My Destiny Kindavew (Now with words!) (Destiny)
That’s \ Kī nd-a-vü\. It’s like a review – only kinda. OF COURSE I CAN DO THAT WHO SAID I CAN’T
Sitrep
I don’t have a PS4. Nor do I have a PS3. In fact that only time I had a PlayStation was when it was called exactly that. Hours lost to Crash Bandicoot, there were other games but I don’t recall the names. The irony in all of this is if it wasn’t for Xbox – I wouldn’t be here (A story in of its self – keyword Halomods), yet now I needed a PS4 to get an initial early chance to play (and help) all things Destiny. I circumvented this lack of a PS4 due to the courtesy of a friend of a friend who VERY generously gave me his Ps4 for the day. So I got to play 12 hours straight of pure destiny. I was unable to see Bungie.net wise what I got, but I think my Grimore score was around 325 – 350. Around that range. No idea if that means anything.
Gameplay
This is the part where I go “the game play was good” and it felt like some other game and so forth. Wow /s. To me the strength of gameplay is best measured by the war stories that can be made and to leave the interpretation to the reader. The particular elements of the gameplay will have their own particular slots. So without further ado here are my top two …
War Stories
I only played for twelve hours – yet I already have so much to say.
Where to start…
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I was traveling along the fallen coast, when suddenly in the lower left hand screen I saw a plot of text. It said “A band of Pikes have been detected in your area” or something to that effect. This perplexed me – because I was at the point trying to get out of the map (ALPHA!) and was up really high, and couldn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary. I took out my sniper and scoped the area, thinking that perhaps the reason I couldn't see anything was draw distance. Still I saw nothing out of the ordinary. “I wonder what that means.” I asked myself, and figuring I was in a wrong vantage point – jumped down. The MOMENT I landed I heard a unfamiliar sound, three red dots in the peripheral of my radar. I turn to find Three Fallen on Pikes (vehicles ‘bit lager then a sparrow with guns), zipping over a hill airborne and were coming straight at me! Oh-Shi* I jumped, as they whizzed off. Quickly I got onto my sparrow with intent to chase them down – moving as fast as I could, yet they disappeared from my sight – but had a feeling they would be back. The hunt was on.
I jumped onto a grounded boat, made distance up, found a vantage point and waited.
A few minutes past, and the roving pray returned. As they zoomed by I aimed my scope on the straggler, and made speed of its direction. I make the shot. The bullet flew like a hawk and * Bam * dropped ‘im – leaving one pike free. “Can I drive it?” Yep. I chased down the other two and made quick work of them with the pikes repeating guns.
I was in the area where the large scepter shaped … I don’t know … ships? pods? crushed a nearby building. I’m having fun just running around in circles capping both Hive and Fallen alike – sometimes stopping to watch them duke it out. … Ya know… I would love to see some occasional animations for this just to help with the immersion factor – a la Reach assassination but AI vs AI. Just having the A.I standing/running around just shooting each other is kind of dull.
Now where was I? ... Oh! Yes, I’m cappen’ foos both hive and fallen alike when suddenly things get very dark very fast to the point of being jarring. Apparently this area I am in (for which I never – not once – saw any one else) is equipped for a Public Event. This event is to protect the Warsaw… or whatever. Some Slayertastic King of the Hill. I run over and trigger the event. I turn at 50 or so degrees above my eyeline, though a dark ink in the sky a ship with a design a Borg would find relevant bricks its way through like a sliding platform. Its cargo is let loose, and forth the hive seeks my light like some rabid dog to flesh. So I, ever the gentlemen scholar, do what warlocks do best. To say this battle was fierce would be an understatement for the hive showed no break to afford me quarter; Be they hallowed or wizard or vivacious fodder.
