Prior to E3 lots of people seemed confused about this game but now that it is playable, the attitude has done a complete 180 and it seems like the first must-have game for 2014.
I'm watching streams of people playing the alpha, it is sort of Halo on steroids but has a lot of RPG / MMO / exploration rolled in.
Hope I get into the Alpha this thursday...
graphics are good, lighting is good, shadows actually help gameplay. HUD and menu stuff is very modern (flat translucent, easy to read). There is a ton of character customisation, steadily unlocked with XP, that will come with the final game. Peter Dinklage voices the AI. Music is great. Cooperative with voice chat is easy. Instances, dungeons raids. I don't hear anyone complaining about anything.
I admit, I wasn't too impressed by the demo footage released a few months back, but after seeing the gameplay footage from E3, I think I might be picking it up. I'm more of a FPS fan (over RPG/MMO), so perhaps this will be the game that brings them together for me.
I was driven by neogaf to ignore this game because every time it came up a ton of people shat on it. I think it has been attracting negative fanboy attention from those who are burned that bungie isn't doing a new Halo, those who were upset Destiny was for consoles not PCs, those who were annoyed that sony got some kind of early access to it, and people who are just sick of yet another FPS.
But literally in a matter of hours, partly when giant bomb did a play through at E3 and clearly loved it, all that online hate vanished and was replaced with excuses like "oh, bungie just didn't sell it well, THAT's why I was so appallingly negative about it". As if it is the developers fault that they couldn't get people to wait until the game was playable before judgement.
The online echo chamber must be a real pain in the ass for teams working on new games. If they don't show anything, the game must suck, or is derivative garbage, or is delayed, if they do show something, the video is picked apart and the gameplay is critiqued.
Destiny seems to be an object lesson in waiting until reviewers actually spend time playing alphas before deciding if it is a success or not. So much attention on all these new titles in development and yet somehow the hordes completely failed to pre-judge Destiny correctly?
By the way from the streams it appears that the weapons that are looted etc have upgrade trees attached to them. So it has the loot interest of WOW or Borderlands but combined with what looks like seamless multi-player co-operative or versus modes, with a backstory and varied landscapes. The Hub, which operates a bit like a city in WOW, naturally lets you see up close the cool gear that other players or groups of players have scavenged.
Thanks for the links!. I was NOT one of the rabid naysayers for Destiny. I was upset that it got pushed back till Sept, but that is ok. It is the ONLY game I am looking forward to in such to get a new console for (though I am not sure if PC, PS4 or Xbone).
I do recall many were dissing that "its just halo meets borderlands". But I liked Halo and Borderlands (not so much BL2). I'm optimistic on this. Just which to pre-order???
Only other game I am curious for is Alien Isolation.
I dunno, I really want to love this game but the lack of singleplayer campaign is just killing it for me. Is there any way to play solo, or would that just be pointless?
Edit: According to this it should be possible to solo the game, but it is not what the devs intended. I may check it out I guess.
Seems like all of my friends moved from the video game world to the tabletop game world, and couldn't care less about this kind of stuff anymore...
just like an mmo you can lone wolf it - it has a single player experience.
you better be quick with the alpha code it expires at the end of the weekend.
luckily in about 6 hours you have done all the set pieces and tried the pvp although definitely not explored all the map there are a number of secret areas..
So I spent about four hours playing the alpha tonight. And I'm sorry I ever doubted it. It's like the next generation of Halo crossed with a serious Borderlands and then tossed with a little Mass Effect.
About the only thing I haven't tried yet is the Crucible (competitive multiplayer arena) but a couple of guys dropped into my exploration game earlier and we ran with it for a while. To my embarrassment I shot the first one I saw, multiple times, before I realized he was neither an AI nor working against me.
It has that Borderlands sort of addictive feel, but not from loot so much as just finding things to do or kill (so as to earn more XP).
Tried to do an impromptu walker engagement by myself and got ruined. It's timed, so if you can't defeat the big bad solo within the limit, it looks like you have to bring friends. I may try soloing it again now that I have a rocket launcher, though.
Lots of fun exploring all the possible upgrades. Insane amount of customization possible. I like how it's not just for looks either; the gear stats are more RPG-like and actually convey bonuses or boost attributes.
Sound design is amazing as per Bungie usual. Music's great too.
Not many bugs to report despite the alpha moniker. Pulse rifle model didn't show correctly on my character, some sound effects went missing or delayed, lost connection to servers once but got right back in. Otherwise flawless.
yeah it is funny reading alpha impressions the repeated complaints are around things that a product of it being a very small slice of the entire game: "I'm bored after 8 hours and level 8". Yeah, no surprise there, with only one big mission to do.
My worry is given the beta is scheduled for July how much of an Alpha is it. Perhaps the game engine is actually mostly finished, and the alpha feedback will mostly be ignored, the alpha is more of a stealth marketing campaign.
It is very polished but there are still some issues that are no problem for an alpha to fix but for a finished game might get annoying.
edit: doing some reading I see Bungie has poured huge effort into getting their new destiny engine cross-platform, with many compromises and design decisions made to enable last-gen consoles. It is a shame that despite this being heavily PS4 marketed the graphics engine is definitely optimised to run on PS3 and 360 which means that it is not designed the way it would be if it was a next-gen/PC release
one thing I noticed is sometimes the shard you login to is empty, or at least the other players are somewhere else and you never see them, and sometimes a decent amount is going on. Same with the tower.
I don't know man, it doesn't really impress me. The animation doesn't seem fluid, (running looks sloppy) The graphics are nothing to scream at. And it doesn't give me that, "oh wow I can't wait for that" feeling like other new games give me such as "the order", "the division", Drive club.
I'll check out some of the vids you all posted to see if they change my mind but I'm doubtful about.
Ok, after watching the last 2 videos, I stand corrected. It looks like a pretty cool game. To be able to fight along side of your friends, go into multiplayer battles, or even do a single player campaign is cool. The graphics are decent, and animation is better than what I remember it to be.
The vids I remember seeing didn't show much gameplay and simply didn't look as good as it does in those videos.
For me, it's still not a "gotta have it" title. But I could see myself getting it.
There was a signup site at Bungie for the Alpha. They approved all entries I thought? Beta access is next month. You would need to pre order the game for a code that you get and enter at bungie.net
There was a signup site at Bungie for the Alpha. They approved all entries I thought? Beta access is next month. You would need to pre order the game for a code that you get and enter at bungie.net
Wow, this looks incredible. I have put it on my list to try out.
The only thing that is a bummer is that there isn't a version out for the PC. I don't know if I am feeling all gung ho about playing this on my Playstation. First person shooters are best played with a keyboard and mouse IMHO.