Reviews continue to roll in [Polygon] (Destiny)

by Zeouterlimits, Ireland, Friday, September 12, 2014, 10:19 (3735 days ago)

Note: Polygon in particular are known to update their review as a game evolves

Polygon

I think it's worth grabbing a few choice quotes, before people look at the score and flip tables, there is lots more to read on the site itself.

"employing a pair of writers coming to the game from two somewhat different perspectives"
Gies - "fan of Bungie's work with Halo and am one of the most shooter-oriented players on staff"
Kollar - "has poured thousands of hours into a diverse array of MMOs over the last decade plus, in addition to enjoying the Halo series"

"the suggestion, through Destiny's concept, its soundtrack and its visual presentation, that Destiny is big. That there's a whole universe out there to explore, a reality worth discovering.

There isn't, though."

"Destiny's basic mechanics and controls — movement, jumping, shooting, and melee combat — are sound. In fact, Destiny might have the most fun melee attack I've played in a shooter in farther-back-than-recent memory. The act of firing and aiming while navigating environments is fine, and it could be the basis for a great shooter. It could be, that is, if not for the underwhelming encounters that define Destiny from start to finish."

"fights are not fun. They are not rewarding. They do not make any sense, and if there's a trick to beating them more expediently, Destiny is criminally uninterested in communicating that information. Beating these bosses rarely felt like the fist-pumping triumph I imagine someone thought they might be. Instead, my teammates and I were relieved that it was over."

"Bungie has crafted an astoundingly beautiful and detailed series of ruined worlds to support that fiction, but Destiny seems scared of taking players to the most interesting parts. That devastated city you can see on the skyline? It's going to remain a background fixture while you're stuck running through bland, look-alike factories and "warbases" over and over."

"The awful, jargon-heavy dialogue doesn't provide enough context to flesh out these been-there, done-that video game locales ... result is a plot that feels rushed even though it never seems to go anywhere."

"Beyond the brief, unsatisfying story missions... boss encounters are terrible. With very few exceptions, boss enemies take an absurd amount of damage and require no real strategy beyond avoiding their massive one-hit-kill shots. "

"I endured the tedious slog of these strikes over and over but rarely felt rewarded for my time. Whether you're playing in story missions or strikes, Destiny is miserly with loot drops. "

Re: The Raid

"we'll update the review if it has a major impact on my feelings. But a single new raid isn't going to solve the severe problem the game has regarding its limited amount of dull, overused content.

"It wants to eat its cake as a shooter, and have the longevity of an MMO — but it lacks the combat sophistication of the former, and the deep well of content native to the latter."

6/10

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Now I'm only level 12, so I have a good way to go [damn work!], but I can't say I find any of their opinions too surprising.

Not to say I fully agree with them, I am definitely having fun with the game, but I can see that the narrative is pretty weak, both the structure of the plot and the writing itself feel .. jarring and half-there.
Combat wise, I've had come across both poor and good encounters. The AI does feel more simplistic than Halo's, enemies are a lot better at either waiting to shoot or poke their head around their cover.
That's not to say the game is easier, their weapons & numbers can really sting, sometimes in cool ways, when you clear out a sudden wave of Hive Thralls and a few Acolytes and Knight follow in their wake, making for some fun tense battles, if not quite as satisfying as the encounters in previous Bungie titles.

I can only imagine the Devil Walker strike is similar to how it was in the beta, in which is was me and two friends hiding 30 metres away and pouring all the bullets we had into each leg and reviving the person who would eventually be caught by its one-hitter while retrieving ammo from the spawning in minions.

It definitely felt like a relief upon its fall, but I don't know if that slog was really a bad thing, we did enjoy how difficult it was, the amount of relief we felt added to the overall enjoyment of the victory.

The drop rate, I do agree, is low, or at least low compared to other loot games? It is significantly less that Diablo or Borderlands. Is that to make each piece of loot feel more significant? Because I'm not sure it succeeds, especially when half the loot I get is equal to / slightly less than the loot I already have. Or if is better (numerically) than what I have already, it might be a weapon I'm not interested in using, which is less damaging when you're getting loot out of almost every critter.

So again, I'm enjoying the game, but not surprised by this review.