns, I have to say, thank you.

                If you are into the multi-player in the other games, you will like this. I enjoy it, but like my 6 indicates, I don’t love it. I probably never will again. I wasn’t even going to play Ghosts but life took me down this road anyway.

                The most interesting feature to appear in Ghosts is Extinction Mode. Instead of zombies, like in Black Ops, you have to drill hives and kill aliens. Even though it’s played mostly straight (god forbid they be funny), it’s nice to see Infinity Ward include a left-field choice like aliens in their military game.

                The best aspect is that it’s not just a copy of zombies, but it is similar. The aliens are more interesting rivals than zombies here because zombies are usually predictable and aliens jump up on things and attack in different ways. You can scavenge for things to help you out, and use the environment to aid you in your fight against them, and all-in-all, I’d say Extinction is better than Spec Ops in every way.

                Just as a final remark before my closing statement, Ghosts doesn’t push the system graphically, but I’ve never felt that CoD really wanted to anyway. It’s a good looking game, but it’s not awe-inspiring. I often forget to even talk about graphics because graphics matter so little to me in relation to everything else, but I know some people do so there you go.

                Call of Duty: Ghosts is a good game. Hell, it’s probably a great game, just not to me. At this point, Call of Duty can go fuck itself. Until it offers something new, or at the very least stops getting released every year, it will probably continue to get scores like this from me. But to the fans, I’m happy that you get another game.