Just started playing the Beta tonight after waiting over 24 hours for my verification email from Bungie. I never did get that email, so I ended up downloading the game when Bungie made it freely available for all players. It's ridiculous. I'm an Xbox gamer, so I already missed out on the entire Alpha and a third of the Beta by default, but now I miss almost another third of the Beta because Bungie.net can't get their shit together? I know it's a Beta and they're strained and the whole point of public Betas is to test things like this, but for the love of God, did they just not plan for a high volume of applicants? I still haven't received a reply of any kind from Bungie, by the way, not even an automated alert that the Beta has gone public.

So right out of the gate, I only get to play the Beta for two days and some spare change. That's a pretty negative way to start the whole Beta experience.

Fortunately, the game itself is amazing, and totally worth all the horse-shit I had to wade through to get it on my console.

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Unorganized preliminary thoughts:

PROS:
* The game is absolutely beautiful.
* A persistent character and persistent world begets tangible player progression. I like being able to upgrade skills and buy new gear. We got a hint of this system in Reach with the Armory, but Bungie went full RPG this time around, and I couldn't be happier about it.
* Explore mode is the best thing ever.
* The Strike mission was a magnificent challenge, especially going it alone. *gulp*
* The lore is very intriguing, and what little we know about the story seems like it will be interesting as well. In particular, I want to know more about the factions. Hopefully, Bungie has given story the attention and prominence that it deserves.
* The cutscenes and voice acting (well, most of it) have taken a quantum leap beyond anything Bungie has ever done.
* Unbelievably fluid and addicting gameplay. I'm amazed how well Bungie has pulled this off. Matchmaking is seamless with the sole exception of the Crucible (but more on the Crucible later) and enemy encounters feel as polished and tailored to the player as they did in the Halo campaigns... even when I run over to a battle in progress or join in on a random Fireteam midway through their mission, it still feels absolutely seamless.
* The Tower is wacky and useful all at the same time. The merchants provide valuable upgrades and the Speaker gives important story information while your fellow Guardians climb trees, kick soccer balls around, and stage impromptu dance-offs. The Tower is everything I hoped it would be.
* In a broad sense, I enjoy the sense of adventure and fun this game presents to the player. It's epic and engrossing, but it doesn't take itself too seriously and it never goes grimdark on you. This is a social game and a hopeful story. It's a nice change of pace from the endless stream of A Space Marine Is You and Modern Warfare shooters.
* Somehow, it just feels like it's not a shooter. I mean, it is a shooter, obviously, but it feels like an adventure RPG shooter MMO smorgasbord. I like that feeling of freshness and newness.
* Last but not least...
* THE MUSIC, OH GOD THE MUSIC IS PERFECT, WHY DID THEY FIRE MARTY, IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN

CONS:
* I don't find the Crucible to be very fun at all. It's easily the most disappointing aspect of the game. I thought it was way too fast-paced, even more than Halo 4, which really threw me for a loop. Halo was always strategic and balanced, more or less, but this is a complete mess. Half the time, I'm not even sure how I died.
* While I enjoy the story missions and believe them to be very well-made, they aren't as cinematic as I thought or hoped they would be. I'm not asking for cutscenes and elaborate dialogue in every mission, but it would be nice to have some sense of importance attached to what you're doing. Most of the time, all we get is Dinklage telling us "there are some Fallen/Hive in this cave/building and the Speaker says we should check it out." It just feels mundane.
* Speaking of story, the Beta didn't have too much in the way of actual plot. I almost didn't include this, because I know it's a Beta and Bungie are probably just playing things close to the vest for now, but it bothered me enough that I decided to mention it anyway. Explore mode is the most glaring offender here. Don't get me wrong, I love Explore mode. I spent more time playing it tonight than I did anything else, but it is almost entirely devoid of story. After playing it for a long period of time, I became highly conscious of the fact that I was playing a video game rather than exploring an ancient frontier. It would be nice if Bungie threw a few more story bits in there to make the experience more immersive. Nothing major, of course, just something to add to the lore. It's Explore mode, after all, and it's all about completing odd jobs for the Tower factions. I like doing that stuff and I don't want it to change. I just feel like some more Dinklage commentary would spice things up, especially when it comes to things like scanning fighter jet wreckage or old computer data, or the presence of the Hive on Earth. Throwing some story in there would make Explore mode feel far less like a video game and more like a living breathing world. (And no, the Grimoire doesn't count. Lore needs to actually be in the game.)
* This is a nitpick, but there should be more facial customization options. I would like to have a wider variety of faces to choose from, and BEARDS are a must. How else am I supposed to build my Sage Merrill lookalike character?
* Dinklage still sounds like he's phoning his performance in. I know it's been said before, but goddamn, it's like he's purposely trying not to emote at all. Maybe he was going for dry and sarcastic, except his dialogue doesn't lend itself to that tone at all, so it just comes off like he's not even trying. The voice manipulation and robot sound effects do help, but they can't disguise all of it. There are still glaring moments when Dinklage sounds like he'd rather be anywhere else than a recording booth. It's such a shame because the rest of the voice acting is brilliant. All of it. Just not Dinklage.

