Destiny PS4 Review

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The Halo: Reach campaign was everything I could hope for in an action game. The story was easy to digest and framed every skirmish well. The trademark Halo sandbox skirmishes were engaging and varied courtesy of Bungie’s terrific artificial intelligence. They even snuck in an unexpected dog fighting section to cap off their final contribution to the Halo universe.

My hope for Destiny was simply Halo: Reach Expanded. I saw the pre-release demos (those weren’t really alphas or betas) as teasers and believed Bungie was holding back content for the final release. I hoped for vehicular combat in the vein of Halo’s warthog. I hoped for space battles because they offered a selection of ships in the demos and Bungie were no strangers to aerial combat. I even believed there would be grand battles where squads of players boarded giant walking tanks a la Halo 3. Bungie were known for their action games and although there were glimpses of MMORPG tendencies, the pre-release information and demos did not indicate Destiny was going to conform to the genre’s tropes.

Boy, was I wrong.

Destiny met my lowest expectations and that was it; the beta was actually representitive of my twenty hour Destiny experience and that was huge bummer. Like 2007’s Assassin’s Creed, the bulk of game’s layout consisted of copying and pasting the same gameplay loop across a handful of beautifully crafted vistas. No amount of model changes or poorly delivered story justifications could mask the repetition of the game’s structure.

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Destiny’s Launch Trailer is a bit underwhelming

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The Destiny alpha and betas did a great job explaining what Destiny is but there was a nasty side effect where Bungie seemingly showed their entire hand.

I don’t usually watch launch trailers these days. I want to leave surprises in games that I’ve already pre-ordered. But since I spent time with Destiny’s pre-release betas and after hearing some of the worries about lack of content, I decided to check to see if Bungie showed off any areas or capabilities.

I was not reassured. I’ve experienced and seen much of what was shown in that trailer. I was hoping they would tease some space dog fighting or something drastically different. I still have hopes for some awesome surprises but I’m also not going to be surprised if I’m not revisiting Destiny after November.

P.S – “Become Legend” sounds pretty lame.

Destiny (PS4) Alpha Impressions

posted in: Game Previews 0

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Destiny isn’t just Borderlands expanded to its natural MMORPG-esque conclusion. No, Destiny actually has enemies with enough brains to dodge and challenge me. It felt like I was playing a larger sequel to Halo: Reach (without the Halo trappings).

Even on “Brave” difficulty, it was immediately apparent that Destiny’s enemies weren’t distant cousins of those found in Borderlands. The smarter ones hide away from sniper fire and will rush me down if they believe they had the advantage. I didn’t notice much diving from grenades like in Reach though. I suspect higher difficulties will reveal more advanced A.I routines.

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Checkpoint: Post-E3 2014 Pre-orders Edition

Checkpoint - Post-E3 2014 Pre-orders Edition

Now that E3 2014 is over, it’s time to tally up all the games that I had on pre-order. This year was extra confusing because Amazon.ca entered the E3 pre-order promotion mix for the first time. Normally that wouldn’t be a fumbling point but Amazon.ca’s promotion morphed throughout the four days.

It started with 30% off three or more titles with many titles priced at  $59.99. By the end, it ended up being 18% off. Then there were titles listed in their promo page that weren’t eligible. On top of that there were a few titles that ended up being cheaper at BestBuy.ca because of how the math worked. But then you realized that some titles weren’t available for pre-order at BestBuy.ca but were available at Amazon.ca, so then you had to come up with more titles to pre-order in order to take advantage of the discounts. And I didn’t even mention the random cock ups by Amazon.ca.

It was a mess but I got my games in and I was happy. I had to make a Google Docs spreadsheet in order to track where every game was but here is the official breakdown:

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