Destiny Video

One of the features I was excited for on the PS4 is the Share button, and all the things that it could enable on the system. Specifically, I liked that it was going to record the last fifteen minutes of gameplay and allow me to save that with a touch of a button. It works, and it works well. So far, I've recorded a few gaming sessions and saved them locally, but haven't done anything with it, because the options are limited: Facebook or Twitter (I think). With the latest update we can now upload to YouTube, which is ideal. So this past weekend I decided to upload a video I took of me playing my very first Salvage match in Destiny. Here's how it went.

1. Figure out that I can't just upload the raw video to YouTube.
2. Download and install Sharefactory on the PS4
3. A week later, remember that I installed it.
4. Open Sharefactory, become somewhat confused by the lack of options in it.
5. Start a Project in Sharefactory.
6. Choose my opening bumper video.
7. Try to figure out which video has my gameplay in it (it's been over a month).
8. Spent a weird amount of time trimming the video.
9. Figure out how to export the project.
10. See that Sharefactory was going to take 30 minutes to render the video.
11. Come back hours later.
12. Connect PS4 account to YouTube
13. Enter my 30 character random password manually into PS4 interface. Twice. This took a long time.
14. Start upload to YouTube.
15. Uploading takes just over an hour.
16. Play Destiny for a few hours.
17. Receive confirmation of video upload from YouTube.

It seems like a lot of steps and in all honesty, it was. It was also the first run through, which is a learning experience: future endeavors will go by with a buttery smoothness, I'm sure. Now I just have to fight with my Ryebone YouTube account, which is attached to my Google+ account, which forces me to use a first and last name, so it shows up like "Rye Bone" which just kind of sucks.

As for the video itself, you can see it below. It was my first Salvage match, and it's a bit rough. I don't even know what weapons to use because I'm pretty new to the Crucible. But I make it through. My team is all-star. Then I see that the other team had some dropped players, making it infinitely easier for us. It gets a bit more interesting near the end, where somebody else joins the competition and we have to do a bit more fighting. Most importantly, I never die - until just moments after the match is finished. Really, it was a good experience and I'm encouraged to upload more later on. After intense matches of Star Craft, my friends and I would spend just as much time watching the replay together and making commentary.

Destiny

It pains me almost - but not completely - by how much I was dismayed and on the fence about Bungie's latest epic, Destiny, just a short two weeks ago. The game didn't sell me initially, but I persevered. Persevered mainly by my friends who were well advanced into the game: they confirmed some of my complaints, but they also intrigued me to continue onward. So I did, putting a few hours in over the course of a few days, then the flood gates opened and I was pouring myself in - all the way in.

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.