Destiny Review: Still Becoming A Legend

1 of 2

Your Ship Takes Off From The Tower

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Activision

Platforms: PS4 (Version Reviewed), Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date: September 9th

The ancient Greeks believed you treated any guest at your door as if they were royalty a they could be a god in disguise. Within Destiny, the people of Earth are very welcoming to the Traveler. Discovering the Traveler on Mars, humans bring the relic back to Earth and together, Traveler and human, engineer a new age of prosperity. These are the origins of the conflict in Destiny.

More from Reviews

The quick adoption of the Traveler brings about prosperity, but also brings new enemies into the galaxy. Traveling from Earth to the Moon to Venus to Mars, there are species of varying kinds that have come into our galaxy seeking the Traveler and they’re winning this war. There’s only one human city left and the Traveler has gone dormant.

Here, the Traveler calls upon its allies, guardians of three races and three classes. Choose among Humans, Awoken, and Exo intelligence. Be a Hunter, a Titan, or a Warlock; each class excelling in different areas and touting different abilities the higher you go. Thus your heroic wanderings in Destiny begin. As you get going, you’ll spawn nav-links to be able to travel each world in your Sparrow and find the artifacts and information necessary to understand your enemy. Hunter is my favorite as your throwing knife is one of the most satisfying takedowns in the game. Run, slide, throw, duck behind cover is a move you’ll become familiar with and love every time.

Level 8 Warlock – Javier Bombardem

Hive, Vex, Fallen, and Cabal are space-faring antagonizers in this world. Meeting you on a variety of planets, skirmishing amongst each other, consistently chasing after artifacts or data you’re looking for. These groups swarm amongst you as you do your missions. Destiny is anything but light on wildfire. Any expression of patience is met with a storm of enemies seeking to stop your progress. Peter Dinklage’s comments, “I’ll hurry” and it’s time to go to work.

Destiny is a combat driven narrative that leans heavily on you wanting to shoot more aliens as opposed to wanting to learn more about this galactic war between Darkness and Traveler.

As a guardian, you get a rather small variety of weapons; a primary weapon, a special weapon, and a heavy weapon. Hand Cannons are the magnum pistols equipped with powerful combustible forces compacted heavily. Pulse Rifles are semi-automatic burst weapons. Auto Rifles work great as weapons to provide cover with their never ending stream of bullets until you reload the clip. Finally, my personal favorite, Scout Rifles provide powerful, but quick, short range sniper quality shots on enemies. Sniper Rifles, Fusion Rifles, and Shotguns round out your special weapons, and Rocket Launchers alongside large Machine Guns make up your heavy weapons.

Flying over Earth’s atmosphere

Destiny’s limits are frustrating as much as they are invigorating here. Finding your niche abilities with different weapons and how to use them against varying enemies is fun as you go around traversing the Milky Way as Dinklage Ghost fills you in on what’s happening. However, the weapons available pale in comparison to other offerings found elsewhere in first person shooters. You’re met with swarms, met with large enemies, met with huge bosses, and you begin to get more comfortable fighting enemies as they scale into the larger and more powerful. The method of attack is of course stunted by the relative lack of weapon variety.

As you progress, the idea of the way in which you’ll begin the process of saving the traveler is fleshed out, but beyond that there is no sense of urgency in figuring it out. When you get in the missions, everything is fine, but this isn’t a narrative driven story. Destiny is a combat driven narrative that leans heavily on you wanting to shoot more aliens as opposed to wanting to learn more about this galactic war between Darkness and Traveler.

Click Next for the final verdict, including final score.

Home/Reviews