After having departed from Halo, Bungie has introduced a new game, Destiny, which has broken records by bringing in over $50 million since its release earlier this month. But despite the hype surrounding the game before its release and the ridiculous amounts of revenue it’s generated, Destiny lacks an imaginative story and it was only worsened by Peter Dinklage’s lacklustre voice acting.
When I first tried Destiny, I was completely floored by the graphics and gorgeous scenery. Obviously quite an upgrade from Halo’s 2001 graphics, Destiny offers a better world to explore, both in its larger size and in its scenery. That being said, it sucks having to travel to all these new worlds and wait through the relatively long loading screens (but at least there’s always something nice to look at).
The shiny new world did not, however, alleviate the letdown in regards to storyline. “Traveler” the alien discovered our solar system and helped humans inhabit other planets. But Traveler also brought with it something dubbed “Darkness”, which laid waste to everything Traveler had achieved. Your character, the guardian, is supposed to defend the last city on Earth before it too is destroyed. That may seem easy enough to understand, but before playing it I had to read into the story. Destiny is very vague in its description—or lack thereof—of what exactly happened to our planet or why we’re supposed to kill everything in our path.
The missions are pretty boring, too. Your objective remains the same in just about everything that you do: kill everything. While that mindless fun might be good for a few hours, Destiny merely provides day-in-day-out missions to complete over and over again.
And evidently I wasn’t the only one who got a little bored. Peter Dinklage, best known for his role as Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, is the voice of “Ghost”, your robot friend who travels around with you while giving advice on current missions, providing history on your surroundings, and sometimes commenting on what’s going on. The problem is that Dinklage’s voice work is pretty dull and only serves as another reminder that Destiny is not all it could have been.
But it’s not a bad game overall. It does have a pretty hefty list of pros, such as fantastic gameplay and a great selection of primary and secondary weapons. The combat is also pretty great, and with each new place you visit, there’s just something there that makes you want to keep playing.
Playing multiplayer is probably better than playing by yourself for a few reasons. When you play alone, it’s not the worst thing in the world because the missions share the same excitement as the majority of modern shooters, but when you have someone by your side to tackle waves of enemies with, it gets way better.
In the end, there is something about Destiny that pulls me back to it. I’m very aware of its shortcomings, but there’s something to be said for a game that draws you back even when you know it’s not the best thing in the world. All in all, not as bad as critics (myself included) make it sound. MMM ½
