Lots of people felt misled about Halo 2. (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Sunday, January 08, 2017, 15:06 (2875 days ago) @ Xenos

Totally understand your feelings in that regard, and that's a completely valid opinion to have. Most people who complain about changes had problems with the things you mentioned that you don't care about, which is why I brought up the Halo 2 E3 presentation. I actually think the comparison between the two is pretty valid because neither E3 presentation I think had large stuff change before launch, but people were upset that the feel and style that was presented wasn't 100% representative of the final product.

I can definitely understand the comparison you're making there. I never took issue with the E3 presentation from either game, but, again, I take issue with some of the things they said about Destiny--namely that campaign stuff. And again, sure, they technically didn't lie. You can totally play through the campaign by yourself, but I feel pretty safe in saying that most people wouldn't say it comes close to equaling any Halo campaign, which, although they may not have said it, I feel they definitely implied that's what we were getting.j

I also totally had a blast completing the Destiny campaign (and every campaign after that) by myself, and I still do. Is the in-game story fantastic in the original campaign? Not really. But I had a lot of fun. If you didn't then that's fine.

I had fun, too. Sure, the lack of story bugged me, and still does, but I also don't think the level and encounter design holds up to any Halo game, and that's what bums me out. Where's anything like Assault on the Control Room, where's Delta Halo, where's The Ark? I think a large part of this is that all of my favorite Halo levels have cool vehicle sections, and all the vehicles in Destiny are half-baked at best and downright awful at worst. It still blows my mind that the folks that created the Warthog and the Banshee didn't give us an cool vehicles to play with. But even disregarding vehicles, I don't think there are any encounters that can rival the best Halo had to offer, and it's a shame. With so many different enemy factions, there's a ton of potential for cool encounters, but Destiny just doesn't do anything there (for me). I played through the entire Destiny campaign feeling like it was all set up, and the first amazing encounter was just around the corner, and despite it being longer than any Halo, it was over before it ever felt like it got started and nothing truly cool happened.

Again, I realize that's just a matter of opinion and taste, but I seriously cannot remember more than a handful of specific encounters in Destiny, literally nothing stands out. One of my favorite moments is meeting the Cabal for the first time, and that's not even particularly interesting. The first encounter with the Vex could be cool, but that area is a painful mess to move around in, so that doesn't work.

I feel like a broken record now, but I definitely don't hate Destiny, and I definitely don't begrudge anyone for really loving it. I just don't think it's the game we were led to believe it was, and even over the last two years, I've become less and less interested in what it actually is, and what Bungie seemingly wants it to be. I have next to no interest in an always online game with encounters with random players in the world--I don't feel like sacrificing a good Halo style campaign for that is a good trade off, and I likely never will.