That's fair. I don't mind doing it and find it interesting most of the time but I can see why you wouldn't.

Just choose whichever console has the exclusives you want since now that they've fixed the kinect gpu issue every game should run at 1080/30 on both.

Is anyone playing on Xbox 360? If so, how do the graphics and frame rate hold up? Any noticeable issues?

If someone told me to rate my experience in Oblivion based on the first few hours I would've said the game was shit. Ask the same question a week later and I would have a very different take. It's a long game and putting up a review on a game after playing it for 5 minutes is stupid.

I'm having a lot of fun so far myself. The story is definitely slow and bland, but so far that's mattered little to me. I never expected this to be a narrative heavy game. Sure PR hyped it up, but I stopped listening to PR years n years ago.

Yes, it's a tad repetitive so far, but what MMOish game isn't? The gameplay is really what shines here and man is it tight and satisfying.

Having a group of friends play this together is quite frankly nothing short of a good time. If you don't have friends however, you may not enjoy this game. I'd definitely put it in a category with a game like left 4 dead where you need friends to fully enjoy the game.

Really wish they let you continue with your beta character, going through this early stuff for the 4th time is really boring

I'm going to try to wait a week and see if people are still talking positive about the game and then I'll probably get it

That's pretty much how I went with it, I was able to get either console discounted and ended up getting a PS4 because the only thing I'm really going to miss out on is Halo considering that most of XB1's exclusives are going PC and hell, I really wouldn't be surprised if Halo made the jump too a year or two after the console release. Wanting to play Last of Us at 1080/60 and the other exclusives made the choice easy for me.

Picked up Destiny last night for XB1 then made poor life decisions of staying up till 6am... then going to work at 8 am.

It's cool so far. Kinda dumb story wise, but the right kind of dumb. If you like Halo, MMO's, and western "hey look at these shiny RPG elements that aren't really RPG elements..." you should consider it. Def need like 2 other people to play it with.

PvP is super cheap over-shield can't kill anyone halo combat, with magic added. not sure about that yet, but I like fighting the AI in the open areas even if it's kind of predictable.

Someone asked, It looks and runs great on the Xbox. No framey parts at all. We had a party of 6 that held together all night. At 3am Eastern we remained in orbit for about 20 minutes though nothing was loading.

This might be a poor comparison, but how does the storytelling stack up to something like a dark souls or demons souls? Those games just drop you in their worlds and don't really give you a clear picture of what you're doing, but I find those to be very enjoyable.

it put me to sleep -____-

I'm wondering about the 360 version as well. I just got a new PC and will be playing games primarily on that, I'm skipping the XB1 and PS4 for the forseeable future.

Seems likely a PC version will come out eventually, but that might be a year. I did enjoy the beta weekend on the 360 so that's an option.

So far Destiny's not sounding like a must have right now.

Skeptical at first but i can feel it digging it's hooks in me. It just feels really cool to play. I thought it was actually a fairly poor first impression, now i'm level 5 and i have class abilities and stuff unlocked it's really, really clicking with me. Shooting feels just right, the on-the-fly multiplayer (a.k.a running into dudes in the open world areas) adds a lot of fun to exploration - i'm normally a lone wolf kind of guy but running into random dudes feels 'right' in this game.

Also, i'm playing on PS3 and assumed this version would be trash, but the framerate is holding up excellently - I've noticed no dips at all really, even with tons of stuff going on. Pretty impressive stuff.

Character creation stuff feels good. Definitely feel like my character is 'mine'.

Did Bungie really spend all this time on setting and lore building and not bother to write a plot? Why the heck am I running around doing MMO fetch quests? Why am I listening to Dinklage-Bot and Johnny no face? Why should I or my character care about any of this?

Its not just the lack of traditions storytelling, there doesn't even seem to be an attempt at Ico/Dark Souls style environmental story telling. So far every character in the game could scream WE ARE BEING MYSTERIOUS in your face and you would have much the same experience.

I really needed this to have a story and characters to care about. It is great that it plays well, it nice that the loot system works and all the mechanical back-end works well enough, but I need a story. I need characters to care about, I need a world to care about with a story that captures my imagination; and that just isn't there at all.

To be honest I am perplexed that a big company like Bungie can spend YEARS on this passion project and not have characters that entice the player into caring about the world by the end? Was the ghost (you little 'rubic's cube' buddy voiced by Dinklage) supped to be that link? That thing talks a lot but since it is never in-frame talking to you because there are very few cut scenes of it twisting and turning in front of you talking, it is never really much of a companion. At least with Cortana you had a hologram to look at from time to time.

