And the first thing I noticed is that, and I could totally be wrong, it sounds like Peter Dinklage telling me what to do. He appears to be my Ghost companion. At least, it really sounds like him.

Also, the game is awesome. Playing on PS4 of course. It appears to be an MMO, but a shooter, except you can play it single player. But the structure seems the same. It feels really good. Can definitely tell Bungie made it. Feels solid. Shooting is satisfying. There are 3 races to choose from, I forget their names. Human, elves and robots basically. Also 3 classes. Hunter, Warlock and... not sure what the other one was called. You can be male of female for all of them, including the robot looking dudes.

It plays like a really solid shooter, but everything else seems RPG-ified. Which I like so far.

Peter Dinklage is simply Peter Serafinowicz impersonating Peter Dinklage.

Real glad to hear it's looking good at this point. I'm downloading it right now. Also, I'm almost certain that's Peter Dinklage.

It is totally Peter Dinklage, he's credited at multiple points of investigation. Pretty good grab, even if personally he sounds a bit stilted.

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being Borderlands, how much of this feels like Borderlands?

@zevvion said:

This is my primary concern. Can I play this single player? From start to finish? If I choose to ignore the MMO aspects, will I be punished for it like in Borderlands?

And perhaps most importantly, how much does it feel like Borderlands? If not at all, what would you say is the closest approximation to the style?

I have a Aplha key if anyone is interested let me know.

There's a soccer ball in the game. Best game ever.

I just got into it. I suddenly got really excited when I realized this could basically be western PSO as made by Bungie. That was a fun revelation yesterday.

I think it is only similar to Borderlands in that you need guns of a higher level to do more damage and such. As far as I can tell you can totally play this in single player. You have options to set your team (fireteam in the game) to invite only, friends only or public. That means who can join you. But you also see other fireteams in the world running around doing their thing. I've done 'everything' singleplayer so far, but of course I'm only 2 hours in. That said, while running about a massive robot just dropped on the planet and everyone surrounding me was automatically grouped to defeat it. I have to say... it was rad. There were 3 different fireteams doing their different quests and suddenly we all joined forces to defeat that thing. It turned into a massive battle out of nowhere. It was pretty awesome. It is entirely optional though. It said it was an optional objective, so I could just ignore it and continue my quest, but I wanted to do it.

@believer258 I'm not sure how to define it. There are guns that scale in damage based on their level and whatnot. That's like Borderlands. But there aren't massive amounts of loot so far. The only ones I came across were rewards for quests. The others I bought. Unlike Borderlands it seems you can actually buy more powerful guns than you own. The abilities you have take a long time to recharge. Say.. a minute. Maybe even 2. That's unlike Borderlands. But mostly, the shooting feels completely different. It feels more like Halo. It feels solid. In the end I'm not sure how to answer this, because it is a shooter. So is Borderlands. It uses guns that scale, so does Borderlands. So, it looks a lot like it on paper, but I have to say if I could rate it based on my feeling it would be a 3ish. It just feels really different.

I may be wrong, but I believe the enemies scale as to how many people are with you. When I was there solo at first everything was level 2. When there was another fireteam running around shooting the same things I was shooting, everything was level 5. I may be wrong to how that works though. I think you can play the game in singleplayer just fine if what I played so far is any indication.

I have to say I am really enjoying this. I wonder how long the Alpha is. It can't be too long, which is a shame because I'm already tempted to get out and earn better guns and whatnot.

@cbyrne: sent you a pm

God damn, that sounds amazing.

Thing is, it's 2:15 in the morning here. I can't say that Destiny is awesome for everyone, but what I know for sure is that I think Destiny is awesome. I need sleep, but almost want to just stay awake through the night to keep playing. But no point, I don't assume the alpha will contain a ton of content.

I played a few minutes of it and I like it. My main problem right now is readjusting to using a controller for an FPS instead of a keyboard and mouse.

Great to hear that it sounds good. I've started saving for a PS4, hopefully I can get one in time.

I still think it's weird that everybody in the games press seemed way more hyped about Titanfall than Destiny, when Destiny feels like it has a way more interesting world and art and the multiplayer isn't just team deathmatch ad nauseam.

Hmm... kind of wish I hadn't missed the window for this.

How about in terms of structure? Do you run up to everybody with a question mark above their head, accept all their quests, run off and do them, and then go turn them in? Or is there a more involved way of doing things, perhaps something more story-driven?