Even then as I tackled this foe I was forced to tackle another. I was flanked – quite well I might add, by a Fallen captain and its ilk. Unabated, I push back and ever the lone wolf I seek my prize and hold my station. I’m mere seconds away from my prize, my clip is low, and my light recharging. My fists and motion therein are all that sate my life in action, yet in the middle of this fight from the inky blackness implying a swift death comes again in the form of a ship, a platform for destruction. I literally have a bad feeling about this, the fight should be winding down – I’m so close. They show no quarter. What this ship contains implies my end. What must be several high rank Hallowed Knights and THREE… yes THREE Hive Wizards descend upon me like flack cannons upon the lone airplane – I act as I can but with no ammo left but standard I know it futile. Shit. Checkmate. I lob my grenade and throw my seconds young light and glide out to dodge the very impressive mass of flak three Hive wizards can throw. I find cover and hold it – I know that if move from it I die and watch the countdown show how long till safety.
I get silver – not bad. But now when the time comes I will return to that spot and I will return what I was given.
Weapon/Ammo Management
Wow – there a lot of guns. Each hand crafted by the digital artisans at Bungie (I typed that with DeeJs “Bungie Community Theatre” voice.) Here is the nitpick problem I forsee.
There are two of them.
- While I was playing I got really attached to a weapon (which I upgraded to full). Since I liked the weapon I didn’t want to switch it because I didn't want to lose it in the swath of other weapons. For the sake of “get to the point” - I want a comments section for my guns. Yes I am totally serous. It doesn't have to be enough for an essay (sorry bluerunner), but just enough to add “punchy” “Don’t use against hive” or “Meh”. Something to help me organize what guns I liked with guns I didn't like. I want to be able to at a glance (and even in detail) to hover over a weapon and know if I have ever used it before (in case I get duplicates which I did get a few times in my play through), and what I thought of it at the time. Or – if that is too much, give me the ability to “star it” so I can go and see what is my preferred gun, so when I switch it around I will always know which is which at a glance. In doing so makes it not possible for me to break it down for scrap (which I did a few times as I was learning the controls). That’s the gist of the idea anyway.
- As stated above I was able to upgrade a gun to full, pushing its attack to… 108 if I recall correctly. This was really cool – but I request that in the screen in the background you show what the original attack damage was and how it is being pushed up. The reason for this is while I was playing I got my same weapon but it had a really high attack number. It was lower than my upgraded one – but I kept asking my self – If I am able to upgrade this one will it be higher or lower? ..*!*... or even you could show what the upgrade would do stats wise to the weapon. That would help too.
In the end I am simply asking for assistance in my decision making of what guns a keep, what guns I scrap, and how I organize it.
Strikes
All I am requesting for this is randomly hidden cashes of high grade weapon ammo. A few times while playing the enemies didn’t drop anything good and it made an already long test ever more arduous. And more cover. ._.
Exploring
I mentioned it already in my Pictocalypse, but I love exploring. All I ask is for the ability to toggle my flashlight. Some places got REALLY dark and the auto flashlight thing did not help.
Competitive
I only played one game just to see what It was like. Is there a way I can get the fancy armors without playing this game type? (I will be too busy exploring to bother)
The Tower
I tried to sitdown in the seats but I could not. This is obviously a bug. I don’t know why but I have a feeling that the ability to have my avatar sit in an actual chair and so that a fire team could just chat about the next plan of attack would be one of those really small nice things to have. /nitpick
Enemies
Bit dull at some points, but I attribute this to the alpha. Amongst the few AI that stood in the open and took it, were the few that ran towards cover, or flanked my position. In all I like the direction, the “different” battle flavors each general group and look forward (perhaps in ignorance) to seeing the others that we have yet to confront. Also the Vex.