Its time like this where I wish some media critic, at some site, could sit down with the makers of a game and ask, very nicely with a ton or empathy/caring, "What do they think went wrong?" Because, sorry, this game went off the rails in development for sure if most peopel say it is dull and lifeless. Yet nobody will ask that, because it would be a soul crushing question and can only sound rude. All the critics know there were man-years (hundred of thousands of working hours) put into this game and a ton of polish lavished on as well, yet Bungie was polishing a lifeless, dead game. But we cannot say that, we not allowed to say that because somehow like parent of a nursery school student we have to hang their gawd-awful art on our refrigerators.

I was watching something Destiny related (can't remember what) when the style and setting just suddenly clicked for me for some reason. So after having mulled about buying it for far too long I decided to jump in, and now I really enjoy the theme and story (unlike when I played the beta). It does however clash terribly with the gameplay. One of the great things about Borderlands is that the whackyness really meshes with the idea coop multiplayer FPS madness, while Destiny have this very calm, stoic thing going on which would've fit much better into a singleplayer RPG.

They are striding a very thin line though, especially with enemy names like Goblins, Harpies and Wizards, and I don't think the "preciousness" they've been expressing in the PR run-up has helped much either, but with the right perspective the "generic blandness" of the game comes off as something pretty neat. It's made me wonder if this has been the thing I've been not getting about the Halo games all along.

including the players?

@monkeyking1969: I'm curious myself if it's just a byproduct of having spent so much time working on it that completely eliminates any sort of perspective on the project. The amount of fan-fare and strange developer comments, that almost sound pleading in their defensiveness and apprehension that make this so much more perplexing. The game looks beautiful and a lot of things seem to work really well, but Bungie seem to think they've reinvented the wheel here and given gamers something they've never seen before - and nothing could be further from the truth. Seeing how many previous generation games were moving towards no-load-screen open world experiences it's baffling how often you're stuck in loading here. For a next gen title I would have expected a sprawling seamless world, densely populated cities, living breathing worlds, and it's exactly the opposite. Minimalistic hub towns, lifeless worlds, constant loading. Did they not see it? Was there no external testing done way before they reached the alpha stage? People said that Watch Dogs was a failure in realizing next-gen potential and living up to it's original premise but Destiny falls short in such a completely more tragic way.

Unless something major happens later on in the game, unless there is a Dark Souls style "Ah Ha! I need to read the item descriptions!" moment I'm guessing plot is one area reviewers are going to come down hard on. With all these years of development, all of the creative minds gathered to create this game it had to be deliberate right? This is how they decided they wanted this game to be?

Maybe they'll patch it in? Sounds like Bungie's MO was, "Hey, we're not getting locked into sequels again. Lets just make a big thing we can support."

Imagine if this bombs and they become a Call of Duty house?

I feel like most of the resources went into creating the world, audio, AI and gun mechanics. There doesn't seem to be much care gone into the lore, types of missions, flow of the mission etc., unless they are leaving those for expansions?

@shindig:

It will be a sales success, much like Watch Dogs that is pretty much guaranteed. What is up in the air is critical and consumer reaction.

What qualifies as a sales success for a title like this, though? When they're aiming for longevity from a crowd of shooter fans with a one-off payment of £50. If those buyers get bored and tail off to the next CoD or Halo, what's left of the community?

The single player campaign in Halo was actually big feature though. This game is multiplayer focused.

I mean I think the game is fun as hell. Also when will people stop falling for hype and silly statements like that? Did you really expect that? That's on you.

@shindig:

At launch with the Bungie name, advertising and preorders I'd say its going to sell very well. When it comes to long term who can say? Is anyone playing Titanfall anymore?

Level 9, only played a few missions outside the Beta content. Fantastic game. One of the missions on the moon was totally bizarre, and I love how much of a challenge Hard gives you if you want it. So fun to play, been at it since 9AM and no signs of slowing down.

This is actually a super interesting comparison.

I'm not very far yet, so don't take my word for gospel.

The two are similar in that the lore is laid on extremely thick over the surface of the world. The atmosphere of both gamespaces are heavily influenced by the mood and imagery central to the worldbuilding. They're different, though, in that Dark Souls gives you some involved opportunities to explore character plots and serialized narratives. I haven't really felt that way about Destiny yet. There isn't one character, at least early on, who really anchors any sort of formal story arc.

I had fun with it during the beta and I'm having fun now. It really sucks that you have to replay the beta parts though... All I want to do is get past those parts so I can see all the different planets and get some good loot. I feel people are being a little ridiculous with how bad the story actually is. Yeah it's very vague and there's not really any character development or anything like that, but I think at the core of the game that most of the story elements in this are just pure backdrop and excuses to get players to go on throughout the planets. I'm perfectly fine with that.

@oldmanlight said:

Since all missions are instanced, if you didn't bring friends you are by your self most of the time.