Your notes about the loot sound really good. Sure, Borderlands has a bazillion guns, but most of them are useless trash. It would be nice to see a game where you can buy or find guns that are actually useful instead of scan the battlefield afterwards to see if there's something you like.

Can you customize weapons at all? Can you customize your vehicle at all?

Titanfall makes a great first impression and until Giantbomb played that Alpha build on Unfinished I thought the game was going to be average. Things change when you get your hands on something and spend a lot of time with it. I even said so a couple of months ago.

I am totally with you there. Titanfall seemed like a well made but entirely unoriginal team based multiplayer shooter that had mechs in it, but everyone in the media was flipping their shit over it.

Destiny may not be doing anything completely new or revolutionary on a per feature basis, but bringing all these disparate features together in one game is pretty revolutionary in my opinion. The seamless multiplayer of Journey, the persistence and group/end game content of an MMO, RPG elements in a shooter much like Borderlands, and all of that tied together in a game with the AI, gunplay, and encounter design Bungie has proven they are excellent at crafting.

Destiny seems to me a like an incredibly ambitious and impressive game, and the indifference towards it in the public consciousness is baffling to me.

@oldirtybearon: It's nothing like border lands. In B.L. there's a ton of loot you constantly have to pick up, you're always looking for health and shields and ammo, and have to strategically plan battles because so. And the weapon mods add a ton of RPG stuff to worry about. In B.L. everytime you level up a significant choice must be made, and sets you on a path for future upgrades. Plus Borderlands has a very fast paced gameplay, turning radius, run speed, it's very hectic.

I barely noticed there were RPG elements to Destiny the 15 to 20 minutes I played so far. It controls and feels like Halo. The guns act like Halo guns. The enemies appear about as often, in as many to a pack, and are dealt with by moving behind something till your shield regenerates and then finishing them off -- just like Halo. In fact, in the big outdoor fields it might as well be a campaign mode from Halo.

What's different is the indoor/corridor stuff. That has the mood, atmosphere, pacing, searching and discovering that Bioshock did, just without some of the "jump scares." It has about the same amount of loot to find as Bioshock, minimal, and better yet no audio-tape cutscenes logs to find. You walk around in near darkness, turn corners, and surprise enemies with melee and shotgun attacks. It's basically Bioshock with analog sticks, controls, and guns that still operate/feel like Halo. So yes, the RPG aspect is more Bioshock than Borderlands Sky rim or World of Warcraft.

You level up frequently early and nothing really happens except a little achievement like message.

Does anyone happen to have a spare Alpha key?

Just got in earlier today. Did the exploration stuff until I hit level 8 with my Hunter. Then beat the Strike once. I agree, it feels like the first game to meld pitch-perfect action gameplay with all the hooks of a MMORPG. It's going to be an amazing time.

Will definitely level each class to lvl 8 and play a bunch of PvP, before the first look alpha is over.

On that scale? It's a 1 out of 10 - because opposed to Borderlands, Destiny is actually a great shooter.

In terms of critical reception at launch? It feels like the kind of game that'll have a metacritic of at least 90%.

Damn missed the registration deadline. If anyone has an alpha code they want to spare pm and I'll be forever in your internet debt.

There's definitely loot from random enemies in the open world - because you automatically get assigned the loot after the kill, it's just not that obvious. Elder enemies (those with yellow health bars, in other words elites) frequently drop greens and blues, most of which have to be *decrypted* at the Tower, akin to how the best loot in Diablo games has to be identified before using 'em.

Also - greens and higher quality guns level up. The gun I used when I beat the Strike leveled up for more damage, and it will later let me chose different optics and whatnot - and it's but a lowly green item.

P.S. where can I go craft my own gear? I have tons of stuff from disassembling.

I may be wrong on this but it seemed to me that a lot of the indifference just came out of the confusion as to what this game actually was; whether it was the dismissive comments of Destiny being just like Borderlands or people saying that they didn't really know what the game was about. I think that Bungie just didn't do a great job portraying/explaining their game up until now for the majority of the public.

Once GB put up that Unfinished video of it yesterday (? today?) and everyone could see a lot more of what the game actually involved people seemed to understand it better. Hopefully for Bungie, the rest of the games press becomes more interested once they have played it for a bit.

