Destiny (Bungie)

johnny_ultimate

Played it for a while last night.

With even the Beta heavy on cutscenes, it's fair to say Bungie has invested a whole load of effort into a story that is on first impressions, to put it generously, generic crap. In terms of world and tone, it reminded me of Mass Effect more than Halo or Borderlands - and not really in a good way. Po-faced sci-fi schlock.

For a cross-gen game, it looks really good on PS4, and the vast maps offer some excellent post-apocalyptic art design. It does feel cross-gen in other ways though - certainly the Tower hub and menu-driven space travel don't feel like they're pushing the new hardware, certainly when we're seeing the likes of No Man's Sky promising something more seamless on a fraction (of a fraction?) of the budget. Will see how it works in final form.

The gunplay is visceral and tight, definitely a very strong mix between Halo and Borderlands style shooting. Bungie, to their credit, certainly put a lot of effort into the fundamentals.

The hoverbike is great.

The respawning enemies are less great. I took down one enemy well above my level, explored the cave behind him for loot (there was none), and by the time I got out mere seconds later he was back again. That could make exploration a genuine pain if it's not better balanced in the finished game.

The online interactions seem a bit... weird at this point. Other players roving the landscape independently, doing the same things you did a few minutes before, creates an awkward dissonance between single-player and online. Hopefully the full game will offer more cohesive options - whether that's to go alone (although a lot of the missions seem co-op driven) or bring a team.

The finished game definitely needs a huge range and variety of maps. I didn't get to play the moon, but suffice to say I was itching to get out of Russia after a second or third revisit. This is an expected complaint for a Beta or demo, though!

It shows promise, but there's a whole lot of question marks left by the Beta. Curious to see how it turns out.

calex71

I guess it's not a big issue but did anyone else feel it was missing an in game map?

I'd like to know how far away from my objective I am etc and see secondary ones on a map, following the hud pointer was a little disorientating at times not all the time just now and then.

2Mad2BeMad

don't know if anyone found it, but I found a dead ghost on the strike lvl6 mission
just after you kill the tank
or even during the fight
head up the stairs which is just to the left of the big tank when your facing it, its on a table
shiney blue colour

calex71

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

don't know if anyone found it, but I found a dead ghost on the strike lvl6 mission
just after you kill the tank
or even during the fight
head up the stairs which is just to the left of the big tank when your facing it, its on a table
shiney blue colour

I found 2 of them but seems they were wasted as you could only turn them in to that guy after the moon mission, I gave him the one from that mission but the other 2 I found were not in my inventory

Penn

calex71 wrote: »

I guess it's not a big issue but did anyone else feel it was missing an in game map?

I'd like to know how far away from my objective I am etc and see secondary ones on a map, following the hud pointer was a little disorientating at times not all the time just now and then.

Pressing the touchpad (PS4) brings up your Ghost, but also puts an icon on the screen for where your objective is and a distance to it. Disappears after a few seconds though. I agree that the minimap/radar is little addition.

Anyone know what time the beta ends at tonight?

Mickeroo

The music is pretty good.

sniper_samurai

calex71 wrote: »

I found 2 of them but seems they were wasted as you could only turn them in to that guy after the moon mission, I gave him the one from that mission but the other 2 I found were not in my inventory

The dead ghosts just give you a grimoire entry. The one found on the moon is a mission item that you turn in to get the special weapon upgrade stated on the mission screen.

calex71

Mickeroo wrote: »

The music is pretty good.

I see Marty O'Donnell settled with Bungie earlier in the week for 95k, I wonder how much of it is his work, or how much he did before being let go

From what I heard in the beta, a lot of it sounded like his work.

jaxdasher

The music is just superb. On the moon we went all the way down to hall of wisdom and some bones area where there are shriekers and huge chains. The music down there was really good techno music that gets you real pumped. A great contrast to the calmer music in the surface area.

I am really excited to hear more in the full game. I don't say that much when it comes to games.

Riesen_Meal

jaxdasher wrote: »

The music is just superb. On the moon we went all the way down to hall of wisdom and some bones area where there are shriekers and huge chains. The music down there was really good techno music that gets you real pumped. A great contrast to the calmer music in the surface area.

I am really excited to hear more in the full game. I don't say that much when it comes to games.

Its Marty alright, I dunno what Bungie will do without him post Destiny 1...

He will be snapped up by 343 to make Halo music....

Interested to find out what part Paul Mc Cartney contributed to also....

Grayditch

The Crucible announcer is so, so bad.

MiskyBoyy

Grayditch wrote: »

The Crucible announcer is so, so bad.

Yep, sure feckin is!

They better change him or at least give the option to disable him in full game!

Grayditch

If I'm not mistaken he's laughing during one of the sound bites for the capture of A and then he sounds creepily worried on the one for B. I really hope he's a just some lad from the office being a placeholder, cause can't get over the oddness of him.

