First off, is the story, or lack thereof. Yes, I know that it's not necessarily the focus here, but I've quite enjoyed playing through the campaign mode of these first person shooters, especially the Halo series. The story is here, but it feels like it's officially in the backseat here, with the focus being on the "open world" concept that they've built here. The world is impressive, and I'll talk about it more later. It just doesn't feel like anything is happening on the main story campaigns, perhaps because I'm encouraged to go into the overworld and do side-missions and patrols to help level my character so that I can, in fact, progress through the story without it being overly difficult. In those patrols, I would revisit areas over and over, then again (or previously) in story missions. The big open world feels a bit smaller when I've gone there a few times already. This is exactly what happened on the Moon, where I performed the first mission, then did a dozen or so patrol missions with my friend. We went all over the place and yes, it was great fun. The next day I would start a story mission that took me into the exact places I had just explored, but they were now filled with different enemies, narrative and cut scenes. The oomph of the story - of the reveal - was diminished.
Fire teams and multiplayer are phenomenal in this game, and feels like real innovation. My two friends joined my team, so the three of us could go around performing various acts of heroism and carnage. My experience has been marred in a couple of ways, both of which center around the rank, or level, of our characters. Friend A is level 27, Friend B is level 23. I'm at level 8. The disparity makes itself clear when all the enemies spawned on any given mission are suited for me, but are mere annoyances for my friends. This changes the style completely: the two of them charge in, are practically invincible, and take care of all the enemies. My relatively low level character has to hang back, go slower and take care in firefights, so by the end time I can come up everything is practically done. This game mode is still fun though, and can actually help a bit as we all seem to share experience points and I can level up just a bit quicker. I can't help but think I'm missing things, or at least, not paying attention. While in the fire team together we have our headsets on, talking all the time. We often talk during cut scenes of story missions, so I don't actually know what's going on, thus diminishing the story to a point where you realize you're just a gun on legs, shooting everything. When shooting doesn't work, you shoot some more.
The other day I was playing on my own, through a rather dramatic story mission that had me putting my skills to the test. It was an absolute blast. I come over a small hill, to find a giant airship of sorts in the background. My Ghost makes a comment about raiding it, but before then I take my long range weapons and eliminate as many targets as possible. I use the rocket launcher and blow apart a group of aliens acting suspiciously. I then advance through, with the music building in intensity - and the music is really quite inspiring - and the foes becoming tougher. As I progress, the end of the level falls nearer, and I push on. Then I see a notification: your friend has joined your team. I hear him on the mic and see his avatar advancing up behind me, then past me, blowing apart all these foes I've spent the past twenty minutes strategically picking apart. The mission is over, all the tension and drive that I built up is drained.
That's not to say the game isn't fun, because it really is. This fire team business, the open world, is where it's at. The game feels very much alive. This is fairly new to me, because I haven't really spent any time in online games. Playing on a public Minecraft server is about as close as I've reached in this style, but there, the world is gigantic and unless you're in certain areas, are unlikely to run across other people. In Destiny, you will see others. You will see them while you play story missions, and in the overworlds (the various planet surface patrol areas). You can interact with them, or not. I had a ton of fun following around two lower level players, keeping my distance and sniping enemies they were hiding from. They would look around every so often, and I would initiate a wave command to send them greetings.
Public events are something else entirely: random events in the overworld that most definitely requires many players to participate in. The first one I took part in was destroying this alien tank creature-thing; I was pretty low level so I spent most of my time cowering, but I was able to help out. Later on, I would become a leader in these events. One such time I had two lower level guardians with me, and combined, we were able to take the enemy down. I could help revive them, and we developed a groove. Sometimes, halfway through an event an even higher level character would join and lend a hand, turning the tide in our favour.
These elements of online play create a favourable amount of depth that you don't normally get on a game like this. I recognize that some others probably see this as old hat, but I don't go online often, nor have I had a few friends who are actively playing. I certainly hope we maintain the trend, as there seems to be a lot more game to get into. Which brings me to another point on this game: levelling.
I'm at level eighteen now, and I feel like I'm just scratching the surface. Until just recently, I never received a new ship to fly around in, a new vehicle or these "shaders" that make my outfit look consistent all round. Considering the game kind of caps at level 20, I'm quite surprised and taken aback: it's taken quite a bit of grinding and nearly completing the story to get some (what I feel are) basics. Going beyond level 20 is done entirely through gear. I don't understand everything either: there are drops that I don't know what to do with and nobody in game to help me out. I spend most of my time online with my one friend just asking what everything does. It all adds up to me just aimlessly going through the game, shooting as much as I can until I can some new gear, then shooting some more to get more gear. The drive for this gear is excruciating in its addictiveness: the developers have figured out a formula to keep you playing and wanting more. My inability to stop playing some nights is testament to that.
Gameplay is incredibly sharp, as is expected from the team that refined first person shooter controls on a console. Everything feels fluid, the button layout is essentially perfect and I have yet to encounter any annoyances. The graphics are incredible, and they sing along at a fluid framerate that makes you truly appreciate what the "next generation" of consoles can do. It's a welcome change, actually. The online play has been smooth as well, and I haven't had any problems with lagging. And the sound, is just great. I mentioned earlier how some musical cues build up to an epic thunder, and I love it. I may be a bit biased right now, or in a haze of surround sound, as I just recently reconnected my 5.1 system to once again enjoy digital surround. For the past few years I've been sticking myself out on a 2.1 system, so it's nice to play a game that employs all channels to really immerse myself into the game.
It doesn't end here though, which is both good and bad here. Over the past week gamers have discovered new areas of the game that are effectively "turned off" as they relate directly to future, "DLC." I guess they missed the concept there: downloadable content. As the content is already on the disc you bought, it needs to be unlocked down the road, which really brings about the fact that with many modern games you're simply buying a somewhat incomplete experience. It's insulting that the content is on the disc ready to go. Although, they could offer it up for free, but is that going to happen? Chances are we'll be paying $10 or $15 to buy content that's already on the disc. And yes, I will buy it up. At this point, I can't see myself not playing for a little while.
In fact, Thanksgiving weekend got in the way, and I haven't turned the game on in five days. I'm going to need my fix soon...
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