Grelik

The PvP is balanced in the sense that everything but primary weapons will one shot you. I enjoy the PvP quite a bit, but there are moments of frustration where you do run through a string of instant, seemingly unavoidable deaths.

I still think secondary ammo should be much less readily available than it is currently. Would help make it a little more interesting by increasing the TTK in most engagements from instant to at least 0.5 seconds.

I can't wait for the next Iron Banner though. Anyone know when it is? I can't seem to find a calendar or anything regarding the next one.

@undefined: the last bad game I finished was MGS4. I felt like a masochist forcing myself to watch that final cutscene. I had no idea it was going to be as long as it was, it just kept going... What a dumb game.

@yummylee

I'm just playing through on casual difficulty myself, just didn't want to deal with having to think about the combat, pausing, crafting, upgrading and just wanted to pick whichever party members I liked, and just run in chopping enemies up with my blades. I'm pretty much here for the story.

Two things I'd have like to have seen changed (I agree with your points as well).

1. I really would have like to have seen better organization on the quests. Perhaps organized into categories like: Main Story, Follower Specific, Side mission and Trivial. Put all those fluff "collect 10 ram meat" in the trivial so I know I can ignore them if I choose, and then I know which missions will be more story oriented or proper side missions.

2. I really find running across the terrain to be kind of annoying. I get caught on so much geometry, or sliding back down spots in the terrain that I feel a little more time spent into smoothing out the traversal would have gone a long way. The storm coast I've found to be the worst for it, but still. (plus that jumping animation... I go from a smooth agile rogue to this strange human doing it's best donkey kong impression)

Otherwise, I'm really enjoying the game. Combat feels good, story is good. I couldn't have asked for much more. (Now if Bioware would just hurry up with the next Mass Effect!!!!)

@babychoochoo: I almost drove off the road on my way to work because of that. Thanks Dan!

I'm going to echo the whole "this is a complete non-story" sentiment... Even before the venturebeat clarification it was still a completely unremarkable story.

I'm super hyped for halo MCC. I haven't played any halo's after 3 and haven't played the original halos since their releases. So I'm really looking forward to jumping back in with the remastered versions and playing halo 4 for the first time. I also know I can be as hyped as I want because they're tried and true great games soooo yay?

I really liked playing through Mass Effect 2 and 3 on insane. Did it multiple times (my favourite series of current and last gen). The biotic/tech combo's really become important and the game becomes a lot more tactical once you don't just mow through everything with a single power usage. Also basically all enemies will have barriers, shields or armour so planning ahead to deal with all the damage resists becomes pretty important.

My first impressions on Xbox One with an hour and a half of playtime:

• The frame rate, it hurts me. It's one thing to be a solid 30, I'm okay with that but wow does this thing just chug along so hard at times.
• I do find the lack of any sort of lip sync from the characters in game to the voice actors a little jarring, but that's not why I'm here.
• Ran into a bug using the alternative control style (so dodge would be where I'm used to). But the offhand switching button will stop switching between two handing a weapon and my shield. My shield will be equipped and on my back, I'll be two handing my sword, but when I go to switch to my shield, it just swaps to fists. I have to switch back to default, switch back to my shield again, and switch back to the other control scheme until it happens again. I've decided to just get used to the default controls.
• When I first made it to the magical gauntlet shooting thing, the game froze time as if it were showing me a tutorial window, only no window showed up and my game was stuck in this frozen time state, so I had to quit to the main menu and load up again, hope it doesn't happen again when I go back to it.

That being said, I'm really looking forward to getting back into the game tonight after work, I do like the art style, and I'm currently running a rage/warrior build and running around only wearing pants and my weapons so I can fast roll around until I jack up my endurance. Getting used to some of the subtle differences in the feel of the controls compared to DS is taking a bit of time (I play a lot of DS) but the game feels great, and once I get used to it I'm sure I'll enjoy the hell out of it. (That frame rate actually impacts game play IMO, but we'll see how it goes.)

@nightriff: For me, the change in scenery is all I needed I think. I never really liked the Civ games for their historic settings (I own Civ5 and just reeeeally don't like rolling around on horses and all that). Now I'm starting with space marines, shooting aliens on a different planet and it just seems to make it all click for me. I just finished a play through of the demo to see how I'd take to it, and just the sci-fi change alone is enough to make me instantly like it. Currently downloading the full version.

I hope I get as much out of it as I did with Endless Space.

I'm a lvl 28 Hunter. I don't notice any significant difference. Lower level players still can still light me up easily, otherwise I think I've been able to one shot lower level players with a body shot from my fully upgraded Ice Breaker sniper rifle. Other than that I haven't noticed anything different in the pvp. (For reference I have 21 hours spent in pvp and over 1600 kills to my name according to the destiny mobile app).

My only real complaint is a loss doesn't grant you any of the new faction rep, so it's just encouraging a horrible environment where many people are just leaving the game at the first sign of a loss and it really sucks to go down 1-3 players within the first two minutes because your team is at a 600 point deficit (which is like, 2-3 kills). It's incredibly frustrating.

Overall the event feels a lot like the Queens Wrath where Bungie is trying their best to make it sound like it's something awesome and new, but it's exactly the same stuff you've already been doing and just adds another rep grind.