Revisiting Destiny

I had a huge itch to play a shooter this weekend. I miss the genre. I remember playing DOOM death matches over baud modems in my university dorm in the 90’s. I mostly fell out of the genre because of the direction it took. I loved Rainbow Six and the types of shooters that smarts and tactics could prevail over straight twitch. This is why I never really played any of the Call of Duty games (well, the single player campaigns I did, but stayed away from online) and the ultimate online shooter for me was Battlefield 2142 which was a nice mix of squad play and tactics over pure twitch. I still HATED bunny hopping in that game too, but that was about the worst you had to worry about.

Fast forward to today and I am currently FPS game-less. I didn’t finish Fallout 4 but that is far more RPG than FPS. I haven’t played the Battlefield series since 2142 (almost played the followup, until I discovered they removed the ability to go prone. Since when can human beings not lie down to shoot a gun?) Project Reality, which is still my favourite FPS of all time takes a lot of time to get in and out of – and I need to be able to get in and out quickly. I was very close to buying the Division, until I found out that my cries to my IT department for more graphics and computing power in a small form did not go unheard – and this is coming to me end of April (which has a free copy of the Division). I started looking and reading on what could satisfy my itch, and I found I already DID have a title, just one I haven’t played in a long time.

Destiny.

Destiny is the game that has the dumbest story ever (ok, maybe a bit harsh. Dumbest story ever written by a AAA company. Hell, a basic understandable story, even full of tropes and tired and rehashed elements would have been better.) I summed it up on this post pretty simple, based off of the OUT of game Grimoire cards. I mean, who wants to read or experience lore IN game?

First off, there are high level themes of light and darkness.

It’s odd that the enemy that threw the universe into a tizzy isn’t something tangible or something anyone can agree on. I’d understand an army (or whatnot) but just a premise, a theory – how does that “attack”? None of this is really clear. Does it even exist or it is an evil inside each of us? Something hit us. Not an army, not a force to be reckoned with. Philosophy hit us and it hurt! How do we have a collapse and not know our enemy? At least we have a clear hero! The Traveler. Our lord and savior.

The Traveler, graphically, is a giant ball of light hovering above the last city on Earth.  It doesn’t communicate through itself per se, but through The Speaker.

Here the speaker is described as a high priest. So we have a savior that doesn’t directly communicate to us who sacrificed itself to stop an attack by a theory or premise on all that we hold dear. The Traveler’s gift to stop the attack? Zombies! (aka – Guardians)

That’s right, the good guys are raising the dead to kill the uh, bad guys. Who don’t raise the dead. But you aren’t just any Zombie, you are one who was at a Russian spaceport! For some reason. Maybe shopping.

Oh, the “Ghost” – I forgot to explain that part. The “Ghost” brought you back from the dead and you need a “Ghost” to be your guide. A mechanical creature that (unlike you) cannot be replaced if it is killed.

So the Guardians are completely replaceable but the machines that Jiminy Cricket us are invaluable. I’m confused a bit. Who are the good guys again? The “light” zombies (Warlocks, Hunters, Titans) or the aliens that represent “darkness” (Knights, Wizards, Captains, Legionnaires). Maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe the “Darkness” is actually the good guy – trying to wipe the space zombies from the universe. That makes far more sense than what we have been given so far.

OK, so maybe I was a little harsh, but c’mon, drop $10,000 on writers and you get better than that. I blame drugs.

The good part is, outside of a terrible, embarrassingly deficient story, you have a really nice shooter all packaged up. It’s responsive, has great backdrops, a good PVE questing system, a group finder / CO-OP strike mission system, cool weapons and armor, and great customization – both in terms of skill trees and appearance. There is an awesome game there despite the story.

There has also been three expansions since I played last. The main reason why I quit last time was because I upgraded to a PS4 and of course my XBOX 360 characters couldn’t come with me, so starting fresh on a new system (after all the grinding and leveling I had already done) was enough of a deterrent to just give up on the game. But now I had fresh interest and the PVE component of it fit for me. So I started again.

The story is still, incredibly terrible. I think I have made that pretty clear. I’m just disappointed because of the huge opportunity it had (has?).

The game play is very good. My titan is level 16 with many levels to go (24) and new story lines and things to do from my last time in the game. I’m hoping when I get further along maybe they tied up some of the story elements but I am still guessing no, since every time I meet a new enemy or area, a prompt on the screen tells me to go to Bungie.Net to learn about it. I can still play this game despite this fault. For now.

Maybe the Division will free me from this Destiny.

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