Destiny
First Person Shooter (Teen)
★★★★☆
“Destiny” by Bungie Inc. is one of the most hyped video games of the year, standing as the best selling franchise debut in history. It garnered $500 mil- lion within its first 24 hours of release. Although the game attempts to pioneer a new genre, it falls slightly short of this goal; “Destiny” does not have the complexity and depth looked for in a game of this caliber. Despite f laws throughout, “Destiny” still delivers a revolutionary experience to video gaming.
“Destiny” runs smoothly at 60 frames per second in full 1080p HD and the graphics are crisp on any gaming console. From Mars to the moon, the scenery is immaculately detailed and constantly alive with movement. The landscape is filled with objects and props, yet they’re not so overcrowded as to make the scene seem unrealistic. Cutscenes and pre-animated clips are also stunning to watch.
While the scenery is extremely sharp, it is not enough to overlook one of the flaws in the game: “Destiny” tries to fuse a First Person Shooter (FPS) and a Massively Multiplayer Role
Playing Game (MMORPG) together. However, it does not, live up to its expectations of creating a new, hybrid genre. The FPS action is nothing new and is very reminiscent of Halo. Although MMORPGs are known for intricate story lines, “Destiny” has a shallow story mode and the objectives of all the single player side quests are
simply to kill the enemy. There are also unsatisfactory aspects of the game’s multiplayer element; there is no way to communicate with other players inside the game. Players work together to fight enemies and achieve objectives, but they cannot actually communicate directly with each other. This lack of communication ability is a small feature, yet all players will recognize its inconvenience at some point along their journey. “Destiny” falls short of combining the trademark features of both genres and leaves out aspects that make each genre great individually.
The game’s random multiplayer missions, however, are still exciting and provide a break from the periodically monotonous campaign missions. The “Destiny” universe is alive, and no second can be spared standing still. Immense enemy ships appear from a warp hole, launching alien drills into the surface, releasing hordes of enemies. This is labeled a public event and all players in the vicinity are tasked with teaming up to defeat the enemy.
Overall, while “Destiny” is not the groundbreaking, genre-changing game many players had hoped for, it is still a very fast-paced and exciting game well worth buying. Save for a few minor glitches, sharp graphics and appealing game features set the framework for “Destiny” to become the next huge video game series.