Personally, I think that it sounds like an interesting game and I know that Bungie is capable of making excellent games. I would love to see a game(s) blend together several disparate features like you mention in your post (reminds me of how RPG elements started to get put into various genres previously).

Did you notice the gear with attributes on it, and how that stuff affects your playstyle? Did you check out the talents that you'll unlock later down the road? Do you realize that guns level up, and can have elemental properties? Hell - some of the legendary guns will have talent trees as deep as your average borderlands class.

Not only do I disagree with pretty much every of your opinions. Many of them are also factually wrong. I've found about 20 guns in a 3,5 hours session, and there's like 10 basic types of guns, which all fulfill different combat roles, and within each type of gun, I've already found up to 3 different balancing types, like extremly high rate of fire assault rifles versus easy to handle low rate of fire ones. Seeing how guns level up, have elemental damage, and other bonus effects, with much more unique and deep weapon talent trees for epic/legendary quality weapons - you are plain wrong about guns.

What probably throws you for a loop? Opposed to Borderlands 100% of Destiny's guns are functional and fun to use - whereas Borderlands feeds the player 90% broken trash, 9% useful but unfun guns, and less than 1% great guns that play well. So unless you think bullshit design makes for good RPGs, you are plain wrong.

P.S. If you don't like to play defensively, use a high impact weapon like a Hand Cannon, which staggers enemies. Mix and match ranged and melee for a wholly offensive and badass playstyle. Just one of many playstyles you can come up with.

on a scale of tissue paper to sponge how many bullets do the enemies take before they die?

Not more enemies, not harder to hit but more health? that sounds like the worst fuck that.

@zevvion: That's Dinklage and I'm pretty sure I heard Tywin (Charles Dance) in The Witcher 3 or maybe Dragon Age.

Within two levels of your character? With an appropriate lvl gun? Regular enemies? 1-2 headshots. 3-5 bodyshots. Captains/Wizards/*those Mech-Orbs* have a shield like the player, which makes them quite tough, but once the shield is down they have about double health of regular dudes. Elders (elites) take like triple that, but they go down quite quickly when using your special or heavy weapon or your special ability. Bosses in Strikes? Yeah - they're spongy.

Headshots make a huge difference.

The rest of what you've said in this thread makes it sound a lot like Borderlands, but with actually fun gameplay. I have two real, core problems with Borderlands:

1) Almost all of the guns are trash. I said this earlier in the thread, but very few of the guns actually feel like something better than a peashooter. I almost stopped playing Borderlands 2 because I didn't find any guns that felt like they could get the job done right. I eventually played through it with my brother and found some good guns (huh, the single player didn't work well. How 'bout that?)

2) Enemies eventually get tons of health. Actually, I don't think enemies have tons of health, I think the issue relates back to the fact that almost all of the guns are absolute trash. I don't have a problem with one or two minibosses running around with a lot of health, but Borderlands seemed to throw tons of them at you, especially late in the game.

Destiny seems to have solved both of those problems, at least from what I've seen in the Unfinished video. Despite my issues with it, I ultimately enjoyed a lot of Borderlands 1 and 2 and Destiny looks like it's picking up the best parts of those games and combining them with the Halo games. Couple that with the slightly otherworldly atmosphere that the game seems to give off and I'm a lot more excited than I was when I saw those first gameplay videos. I just hope the PS3 version runs well, I don't think I'll have a PS4 by launch.

From what I have played, I dislike combat in Destiny in the same way that I do for the Halo games (especially in CE). It does seem to have bullet sponge galore parts, and the look of it reminds me of a less sharp Killzone Shadowfall (aside from the great skyboxes).

But it probably deserves a 7 on the borderlandsyness, with the hub world on MMO elements putting it into a more evolutionary category than a clone. It really does not seem fun to play though, and the voice acting and atmosphere feel straight out of a COD/HALO love child to me >.>. I'm really glad I got to play it early though, since I was unsure where it would land on my radar. Maybe it could get a high metacritic (it seems well made, and certainly not alpha); gameplay is close enough to other titles that get those kind of scores without otherwise additive MMO attributes.

Borderlands 2 is probably one of my favorite shooters, so it might also be the fact that everything is played so straight that puts me off. The hardcore military voice thing is really off-putting, and seems like it would be intrusive to a fun co-op session.