Personalization
Praise and Distain. With the little that we had access to, the quality was very much top notch – so no surprises. Yet with as high quality as these things were, the variety and style seemed lacking. Oh shit now I sound like such a critic … What the fu*k does that even mean? It means Red and Yellow but no Blue. It means tempo without pitch. It means that as high of the quality for which we had it seemed that they all had the same base. I guess technically they do, so I suppose what I am asking for is diversity in the base. Give me things that show character. The blind eye, or the head gash was a nice touch – help me put that extra bit to my story. To my legend. Give me the option to make my gear more me. I saw the potential for this of course, but having been unable to witness it for myself, shall presume it limited to what I interpreted.
Your Ship
I noticed that when people link up – there no longer is a ship flying by to announce their entrance like we saw in E3. Was this cut or “fancy E3” fakery?
Art
Teach me your ways. I know this means I make nurnies and greebles for six months. And coffee. And even be that guy with the monocle serving red bull on a silver platter (you have those right?). Help a shadow become light.
Oh - did I just type that obvious metaphor out loud?
Time Of Day
The Friends
I have no friends. But that's ok... with long arms I can hug myself. Alone. :(
/wellshitthatsdepressing
Anything Else?
Something called the Architect blinded and killed me when I tried to get out of the map. If it is going to kill me can you make it so that it doesn’t hurt the entire time it’s doing such. Yea – thanks.
Edit: OH! One more thing. A few times I was with some randoms, we didn't team up but were kind of following one another then suddenly we just fade way into the net. If there is someone on the map, and I am about to cross over into another zone, it would be nice if we could get an on screen warning.
Is it just me or are all the images borked?
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They work.
They're gifs. Could be your weird Brazilian internet. :P
Great writeup!
Chrome is giving up on loading them
Anyone got hints on how to extend Chrome's "try loading that" time?
Not quite
The i.minus image hosting service is kicking back 503 errors. Could be a problem with a portion of their CDN.
Nope. I can see them just fine in Chrome.
That said, the images are just extra bit of flair. They aren't important.
Can you try re-hosting them on imgur?
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Can't edit. Sorry.
Again...the pictures don't matter to the context of the text.
http://i.minus.com/ipnjWNp7jua94.gif
http://i.minus.com/ibrpa2jZENr5Np.gif
http://i.minus.com/ix6TRgqj8EJS9.gif
http://i.minus.com/ivld23WFR0aX.gif
They are all too big to be put on imgur currently.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
This issue has been noted.
It's working now.. Odd
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+1 for sitting on the plush leather
It's the obvious thing to do (why have chairs if you can't sit on them? And they look so comfy.). I tried backing my Guardian up to a sofa and then tried to sit. She moved away from the sofa and sat on the floor. Maybe she was raised by wolves or something.
I did manage once to get her perched on a sofa but it was her ordinary sitting pose; it wasn't a sitting on a chair pose.
Bungie: please implement proper chair sitting animations.
The place to sit back is the gimbal room.
There's a circular "bench" running along the rim of the gimbal circle, perfectly-scaled for sitting down on.
Again: I was raised by wolves...
I sat in the centre of the spikey pit directly beneath the steam punk hologram generator.
It was surprisingly comfortable.
+1 for sitting on the plush leather
It's the obvious thing to do (why have chairs if you can't sit on them? And they look so comfy.). I tried backing my Guardian up to a sofa and then tried to sit. She moved away from the sofa and sat on the floor. Maybe she was raised by wolves or something.
I did manage once to get her perched on a sofa but it was her ordinary sitting pose; it wasn't a sitting on a chair pose.
Bungie: please implement proper chair sitting animations.
I have to say I did try perching my guardian on the seats in the New Monarchy area.
Agree that it could be cool to have "interactive sit functionality" added; though I wouldn't give it the highest of priorities.
+1 for sitting on the plush leather
Bungie: please implement proper chair sitting animations.
Ultra MLG: Musical Chairs
*Ahem*
+1 for sitting on the plush leather
Maybe she was raised by wolves or something.
I think this one was raised by my dog.
Heh.
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LOL
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Hahaha!
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Haters Gonna.
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That's Yogic Flying; It's all down to breath control.
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