I have a hard time understanding the general lack of match making in this game.

Grimoire Cards. Lots and lots of info on those.

Which is also really weirdly implemented, since there is no way to read them ingame or am I missing something? At that point they could just put up a wiki.

Anyone have any comments on the PS3 version? Would really like to play it but don't want to be completely bummed out due to 15fps

The game-play seems solid but I seriously have no idea why I'm doing anything other than because Petey is telling me to. Its just like "Oh hey, you're here, shits pretty fucked up. Those fuckers are assholes, you should kill them."

Yeah, it's always a bit weird when you're running around in the open areas with other people and then enter "the darkness" and they disappear. It seems like there should be a smart system in place for automatically pairing people up. There is an in-game menu for joining/inviting a person to your fire team, but that boots you all the way out to orbit and makes you reload the mission.

It's a solid 30fps 95% of the time but can dip to 20~ when things get crazy.

Can you guys tell me how the servers are holding up? I want to pick Destiny up, but decided to wait to see if it was on fire like SimCity was. I'm assuming that since none of the news sites are reporting on PSN or Live going down that everything's smooth?

The more I think on it I do think the Ghost 'Cube' thing was supposed to be more engaging in terms of character, so that not hitting that spot would cause problems. However, I have to think they spent too much time trying to make the best possible shooter in a co-op drop in drop out world by neglected world building, stage building, dialogue options for NPCs, story, etc.

They might have started with the concept years ago of "What if you could play Halo in co-op, and what if other co-op groups could drop in seamlessly to fight bosses, and what if you could jump in a space ship and fly to a multiplayer 16 person battle!!!!! OMG!!!!

...Well, OMG ten years ago for sure. But somewhat less OMG in the era of big stories told through NPCs with dialogue trees and mission choices like Mass Effect. And, less OMG in an era where every five years Rockstar puts out something that amounts to the size and scope of GTA V. Neither of those other games is perfect, but lordie they are more interesting and a better balance of form & function.

Understand, what it does well - it does very well! I think Bungie succeeded in making a very functional, tight game play; but a game is not just game-play. You can make a bad game with excellent gameplay.

And, I don't think it is just this current generation where this has happened. I think BioShock Infinite ran into the same issues. You can't half-bake a story...you cannot make something illogical and sometimes offensive when you half-bake a story and weak characters. Even to some extent Farcry 3 ran afoul of having some weak elements to its story that wobbled very close to the edge of illogical and offensive. And, lest not even talk about Watch_Dogs because that has got to be the worst character arc even put into a game. Perhaps, we could be happy there is so little characterization and story to this game; yet, I cannot help but think that too little story and too little drama where it is expected is bad in its own way.

My advice to developers: Nail your story, nail your characters, nail all player actions/reactions/motivations to make them logical to your story arc. Story board all of that in pre-alpha and don't screw with it much afterward unless you REALLY think hard about each changes consequences to narrative and characters.

Also, it is easy to know if you have a story - a story is first of all a chain of events that happen to characters that begins at one place and ends at another, "where place" can be a physical journey, a emotional journey, or often a journey from 'not knowing' to 'knowing' something.

A story is NOT a series of events, a story is not things happening to characters. A story is always moving characters in physical, mental, or perceptional space from one state to another...a story SHOW/TELLS growth and change to its characters. If your characters don't change or perceive something new by they end of it, you have not made a story about them. This is "Writing 101", but most producers/developers of games have not passed this class or they forget the lessons from project to project. That is why most games have very poor stories, developers fall into the trap of having events occur to characters and they think a pile of events that comes to a BIG event (a boss fight) is a story. That is not, and never will be, a good story.

@corruptedevil: in other words, completely playable. Great!

I would play this game solo, which it sucks to hear that the story isn't that good, because in the beta I just got straight up bored with the gameplay after a couple of hours and if it doesn't offer anything more than what I played of the beta, I will probably pass.

I don't have a problem with the lack of story, i love diablo but wish the story wasn't so intruding. I think what destiny really needs more than anything, is more and better loot. Everytime i kill an elite or a boss money and gear should explode out of their dead bodies, then the lack of narative and good voice work wouldn't even be noticeable.

I played a bit now, sure is a gorgeous game! Not having played the alpha or beta it didn't feel particularly repetitive to go back for a few patrol missions after I got about 5 story missions in. Went to an area that I only glanced in a quest earlier. The tasks were pretty repetitive though, either kill targets or fetch drops. But the combat was still pretty fun, and it feels pretty lively randomly meeting up with other players.

