About Four Hours of Destiny

I had a chance to play some Destiny today, thanks to a friend with a spare beta key. I think the game will end up being very well received, and I think it's in the right to get the praise coming its way. It's a beautiful game. The landscapes are impressive and the characters themselves are extremely pleasant to look at. The non-enemy characters I had a chance to see were all pretty different in design. The enemies were mostly the same, but I also only played for about four hours, so take that as you will.

I didn't touch the PvP at all.

Guns were fun to use. You could sprint at a pretty good speed, and jumping was satisfying. Melee, I found, was the second most enjoyable part of the game. The first is the Sparrow (the hover bike thing). Man, I loved controlling that craft. Wouldn't mind an entire game devoted to piloting a similar craft over all kinds of places. That kind of game would hit both the exploration and the flow aspects of gaming which are two I enjoy immensely.

The thing is, while it seems like a really good game, I'm not sure it's worth getting a console to play it on. I guess if all my friends jump into the world with the Traveler and start to play it with each other, that would likely make the game worth it. I appreciate what it seems like they are trying to do with the last city, making it sort of the social hub for all players. I like that a lot. But it's definitely a game best played with others.

I did notice, while walking around the last city, that the game doesn't really feel like an MMO or a single player game. That weirded me out a bit. I know that the Destiny team has been telling people from the beginning that it's not an MMO, but I just assumed they were trying to be edgy and catch people's attention. Thing is, I don't think it is an MMO. But there are other players that you don't know walking about, both in the social hub and while out on missions. That was cool. It was like a drastically less awesome Journey experience. Still cool though.

My brother said that it's a lot more open world than I treated it, but I killed myself going to places the game didn't want me to too many times for me to believe him. Maybe I was still working through a tutorial kind of thing, where not all portions of the map are available or something. Maybe him and I have a different definition for what is and isn't enough open world.

I still haven't decided on it one way or another, which is probably a good thing for my wallet. I wasn't blown away by the game immediately, but I was impressed, and I can see it being very elaborate and something I've just skimmed the surface of. We'll see as time goes by.

In other news, my LG G3 is treating me wonderfully. Great phone. Would recommend looking into it if you're scanning the market for a new smartphone. Powerful, pretty, and simple.