Quick Look: Destiny: The Taken King

It's really weird how all the cutscenes in this game are cut like they were trailers.

I have never played Destiny. I have no interest in playing Destiny. I watched this whole QL anyway. Such is the power of giantbomb.com

You basically just described every actiongame ever. Maybe gaming just isn't for you? Or at least the action game genre.

Is the wise cracking robot dude Nathan Fillion? Because it sure sounds like him.

Edit: Brad just mentioned it, neat!

I mean you can trade in the old disc at GameStop where you strike a deal that makes the Taken King disc $40. At least that's what I'm doing when I get it on Thursday, I think the deal lasts a week or so.

Or you have an extremely low bar, for what qualifies as phenomenal.

Brad still making excuses for this game's faults is baffling.

GameStop is running a deal through Sept. 21 where you can trade in your original "Destiny" disc and pick up the Legendary Edition disc for just $40. It's basically the same as getting the first two expansions free.

The good stuff is always in another castle with this game. Brad's my type of guy, but I do not understand what he's so excited about. I guess it's the social nature of this game.

All Action Games are "boring" looking, only contain the mechanics "shoot" and "move to another location", and have "cheesy" writing?

Nope, still not feeling it. They poisoned the well for me a year ago. There is still something incredibly clunky about it, like how transaction don't happen it the world just in menus. It all just just reinforce 'I am in a menu. This menu tell me about this thing. I am in game.', and that's not how i want to feel when playing a story based game.

This just in Destiny is still amazing.

I really regret buying this game. I really regret buying a console for this game too.

@vierastalo: they feel very blizzard-esque.

I have to also say having played exceedingly little of destiny i get a little tired of the unmitigated bashing it receives here. I guess it's funny or something? I know it's nowhere near perfect but it had its good points even when it first came out and it sounds like they're already doing a lot to help fix its flaws. Reasonable criticism i understand, but the hate just feels childish. There seems like a ton of people (especially outside the bubble here) that truly enjoy the game.

Dude go see a dentist, you're a goddamn King.

I don't understand why people like and or dislike Destiny so much. Comes across as 'middle of the road' Sci-Fi much like Bungie's previous franchise.

This looks perfectly competent. Shooting still looks lovely, what you're doing doesn't look too inspired though.

I played two of the main TTK missions with my husband last night, as well as doing the Nightstalker mission by myself. The expansion, on the one hand, is just more Destiny. The missions feel much more interesting, though all you're really doing is shooting bad guys. But it's an FPS so that makes sense. I can understand why someone from the outside looking in would just brush it off as being more of the same.

On the other hand, even that first mission was more interesting and dynamic than most of the missions in the game up to this point, excluding some missions that you play in the last DLC. This is going to sound a bit "Well no duh" to everyone here, but I literally turned a corner at one point and went "This feels just like a Halo mission." which to me is a good thing. If the base game had more of that Halo-magic, it might have made a better impression. Also, if they had infused the personality into characters that we're seeing in this expansion in the first place, I also feel that that would have made a better impression. Cayde-6 was just a robot dude standing still in the tower that I would talk to once in a while, in the expansion he's a fulled realized character. Sure, he's just a tin Han Solo or Mal Reynolds, really, but it makes it so much more engaging to play the missions when you have people talking to you that have character traits and motivations. Where was this in vanilla Destiny? It's a damn shame that it took this long to get into the game.

Loot is plentiful. The only downside is that the greens that are dropping for me are better than my year 1 exotics (boo hoo, I worked hard on upgrading that gear!) but I have also gotten 3 level 40 legendaries in maybe 2-3 hours of play. So, when I hit 40, I'll have a nice gun, chest armor and gauntlets to equip. Leveling is fast if you make sure to get your bounties before you go into missions or patrols. The new class (NIghtstalker specifically is what I have used so far) is super fun and the mission to get the class is stupid ridiculous fun. It's short but they really make you feel like the baddest duder or dudette in the galaxy when you get to use the powers for the first time.

