Huh, I'm not even sure I'd ever compare those two. I always imagined Destiny being closest to something like Defiance, though when I asked Jeff about it he did a pretty good job of explaining the differences between those. Sounds kinda like Phantasy Star Online and Borderlands are the closest comparisons.

Can you go to the moon in Mass Effect?

I uh, you know conceptually you have a good point and its frightening

Yes, you can in fact.

Putting this and some other surface similarities aside, I agree with others saying this a pretty pointless comparison. These are two different types of games aiming to offer two different types of experiences.

@fredchuckdave said:

By this definition you've just fabricated, unless a game is primarily about puzzle solving, nearly every level in a video ever is a glorified arena mode, if you think every "interior lengthy encounter in Halo" was a glorified arena mode. So bravo for not understanding the basic meaning of the word "arena", as well as wildly assuming that all Destiny dungeons will be point-A-to-point-B corridor crawls based on a relatively small portion of the game.

I don't understand why the two have to stand against each other? I don't measure every sci fi movie to date against the classics.... The Mass Effect series is one of my favorite of all time, and Destiny is made by some of the greatest FPS developers today.

Also, your opening sentence betrays your dislike for Destiny. Why even ask the question if you've already decided against an opposing answer?

@yoshisaur: I don't dislike Destiny, I just had this realization while I was playing Mass Effect 3 today. It doesn't mean Destiny 2 and 3 can't improve on the formula in some way that does make it more appealing, or that the rest of the game we haven't seen somehow contravenes the first impression. @starvinggamer had the most interesting suggestion in that regard. Open pvp max level area(s) where people can have gank groups and there's high level priority targets to fight over with amazing loot is definitely somewhere else they could go with it.

@bisonhero: I didn't say they'd all be corridors; hell even the one in the recent GB vid is nice and shiny looking; the environment is far from large though. There's plenty of games that either have a different rhythm to them so even though its an arena the enemies you fight might not be what you expect or the enemies are all in preplaced positions that you can adapt to over time (i.e. the intent behind the encounter is procedural learning instead of constant adaptation, both have their appeals but the potential skill cap for procedural learning is much higher because the game is able to be "tuned" so to speak). Halo just has the "monster closet" problem, except the closet is a dropship that you may or may not be able to shoot down depending on the game.

Anyway more people have either gotten the point or actually said something substantive to the contrary now, I'm not too worried about it.

All I'll say is I can play Mass Effect but not Destiny because Mass Effect is in 3rd person whereas Destiny is in First Person (and inevitably makes me feel sick during combat).

Co-op, loot, environments, vehicles, gameplay (specifically the shooting), and--if bungie is to be believed--closure. I do still love Mass Effect, though.

I've only played through the tutorial area so far, but the combat in Destiny feels much more kinetic. It's probably something to do with the fact that I can't help but revert back to my Doom/Quake days whenever playing an FPS. Maybe that feeling will fade but, as someone who's always found stop-and-pop cover shooters to be rather boring, right now I'm finding the actual shooting of things significantly more satisfying. Of course in ME3 I was largely too busy blowing shit up with space-magic to care, but if I had to pick a world to pull a trigger in, it would be Destiny.

I'm still not sold on Destiny, but I think it's kind of neat that they are throwing in Wizards and Warlocks into a science fiction setting. Who knows how they'll execute on it, but I like the idea of Bungie doing high fantasy in space on paper.

It's like comparing Start Trek and Star wars. They both take place in space but they're both going for completely different things.

About as reasonable a question as "What does Destiny do that Dragon's Crown didn't do better?"

Conceptually DC is actually closer to Destiny than ME is. It's the side scrolling fantasy version of Destiny with a way better loot system.

Oh, I'm sure I would like Mass Effect 4 more that I will like Destiny. I mean, duh. But, we are gonna get both; and I will play both. I'm sure each will be its own very special snow-flake...blah, blah, blah.

Destiny won't be teh be all and end all of sci-fi games I'm sure. It will be a damn fine shooter with some RPG elements, and I will enjoy playing ist for a few weeks? Months? Nothing wrong with that at all. Every game has ist niche, some games are big parts of our lives and some very small...what matters is that we get some fun, excitement, engagement out of them.

Now I'm really bummed out that Destiny doesn't do what Mass Effect did.

I think the right question is what does Destiny do that Borderlands didn't do better? Plot aside, they are essentially the same game.

@humanity: The obvious answer there is gameplay. From what I've played Destiny has hilariously superior gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I love Borderlands, but I'd say its action was like one step above Fallout 3, while Destiny's is basically on par with Halo.

Well that is a strong matter of opinion so I'm not going to say yay or nay - but both games are basically shooters with some extended abilities. Borderlands seemed to have a lot more interesting guns than what I've seen of Destiny thus far, which is your standard assortment of rifles, shotguns etc. Hopefully the full game will have better weapons and not just rifles with higher stats.

This.

Idiot thread is idiot.

@humanity: Well yes, it's technically an opinion, but come on. I don't think there are too many people that would argue Borderlands has more refined gunplay than Halo, the gold standard of console FPS.

@berserker976: The gold standard of FPS is probably Painkiller, but that's a pretty ridiculous phrase either way.

For one thing, ME3 is a fully released game and any ideas of what Destiny "has" is complete and utter speculation.

Be a completely different game? What is this topic even?

The OP and some of the people replying have actually brought up some interesting points.

But in the end, I still come back to this.

I don't really think this had good discussion value to begin with, and it's clear that the comments have gotten into the realm of arguments, so I've locked this thread.