Played a little ODST today... (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Saturday, October 11, 2014, 14:06 (3933 days ago)

...and came a way with a few conclusions about Destiny:

1. As much as I loved the strength of Halo's shooting and combat cycle, especially Halo 1, ODST, and Reach which I feel are the best in that area, Destiny's 30 seconds of fun are better. The movement modes, the unique classes, even the aiming down the sight make Destiny a better shooter.

2. While I'd put Reach with it's better engine and more motion-captured animations at the top of the Halo series, I was struck by how... inferior ODST's animations were. Cutscene animations were noticeably not nearly as good as future titles, but even combat animations weren't as good either. At one point I remarked to myself it felt like I was fighting posable Halo action figure in that all the enemies felt more like limited motion toys than the alien creatures they were meant to be. It was kinda neat to see how far Bungie's combat animation and ragdoll systems have come since ODST.

3. New Mombasa now feels kinda small. Not that it was ever some huge Skyrim or Fallout 3 type environment, but even the biggest sections of the city streets will fit in any given section of Old Russia. Its really quite something to walk down the repeating streets of Old Mombasa and then compare it to the unique spaces upon unique spaces that make up each of Destiny's four worlds. Keep your sparrow on your ship sometime if you haven't and talk a walk in Destiny. It's worth it.

That said, the unique mission environments that you can't go back to in ODST, like the Uplift Reserve, make a strong case for not having every mission take place in the open world. I found myself liking the way ODST let me revisit places in the city in the day and night but also how it spun off the unique and sizable missions for the flashback sequences.

4. Bungie is the king of skyboxes and has been for years and years. Maybe since 2001 when that Halo ring first arching up overhead. ODST is no exception. The stormy, red-lit clouds of Uplift Reserve, the blue energy filled sky of Buck's first mission, and the awe inspiring drop down into the atmosphere as an ODST are all exceptional. As are Destiny's skies with The Traveler, or Mars' moons. Not really a for or against either game here, just more than I'm always wowed by Bungie's skybox work.

5. As good as Destiny's graphics, and combat cycle, and animations, and big unique-from-one-end-to-the-other environments are... there's unfortunately a lot missing:

- In world events and animations: The ODST drop at the beginning of the game is, as mentioned, pretty amazing. The New Mombasa space elevator crumbling before you is very epic and memorable. Later the Covenant Supercarrier glassing the city in the distance is pretty cool even just for a background event. Destiny does not have these thing, except maybe for the array opening. Even that that's pretty minor.

- Characters and Dialogue: In ODST up to the point I played (blew up the ONI building) I met my team, had running conversations with a trapped Dare, had Dutch on the comm with the Colonel who got killed when the elevator collapsed. Defended the ONI building with the help of the Sergeant helping me direct the 50 cal. And had a bunch of fun, relevant commentary by various marines who fought along side me. Destiny doesn't have that. Yes, real players are supposed to and even do pick up some of that slack, but I miss having characters talk to me during missions. I miss my marines cheering or complaining as things go good or bad. My Ghost fills this role from time to time (and I generally like Dinklage voicing my Ghost) but the Destiny mission are so short that there aren't a lot of opportunities for him to say interesting things...

I guess I really picked up on how bare Destiny's storytelling is. An intro paragraph of dialogue, maybe two comments by my Ghost during a mission, and then a closing sentence or two by my Ghost as the timer counts down. It's just not enough. Maybe if there were a hundred missions the quantity would make up for it... but there aren't!

- Cutscenes: I was really appreciating ODST's cutscenes. By that I suppose I mean I was liking being told a story. Yeah, ODST's animations aren't nearly as strong as Reach's or Destiny's, but there was still some good camera work and you could see what Bungie was aiming for even if Halo 3's engine couldn't really deliver the body and facial animation they needed to get all the way there. What cutscenes Destiny has are good, and certainly have better animation and have good voice acting and are fairly well written... but we're talking about five or so scenes in a huge blockbuster budget game vs many many more in the side project of ODST. Something feels very off.

Maybe Destiny isn't meant to be another Halo, isn't meant to be so cutscene heavy... but Halo worked! Halo became a huge franchise! Destiny works on many other levels, as mentioned... but really doesn't on this one. It too might become a lasting franchise, but not because of its story. Not yet anyway. :(

6. Oddly, even though ODST has a better story, and characters, and cutscenes, I think Destiny does win out on its ending. At the end of the day ODST's story didn't matter one bit. Maybe in a future book somewhere the saving of the Engineers played out, but ODST is kinda a strange side tale that never really connects with the rest of the series. In Destiny, despite all it's story based flaws, I'm still hopeful that getting The Traveler on the mend will matter. I'm still hopeful that "All endings are beginnings."

What I want out of Destiny going forward is... I guess... more Halo. I still think Destiny has a wonderful universe that would be very fun to play around in, story wise. Bungie just needs to step up and do so. I think, from what we've seen, the Destiny engine is more than full featured enough to pull off anything ODST did... and then some... Bungie just needs to do it.

At this point I am actually somewhat pessimistic for The Dark Below. If Destiny is what we got after some three to five years of development I'm not really expecting a ton of story and in-world animated events and great characters to appear with just a few months more work. I'll certainly play the new content when it comes out, but I'm kinda expecting more of the same. My hopes now rest somewhat on next year's House of Wolves and really on whatever comes after that. Perhaps those future addons are far enough away that Bungie can see the reception to Destiny's story got and work to properly provide more "frontstory" to the delicious and intriguing bits of excellent backstory they've provided us.

As it stands now Destiny's graphics and gameplay from the shooting, to the powers, to even the investment system largely works and largely is first class. What Destiny needs now is story. Please Bungie, give us story!