Having to go into a "navigation" mode to see the waypoints has already been incredibly annoying after only 2,5 hours. And story delivery so far has been pretty poorly delivered. Can't play Dinklage, I wager he was following direction. But the ghost has close to no emotional emphasis in line delivery. Also muting all game sound to blast HIGH STAKES OPERA music in a place where they haven't planted the investment for it was just weird.

Liking it so far though, plays fun. Tried one multiplayer game and it seems very Halo like.

Game seems fun, I have no friends through so Co-op will be a pain finding randoms to play. Overall in my hour I'm happy

I mean to this point none of these impressions are of a narrative that has been seen to it's conclusion. Based on the brief story footage I've seen, the narrative seems like a very slow build with things to discover along the way. I like that this isn't what everyone thought it would be narrative wise though. I often wonder if we are just spoiled when it comes to narrative in comes because of a plethora if indy stuff and a few amazing AAA stuff the last generation.

Granted I haven't played enough to determine other things, like mission variety and that. But the systems in Destiny are a fresh take on a relatively used genre at this point, tampered with good gameplay. Lack of enemy variety only comes into play because barely anyone has seen the game to it's conclusion. If you go all the way to the end and it's still that way fine, but when your only on either the moon or in old russai, your going to see similar enemy types in that area.

Reviews/opinions of this are going to be interesting though that is for sure. Not a lot of people seem to outright hate it, but for me personally I can't wait to keep playing through it.

@chaser324 said:

Some of the technical decisions are baffling at best and downright detrimental to the game play at worst. The constant reliance on going back to orbit makes interaction with other players a hassle. It constantly interrupts the game play and ultimately at least for me makes the world feel small and segmented.

This is not helped by the fact that all missions so far can be played out of order and are not connected very well to each other. Makes them feel more like sidequests than anything else.

At least you were able to skip the nonsense in Diablo 3 not so much in Destiny.

You can skill all the dialogue in Diablo 3 with a press of the escape key and there is an option in the menus to auto skill all cutscenes. If anything I felt like they gave you as many options as possible to not care about that story.

They said early on in Destiny's development that the game wasn't designed to be a loot game in the same way Borderlands or Diablo are so adding more would be contrary to what they were shooting for with their loot system. It seems very clear, at least to me, that they were going for a WoW style gameplay loop with all of their MMO style systems and not investing heavily on randomized loot systems.

ive gotten through half of the moon at this point,and if anyone has seen what i thought of the beta then it wont surprise you what im about to say.i absolutely love this game,the gameplay,the loot,being able to uprgrade your loot,the boss fights are way better than borderlands fights,the game is very balanced.i think the game looks great even on ps3,and the framerate is perfectly stable at all times.the game has alot of content,and i can already tell the endgame and pvp will keep me playing for months.not even counting the dlc that comes out.the music is easily some of the best ive heard in a long time,if not ever.i do have a couple complaints though,the voice acting isnt that great,the story is only ok,and it does take getting past the very beggining to show what its capable of.however the bad voice acting doesnt effect a mmo or loot game,and neither does a bad story.diablo 3 is one of my fave games in the past 5 years and i think the story is garbage.i wanna say the team did a amazing job with the servers,because when you see all these games with broken launches,and crashing servers it feels very refreshing to play destiny and have it work perfectly.bungie proved that you can have a very big release for a game and still have a good launch,and all the other developers need to take notice and learn from destiny how to launch a online game.so overall this game is amazing and is the front runner for my GOTY and possibly my top 10 games ever list.ive seen the rest of the planets on a stream so i know the rest of the content is just as good if not better than what ive already played.well done bungie,you made an amazing game.TLDR my GOTY right now.

Well the story might be...not anywhere to be seen as of yet but man it sure is fun to play. I can probably live with that just fine.

So has Bungie just created a re-hashed Halo? What I mean is the do the controls/movement feel the same with the same type of gameplay just with different skins.

I haven't seen any footage of this game at all so I'm curious to see if Bungie, given free reign have created something a bit more unique than just another Halo-like shooter

QUESTION

Do you think this game is worth it for PvP mainly?

The main content of them game hasn't really impressed me from what I've seen. The story looks boring and barely there, the missions look repetitive etc.

BUT, I do like me some multiplayer.

Do you guys think the PvP is varied enough to entertain people for a long enough time, like other FPS games that people mainly buy for multiplayer (CoD, BF etc)?

I haven't seen many people talk about the PvP much. Is there any progression tied to it, or is it just from the missions and stuff? Is there enough variety in the game types to keep you entertained for a long while?

I am not really used to console fps games but I'll say I find normal pretty challenging on even levels as well. You really can't take a lot of hits.

Adds for tension but I foresee becoming pissed in the future by having to redo a whole darkness zone. So far they've been pretty short though.

Level 11, doing the first Venus mission. Still a fantastic game.