Rhymes With Geek

Do not look at the man behind the curtain!  Great Ceasar’s Ghost is the official column of RWG’s Editor-in-Chief J. Reifler.  A weekly glimpse into the mind of a man who makes this page run on time… sometimes.  This week we look at the DESTINY beta build on the PS4.  Read on, dear reader, read on!

This weekend I had a second date with Destiny. No not that questionable lady who hangs out at Applebees, but the much anticipated next-gen release from Bungie Studios. [Editor’s note:  with some hefty backing from Activision].  You might remember Bungie as that company responsible for a little game called Halo back in 2001.  In a world of first-person shooters Halo might seem a bit quaint (or even dated) but at the time it was simply groundbreaking.  This was the game responsible for piquing my interest in the Xbox back and online gaming for console systems.  Fast forward almost fourteen years and the gaming world sits on the eve of another major release.  However in a world of Titanfall, Call of Duty, and a million other games involving space marines the playing field has become much more crowded.  For Bungie to strike gold once again in the hearts of gamers it really had to pull out all the stops and create something transcendent.

Now keep in mind that this game isn’t actually out yet – the BETA build is simply open for a short period of time for select gamers (i.e. those who pre-ordered) to try out.  PS4 gamers lucked out with the first round starting July 17th.  Xbox gamers are invited to jump into the fray on the 23rd, and the entire ordeal ends on the 28th.  This time around in the next-gen lifecycle I picked up the PS4 so I was lucky enough to be on the ground floor for Destiny.  Full disclosure:  I was also invited to play the alpha but I forgot until the last minute and only was able to play for an hour or so.  With a limited time to explore with the BETA I knew I had to dedicate my weekend (and weekdays) to checking it out!

Destiny has a lot of hype surrounding it.  So much that I have to make sure I’m not repeating rumors vs. actual facts.  Destiny has a ton of cash behind it, 500 million, making it the most expensive game ever made.  It’s more expensive than the most expensive movies in recent memory.  It costs more than the budgets for Man of Steel and The Avengers films combined.  What do you get for that kind of money exactly?  Bungie promises an immersive, living world that combines the best elements of MMOs and FPSs; a fully-realized world full of rich and detailed characters; and the most advanced graphic and real-time dynamic lighting.  I’m not the writer to hash out the nuances of these claims.  However I do have two thumbs, a webpage and a beta code.  So let’s jump in!

My experience with BETA versions of games is fairly limited but I was immediately impressed with how polished the initial run through of Destiny felt.  I was expecting a buggy experience with characters freezing mid-frame and the game locking up.  None of of that happened.  The game boots right up to a fairly simple loading screen.  From there you are directed to create a character.  There’s three classes and three races to choose from each with their own unique skill set and physical characteristics.  The races can be summed up for you as Human, Awoken (glowing, pretentious elf) , and Exo (robot that pretends it is human).  The classes are Titan (fighter soldier), Hunter (rogue soldier), and Warlock (magical soldier).  Now Destiny puts some fancy names on these classes but I think my own summaries are most apt to what’s going on.  I picked a female glowing elf magical soldier.  The next screen is character customization and you can get pretty detailed.  I was able to pick hairstyle, skin tone, lip color and more.  This was the point where my girlfriend walked in the room and saw me experimenting with various lip shades for my magical elf soldier.  She rolled her eyes and walked out again when I asked for her input.  From here I was ready to BETA like nobody’s business.

The BETA drops you into a series of stages taking place in Russia.  The storyline is set thousands of years in the future.  Apparently Earth is now overrun by creepy aliens and only the hunters (aka players) can protect the planet.

I’m not sure why some of the humans are now robots or magical elf people.  I suppose after thousands of years we should be happy there is any dry land that isn’t irritated by nuclear war.  However it’s still pretty bleak as most of the world has been overrun by hostile aliens called the Flood the Hive.  There are also zombie-like monsters called the Fallen.  That’s cool with me though since you spend most of the game running around blasting these guys into nonexistence.  For some reason Peter Dinklage is there as a tiny robot the floats around you and gives advice, but hey, Bungie has 500 million dollars to spare.  When I played the alpha I remember thinking ‘Hey that guy kind of sounds like the guy from Game of Thrones except really bored”.  This time around Dinklage gives it a bit more “oomph” or maybe the voice acting has just grown on me.  Either way, that’s the voice you hear for the majority of the game so better get used to it.