Letter Grades:
The Tower = A+
Explore = A+
Strike = A
Story Missions = B+ or A-, I'm still making up my mind.
The Crucible = C
Story & Lore = None. (It's very intriguing, but not explored sufficiently in the Beta. Hopefully, story will be given attention in the final product. Based on what I've seen so far, it gets at least an A- as long as it's given enough prominence.)

Just started playing the Beta tonight after waiting over 24 hours for my verification email from Bungie. I never did get that email, so I ended up downloading the game when Bungie made it freely available for all players. It's ridiculous. I'm an Xbox gamer, so I already missed out on the entire Alpha and a third of the Beta by default, but now I miss almost another third of the Beta because Bungie.net can't get their shit together? I know it's a Beta and they're strained and the whole point of public Betas is to test things like this, but for the love of God, did they just not plan for a high volume of applicants? I still haven't received a reply of any kind from Bungie, by the way, not even an automated alert that the Beta has gone public.

Stupid question maybe, but did you check your spam folder?

Yes.

And I strongly disagree with you. The Crucible is a very strategic affair. Keeping in mind which movement options you have along with how to use your grenades/special weapon most effectively is super important.

Also HEAVY AMMO drops are super important.

Scout rifle as primary, sniper rifle as secondary. (Dat hunter life, yo.) I don't remember what my heavy was, but I never used it because I kept dying too fast.

Sorry I can't be more specific about the make of the guns. I just started playing tonight. =/

The key locations in the beta are all short-mid range (trust me, I never spend more than a few seconds somewhere where someone has the advantage on me with a scout/pulse rifle. At the point I'm on someone with a scout rifle, they'll have to have fired first and not miss a single shot, otherwise I'm mowing them down with the AR.

Here's my legend page in case you're wondering.

Also, be prepared to change your weapon loadouts depending on the situation and map. On First Light (Moon), my wife seemed to do better with the hand canon and sniper rifle. However those weapons are terribly ineffective on Shores of Time (Venus). My favorite weapons on that map are the Auto Rifle and the Fusion Rifle. The fusion rifle is kind of like a mid-range shotgun crossed with the Halo 4 railgun. It's range is ideally suited to most of the areas of that map.

I've enjoyed control, but I really want to try out some other game types.

Just started playing the Beta tonight after waiting over 24 hours for my verification email from Bungie. I never did get that email, so I ended up downloading the game when Bungie made it freely available for all players. It's ridiculous. I'm an Xbox gamer, so I already missed out on the entire Alpha and a third of the Beta by default, but now I miss almost another third of the Beta because Bungie.net can't get their shit together? I know it's a Beta and they're strained and the whole point of public Betas is to test things like this, but for the love of God, did they just not plan for a high volume of applicants? I still haven't received a reply of any kind from Bungie, by the way, not even an automated alert that the Beta has gone public.

