Destiny Alpha Impressions (PS4)

Unless you've been living under a rock, you have probably heard of Destiny, an upcoming open world MMORPG/FPS by Bungie, the creators of Halo. Publisher Activision has been hyping the game like crazy. They believe its going to top games like Call Of Duty and Halo and become the king of shooters. They have 10 year plan for the game and have spent over 500 million dollars on the game. There is a lot hype but how well does it actually play?

The alpha had several different things to try, a bit of the campaign mode, The Tower (a hub area), and the Crucible (a PvP mode). Here is what I thought of it

Pros:

It was easy for me to forget this was an alpha when playing the game. The graphics were really impressive especially for an alpha build. The fact that Destiny's alpha build can compete with games like Killzone Shadow Fall in terms of graphics is amazing. The world was very detailed and realistic looking. I have heard a lot of people have said the game didn't look very good in trailers and online (I can understand I watched some of them) but it looks much, much better when actually playing it. I didn't experience many technical issues which a is a big achievement for a game's alpha build.

The exploration in the game was a lot of fun. One of the campaign missions had you exploring a decent size area. This area was fairly large and had lots of side quests. It was fun wandering around the beautiful open ended area.

The RPG elements of the game seems well done for the most part. Lots of character customization options, several classes to choose from, skill trees etc. Nothing that really stands out to be honest, but everything here was solid and what you would expect from a RPG.

The shooting mechanics were well done. Aiming and shooting was tight and responsive. The guns have a bit of a weighty feel to them but not too much. There were lots of different kinds of guns to choose from, some with different elemental properties. The enemy AI was fairly smart and there were a lot of different enemies. Overall the combat was well done.

The Crucible is a PvP mode (think COD, Halo etc.) There was only 1 game type to try in the alpha (a capture the flag type mode). I don't really like games like COD, but for those that do you will probably like the Cubicle. It seemed decent and a good distraction from the main game.

Cons:

Destiny seems too difficult. Sometimes there are too many enemies at a time which can feel overwhelming, you take too much damage and your health doesn't recharge fast enough.

The Tower is a hub area where you can buy weapons and armor, accept quests, from a Fire Team (a group of people to play with) and more. Interestingly in this area you play from a third person perspective. Because you don't have a map, the Tower is almost impossible to navigate. There are people you can talk to pull up a map but thats kind of a pain. The Tower has potential, but its so hard to navigate its almost game breaking.

Speaking of maps, I didn't see a map in the campaign either. That is going to be a problem if they don't add one.

Another concern is the loot in the game. Its supposed to be a "loot and shoot" type game right? Well where is the loot?! There weren't really any cheats or anything filled with guns and ammo like Borderlands or something. You can buy and unlock weapons and armor but I didn't see any that you could find.

The game does a poor job explaining the game to you. I mentioned I couldn't find any loot, but maybe you can. If so I didn't know because the game didn't tell me. I also talked about how there wasn't a map. Again there could have been a map but the game didn't tell me.

Conclusion:

Overall Destiny seems like a very good game based on what I played in the alpha on PS4. There weren't many problems (and the problems it does have can be easily fixed) there are mostly just questions. Will the game have a good story? How big is the world going to be? I think if the open world and story turn out to be really good then Destiny is going to be huge because everything else is in place for something great.