The world of Destiny looks beautiful.  It’s scarred and rusted and falling apart but it’s still gorgeous and it’s the first time I’ve felt excited to own the PS4. I’ve been patiently waiting for a next-generation game that delivers on graphics and this is it.  The missions were pretty exciting and keep you running from point to point accomplishing various objectives.  The majority of the missions require you to storm and enemy stronghold or in the alternative, hold off invaders that are trying to overrun your position.  The world is quite large in Destiny and the Bungie team was smart to hook every player up with a floating motorbike that takes you where you need to go quickly.  It’s pretty easy to handle although it has no offensive capabilities.  I’d prefer to be able to blast some aliens or at least ram them with the bike Grand Theft Auto style but that’s just a minor quibble.  As you move forward your character picks up a lot of gear and weaponry from fallen enemies.  This is where the MMO/RPG aspect really starts to set Destiny apart from many shooters.  The armor can be modified and upgraded and there really is a lot of variety of how you customize your characters gear.  Appearance also changes based on the armor being worn.  That all was nice but the irony is that the character wears a helmet for most of the game.  After spending so much time on the facial appearance it really doesn’t matter much; I am sure that my girlfriend is very happy about this.

When you are not fighting through scores of enemies, players can return to the homebase (simply called The City) where items can be broken down and traded in for other things.  Here is where some of the rendering and graphics really impressed me.  The City is a cool hub and while there’s a lot to do I was mostly happy to run around and scope the scenery.  Lighting changes from night to day and I thought it was a cool spot.  I wold have liked to be able to explore a little more but I’m sure that will expand as the full version of the game is released.  The other main play mode is the Crucible.  This is where most of the PvP occurs and where I tend to get my ass kicked when playing video games.  I’ll level up a character and feel super cool and then just get humiliated by middle-school kids as I fail to provide any real assistance to the team during battles.  I was happy to find that the matchmaking system kind of took care of these issues and I felt like I was doing better than usual this first time around.  Perhaps this was simply due to the short time the beta was open and the fact that nobody could dedicate weeks at a time to mastering the moves.  The only game style I played was a zone control (capture the flag) type match.  The level wasn’t anything too impressive but I enjoyed seeing the three combat styles interact.  My Warlock magical elf seemed to hold her own here and her special move (a giant radius blast) helped me even the score a few times.  By playing the actual game for a while I managed to pick up a few weapons that stood out and helped me push forward.  It seems like players can get unique items both by playing PvP and the regular game modes.  That encourages people to try both play-types and should keep the game interesting for quite some time.

Destiny was a fun play though and I definitely plan on picking up the full version of the game when it’s released.  With a beta you cannot really comment in depth on the story.  It seems fairly generic to be honest with references to ‘the darkness’ and ‘guardians’ and other kind of

tropey video game stuff that doesn’t really present anything new.  But at the same time I just want something that looks and plays great and keeps me entertained.  When you have a massively interactive world sometimes it’s better to keep things open ended and let people fill in the blanks with their own imagination.  I hope to see a little more depth but it’s not enough to turn me off from the game at this point.  Really the highlights were the gameplay and graphics.  Levels were engaging and kept me occupied.  While Russia (and the various stages within it) got a bit repetitive after a few hours I’m sure there will be more variety coming soon.  The screens and videos released for the moon look impressive and hopefully there will be a large amount of additional environments to explore.

It’s really too soon to tell whether Destiny will ‘change the face of gaming’ or even be worth 500 million dollars. The BETA was certainly polished and engaging.  I enjoyed the experience and will probably spend the sixty dollars that games cost these days.  The question is whether 15 million people will do the same.  It seems to me that a lot of hopes are riding on this game as many people say that PC gaming is the way of the future and that console gaming will be reduced to party-games and home theater system management.  I picked the PS4 because I wanted to get in on the ground floor of console gaming with a company that seems committed to doubling down on the idea that consoles are for gamers not media.  We’ll see what the future brings but it all seems to start with Destiny!