Maybe this was why they've been prompting us to get our beta codes and redeem them for weeks ahead of time--to avoid this kind of bottleneck, if that's what it is. I know you just got a beta code Wednesday, but getting one was really trivial from Amazon, although that could take a day or so. Did you have a profile already set up on Bungie.net? Sounds like this might have been some kind of snafu with that that has nothing to do with the beta. Deej has said they wish it could be less complicated, and maybe offering it to everyone was one way to alleviate the problem of having too many hoops to jump through in the limited time that is left.

I think most people who redeemed their codes before the beta start dates were pleased to get their download codes a day earlier than they were expecting.

I feel like Bungie, and indeed a lot of industry is falling into the trap of relying on name recognition for voice actors instead of actual vocal ability.

There are a few supremely talented voice actors out there who have name power, like Mark Hamil, Hank Azaria, Billy West, etc, but for the most part the really good voice actors are not the stars. I mean, look at the Simpsons, and realize that about 7 people do the voices for the entire cast of characters, yet each character is so unique and recognizable, with their own personality. Back in the day you had guys like Mel Blanc, who was dubbed the man of a thousand voices. Would Futurama be as fun if "Good News Everyone!" were exclaimed in the voice of Joseph Gordon Levit playing himself, instead of Billy West actually doing a voice?

Listen to Deej in that tower walkthrough video, as he emphasizes the voice casting for all the various venders. (Worst of all, he expects fans to be able to guess the actor). What ends up happening when you rely on star power, is that the voice actors tend to play themselves, so it's recognizable to the audience. What's funnier is that these are barely peripheral characters in the game world! That's not true in every case, but it is for most. As a result, you tend not to do your characters and you work justice by finding and crafting the perfect voice that makes the character.

It was a huge problem in Hollywood a while back, so much so that the 3D characters would actually end up looking like their actors somewhat. I understand it a bit more in Hollywood, since star power sells movies, but in the world of Video Games the Studio name sells the games. Once you have 'Bungie', it doesn't matter whom they cast. Perhaps just one more case of film envy from the games industry, without thinking about the consequences.

Further stupid question. Did you check the Codes tab on your Bnet profile? I redeemed two Beta tokens, but only got an email for the first set of three. Bnet had all six codes ready and waiting though.

I think most people who redeemed their codes before the beta start dates were pleased to get their download codes a day earlier than they were expecting.

No. I was psyched.

To be honest I've had no issue with the voice cast so far.

I too have a problem with large (often excessively so) expenditure on famous voices when that money could maybe go elsewhere, but since it's already been done and its too late to change, I've been quite enjoying it. Realising I recognise a lot if the voices instantly warmed me to the characters, and gave me a sense of attachment I might not otherwise have had (or at least not so quickly).

Of course, it depends how much interaction I'll be having with them. As vendor voices (Black, Stormare) I consider them just nice easter eggs. More key characters obviously have more to live up to, and need to do so without being distracting, which is potentially the biggest problem for me. All I could think diring that first Speaker cutscene was "Is that Bill Nighy? I think that's Bill Night!". Had to rewatch it to find out what was actually being said.

Try out the Graviton Ese shotgun on Shores of Time too. The impact is low enough that it might put you off, but its only two shots to kill from outside of melee range, same as the other shotguns, and the rate of fire is waaaaay better than the other shotties.

I'll give it a try, thanks!

Day two has fared better for the Crucible, now that I've actually gotten to play the Venus map for any length of time. I retract my earlier harsh criticism of the mode (although it does still deserve criticism, just not so harsh) and give it a solid B grade.

I started with that load out and repeatedly got destroyed. On Luna, a sniper rifle is ok but you really want a pulse or auto rifle for a primary.

On Venus I've found some moderate success with a shotgun and an auto rifle. By moderate of course I mean I haven't managed to win a single match, but I'm often top of my team as a consolation prize.