Gonzo

Ive goten as far as level 7 and done about 6 missions in Russia and one on the Moon and got up to the pvp missions. There does not seem to be any further progression in story, is this as far as the story mode goe's for the beta?
I really liked what I played so far, will definitely be buying this game.

MiskyBoyy

Gonzo wrote: »

Ive goten as far as level 7 and done about 6 missions in Russia and one on the Moon and got up to the pvp missions. There does not seem to be any further progression in story, is this as far as the story mode goe's for the beta?
I really liked what I played so far, will definitely be buying this game.

I think the level cap is 8 but yeah story wise that's about all for the beta. You can always try the missions you've already done on the hard difficulty.

MitchKoobski

Still surprised at the amount of people playing the Beta for 4-5 hours and then going "Is that it?"

Edit: To clarify, I mean people asking "is that all there is to it? There's not enough." It's basically a demo.

Riesen_Meal

MiskyBoyy wrote: »

Yep, sure feckin is!

They better change him or at least give the option to disable him in full game!

Bring back the Halo announcer, I miss "Killing Spree"....

And such gems as :

"Killi-man-jaro!"

LanceStorm

MitchKoobski wrote: »

Still surprised at the amount of people playing the Beta for 4-5 hours and then going "Is that it?"

me, completely underwhelmed by what i've played!

Gandalph

Can't believe beta is closed tonight I'm looking forward to this so much, if I even hear a sniff of it getting pushed back I'm going to throw apple pies at the house next door out of frustration.

Riesen_Meal

Gandalph wrote: »

Can't believe beta is closed tonight I'm looking forward to this so much, if I even hear a sniff of it getting pushed back I'm going to throw apple pies at the house next door out of frustration.

I don't think it will be put back after the beta, its already been put back once....

Mickeroo

What time is it closed tonight? I've probably put ten hours into it since friday if not more

.ak

Yeah I can't get into the game world... Just played the intro. It's pretty amazing looking I have to say.


One thing I would change from it is the yellow floating hit points when you shoot someone. It gives a 'mmo trying to be a fps' rather than a 'fps trying to be an mmo'. At the very least you should be able to turn it off in the settings.

EoinHef

.ak wrote: »

Yeah I can't get into the game world... Just played the intro. It's pretty amazing looking I have to say.


One thing I would change from it is the yellow floating hit points when you shoot someone. It gives a 'mmo trying to be a fps' rather than a 'fps trying to be an mmo'. At the very least you should be able to turn it off in the settings.

Be very hard to tell if your *criting the enemy without it,good indicator your hitting them in the right place.

EDIT: Sorry *critical hitting the enemy

calex71

.ak wrote: »

Yeah I can't get into the game world... Just played the intro. It's pretty amazing looking I have to say.


One thing I would change from it is the yellow floating hit points when you shoot someone. It gives a 'mmo trying to be a fps' rather than a 'fps trying to be an mmo'. At the very least you should be able to turn it off in the settings.

I assume you never played the borderlands games? those would likely send you to the looney bin with all the numbers on screen

The do serve a purpose though as said critical hits , elemental damage etc. they are very un-intrusive compared with Borderlands.

Nothing better than seeing a gold 1000+ in your scope when you headshot a captain !!!!!

Calling it a FPS is off the mark too (not saying you are just in general form what I saw elsewhere) , it definitely has RPG elements as well as other elements, FPS being one but it's really not an out and out FPS. I think those who were expecting Halo mark 2 were the ones most let down by it.

dan hibiki

aaaaaaaaand its closed.

Edit: no its not! servers just conked out for a bit.

SouthTippBass

dan hibiki wrote: »

aaaaaaaaand its closed.

Edit: no its not! servers just conked out for a bit.

tok9

I agree on the hit points.. Really like them in a cartoony looking game like Borderlands but for some reason I find they look out of place.

Not a big deal but i'd prefer if they weren't there.

Riesen_Meal

Not over yet according to Bungie :

https://mobile.twitter.com/Bungie/status/493510709901144064

The Destiny Beta is not over yet, even if it asked you to stop what you were doing. These crucial tests are the Beta endgame. Keep playing.

Penn

tok9 wrote: »

I agree on the hit points.. Really like them in a cartoony looking game like Borderlands but for some reason I find they look out of place.

Not a big deal but i'd prefer if they weren't there.

Only for them I'd never have defeated the Death walker thing. They can probably look a bit out of place against minor enemies, but they can serve enough of a purpose to warrant keeping them or at the very least be able to toggle them on and off.

Gandalph

Do I get the beta reward for participating in a golden event yesterday or has that been on every day for beta release? Killed one of those big spider bots in the exploration area, got a strange coin I think.