Edit Note: Playing on PS4

I'll repost my thing from other thread as this one seems a more appropriate place:

I got one of the live stream codes from tonight. I've briefly played it during one of breaks and I have to say, I'm feeling a lot more interested in this now.

I've had the usual opinion of "eh I'm not really into FPS games that much" to seeing the Giant Bomb Unfinished video the other day which left me with "eh it just looks like Borderlands but with a little Halo" and now having played about 15-20 mins of it I'm left thinking "This looks much prettier on my own big screen TV and the environment feels like it has a big adventurous scale to it"

Shot some stuff, that felt good. I like just walking around and taking in the atmosphere. The giant shuttle pad things at the start look epic. I'm staring off into the distance wondering how far I can actually go. I suddenly get shot at from somewhere and go into panic mode, now remembering that this is an FPS game. Kill them all and now I have this great spooked feeling just like I had wandering around the wastelands of Fallout 3 or Skyrim. No idea where things are going to come from, slowly stalking my way through the rocky hills absorbing the scenery. Had a crappy jolt back into "oh yea this is multiplayer" because I was scoping out a bunch of bad guys from behind a rock, deciding if attacking the group was a good idea, when someone suddenly rammed into me with the hover bike thing and I went flying into the group of baddies, was getting shot at, almost died, and the hover bike idiot was just sitting there looking at me.

Yea I don't know. I had a very casual interest in this but now, with very little play time under my belt, I love the vibe I'm getting from this. Possibly great atmosphere if you can go single player only or co-op with a close friend seems like it could be fun.

I might just end up buying this.

Edit: I will echo the sentiment that it doesn't sound like Peter Dinklage is putting much oomph into the dialogue. I'm a fan of GoT and hearing him read this stuff in the most plain and unenthusiastic way kinda stinks. It doesn't come off as very "robotic" to me either, just like a normal bored person reading a book.

Well, don't get it wrong: this game is definitely an RPG. But it's kind of a strange hybrid that I think works really, really well. I am actually very sad this alpha only lasts until sunday. Will have to play tons of it in that time.

I had the thing dropped on me too, but I was alone. I died hard. Not so awesome :(

I reached the end of the Alpha. It's not very long, but it is a lot of fun. You can do a Strike at some point, which is basically their version of a dungeon. You get some gear, have to beat some bosses in a group of 3. It matches you with similar Guardians (players) in matchmaking to do the Strike.

I'm starting a new character now. Going to check out the other two classes. This game is a day one buy for me. That's for sure.

Oh interesting. Is that as far as the character customization goes?

Sounds rad dude, thanks for sharing.

I think the indifference was because they did a poor job of communicating what Destiny actually is and why anybody should care beyond "it's Bungie". Watching the unfinished video, Brad and Drew were constantly making comments to the effect of being interested in actually seeing what the game is or things along the lines of "ok I think I'm starting to get a sense of what this thing actually is now".

Titanfall was far less vague. It's similar to a certain popular modern military shooter, but there are giant robots and super agile traversal that makes awareness of your surroundings more important and verticality matters and blah blah blah. The reason the media were excited was because they actually got to play it and understand it, rather than just getting a vague whiff. Personally, I didn't have any interest in Titanfall, but I instantly understood it, because it was just familiar enough, but then with just enough of a twist. Destiny was just vague enough that I didn't know enough to care, but familiar enough to maybe start lamenting the fact that they were just going to do another sci fi shooter.

Looks good, sounds good, plays good.

I think it goes further than that. Like I said, there are 3 races to choose from which I now know are called Human, Awoken (elves) and Exo (robots). Then you can choose a class. Titan, Hunter or Warlock. Titan seems to be a close and personal class, which I really like. Basically the Vanguard in Mass Effect I'd say. Warlock seems to be a magic user, sort off. Basically the Adept in Mass Effect? They don't have the same abilities as in ME, but their style is somewhat the same I feel. Haven't played Hunter yet.

In the game itself, when I check out my gear, it says I'm a Striker and defines it as a sub-class of Titan. It does something similar for the Warlock I'm using. I haven't been able to change sub-class, but there are 2 open slots next to it. I take this to mean there are several sub-classes underneath each class and you can maybe combine some of them? I'm not sure how that works. It's not in the Alpha as far as I can tell. The level cap is 8, which I reached and there are 3 zones to do. One story section, one explore section (which is basically MMO style walking around and collecting missions to do) and one Strike (which is basically a dungeon). Did all of them with my Titan. Now doing it again with the Warlock.

I am having a lot of fun with it. A bit disappointed the Alpha is so short, but that's not a knock against the game of course.

Put about 4hrs into the Alpha and I have to say I'm really impressed.

Was a bit hesitant as I'm definitely more of a single player gamer but you can absolutely just wander off and do your own thing especially in the exploration mode. In saying that having other players populate the world makes it feel more alive and ties in with the team of guardians narrative they are going with. Found myself dropping in an out of joining up with other groups and think i'll actually seek out players to team up with to take down some of the higher level enemies.

The character customisation is really varied and design wise looks really sharp, lots of variety as well in the loot and questing that makes it fun to play for a while and hop back to the hub to cash in rewards and check out new gear.

Shooting feels excellent really enjoy the mix up of weapons and struggling to pick a favourite. Tried semi and full auto rifles and the hand cannon style pistols for primary weapons and they all felt good, for secondary weapons it's shotguns or sniper rifles and charge style plasma guns. Not a big fan of sniping but the large open areas make it fun to take pot-shots from a distance and then charge in.

I'm playing a hunter so far and you get a nice knife for melee which upgrades to be able to be thrown on a recharge which is really satisfying when it hits. Good mix up of combat ducking in and out using grenades and knife and found myself switching up tactics and weapons constantly. Double jump is really cool and looks like it upgrades to a triple jump with higher reach so there is a good sense of verticality when traversing the maps. Also having the speeder bike on call at all times is really nice to help you zip around.

Not played a strike mission yet and only tried 2 rounds of multiplayer which was quite close quarters capturing and holding control points seemed alright but didn't wow me straight away the multiplayer component seems like it going to be deeply fleshed out as the hub is full pvp specific gear will definitely put some time in but maybe wait for the beta rather than the alpha.

In short the few hours i have spent playing this put me from wondering whether to get the game to being pretty sure it will be one of my most played games of the year if the quality holds up.

I think the game, of what I've played, is absolutely fantastic. But yeah, like some others have said, it's a lot more MMO than I was anticipating. YOU CAN DANCE! As for Peter Dinklage, I think he actually does a pretty poor job... sounds very flat. I think I've also got so used to his accent in Game of Thrones, that now I hear him talking in his normal accent, it sounds like he's putting it on.

the whole peter dinklage thing, i havent heard enough to judge for myself about the performance, but the decision to use him seems far too motivated by trendiness, but then this whole voice acting thing is out of control in general, paying buckets extra for stars that lend characters a trivial novelty value more often than individuality.

Right when I started the game wasn't really clicking with me but I think that's because I assumed it would play like Halo. In reality it's more of a Borderlands/Call of Duty mix and once I got that preconception out of my head I started to really warm up to it. I've played the story mission twice, spent a good hour/hour and a half exploring the environment doing those randomly generated missions, and played a little bit of the competitive multiplayer.

I'm more confident than ever that Bungie will succeed again and my only real concern is how they'll manage to tell a compelling story in the structure they've come up with.

Agree I thought it was totally distracting and added nothing. Half the time it sounded like Dinklage and that guy from the Wire were sleepwalking through their lines. Dinklage's readings were done completely out of context that line about the "space wizard" was cringe inducing. Honestly, I wish they would cut out all the stunt casting and call this game what it is, an MMO FPS.

The game has been a lot of fun I've tried all three classes 'hunter' 'warlock' and 'Titan' for me it between warlock and Titan. One thing does anyone know how to turn off auto aim?

I'm super salty about forgetting to sign up for the alpha

@believer258: 8/10 like Borderlands? It seems much closer to Borderlands than an MMO, though MMO parts are there for sure. But it makes some great additions to the Borderlands formula. The fact that you can summon a Star Wars speeder with a button press makes moving long distances fun instead of an annoyance. Also, there is no annoying quest management. The squad leader picks a mission before you enter an instance; there is never more than one mission active, at least in the alpha. Also, though there is loot, it drops rather rarely and when it does it is just put in your inventory automatically. Both these things make party members less likely to check their inventory constantly and it keeps the action moving.

As someone who liked Borderlands, playing the Destiny Alpha made me super excited about the finished product.