So far I have no real complaints, but I have only played two of the main story missions and the sub-class mission. I think the best part of the expansion, so far, is that they've taken characters that we've seen since day one of vanilla and made them actual people with personalities, even if those are "charming rogue" or "dude with a stick up his butt" or whatever. It's still way more than we've had for the past year. It really makes me wonder just what happened in the games development and if things were cut or streamlined to make the release date. It's one of those questions that may never be answered but seeing what they can do, and seeing what they released originally, it makes me wonder as a fan of the game just what the heck happened, whether it was always intended that way or kind of went off the rails at some point and these DLCs are course corrections. Anyway, that's a conversation for another day I suppose. :)

Is it worth the money though? Eh... I can't say yet. It's worth it to me so far, but the story missions could crap out later. But I really like the changes to almost all the stuff around the game, how bounties work, vendors, kiosks, loot drops and quality of loot, additional modes in multiplayer, the new sub class for each guardian - I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. But I like what they've done and what they continue to do to make the game better for players. But should you drop 80 to get the game, DLCs and Expansion? Yes, I think the whole package is worth that. Should you drop 40 on just the expansion if you're burned out on Destiny? Maybe not.

Coming from someone with 265 hours (not much compared to some real hardcore players), it's cute seeing Jeff reviewing his gun collection and jumping back in at the beginning. Welcome back! Destiny's actually kinda good and fun now!

Hey Bombers,

How funny was Jeff when he said at the start that "Destiny" just came out of BETA today?.

He's a Black Belt in sarcasm for sure. I laughed haaard.

Sorry Bungie, but he got cha there!. A real drop the mike moment.

Im still in, but Destiny being Destiny there's no rush to really play this asap.

I'm told that you need both previous expansions in order to play this. If true that's a real shame for players like myself who play solo. Apparently my best(cheapest) purchasing option if I want to continue playing the series is to get the legendary edition which gives me a second copy of the base game along with all DLC. So I can either spend 60 and get everything plus a digital copy of what I already own or spend 80 (40 for season pass and 40 for TKK) and buy everything piece meal. I'm sure there's some reason why it's this way, but man do I feel kinda fucked over by all this. Hopefully I'm missing something or misinformed.

As someone who's avoided Destiny One-Point-Whatever like the plague, this "The REAL Destiny Starts Now" version is kiiiiiiinda appealing (even if it's "just" a crazy mutant bastard of Diablo 3, Borderlands, and Halo).

But, for the love of all that is good, why is it so hard for developers in non-open world games to make enemies scale to the player's level? Watching Jeff and Brad fight enemies EIGHT levels below them must've been boring as hell.

I was under the impression that you could just level up with XP now, but it still seems to be equipment driven... Not like in normal games, but you still got a Light Level to maintain in order to do more/take less damage from enemies.

55:45 'there the Osiris of this shit'

Giant Bomb banging out Wu Tang references since 2008.

Another Wu Banga!

As someone who quit playing Destiny nearly a year ago but came back for the 2.0 update and Taken King, here's my thoughts:

The game has been considerably improved in a variety of ways. Destiny's problem originally was that, putting the story issues aside, the game was clearly designed to primarily cater to PvP obsessed folks with very little thought put into the single player aspect of the game. "Grindy" doesn't even begin to describe how Destiny used to be. I put about 40-50 hours into Destiny originally and by the time I stopped playing I think I had maybe ONE legendary weapon, I had only JUST achieved Vanguard Rank 1, and I think I had maybe just enough crafting materials to do one major upgrade. That was after 50 hours of routine playing, without much PvP. I was told that I should get Vanguard Rank 2 since you are guaranteed a legendary reward upon doing so and just stopped playing because seriously screw grinding out 20 hours of patrols to get vanguard reputation.
Starting out in destiny 2.0 last week with a new level 1 character, I managed to get Vanguard Rank 1 in about 7-8 hours of play time, a level 20 character, tons of crafting components, and 2 legendaries. Progression is FAR more logical and sane in this new version than it ever was. You are constantly earning drops and the new drops are scaled to your level so none of that bullshit where you murder a massive boss and get a level 5 gun for your trouble. The loot drops with enough frequency now that even useless items means you get a much more realistic drop rate for upgrade components. Patrols and bounties award more reputation with better frequency and you level like crazy. Getting to level 25 (the suggested minimum for starting the Taken King storyline) will take you about 1/4th the time it took before, and you will have much better and more flexible equipment. The field items (like spinmetal, etc.) are all over the place now and spawn much more frequently. It's hard to really mention all the little things that have been tweaked, but this game has been overhauled so much that, to be honest, I almost feel a little sorry for the hardcore players who actually *have* been playing for a year only to have their best gear outclassed by a few new drops in the new system. Personally I haven't started Taken king yet...I am finishing everything else in the year-one game before I start on the content, but even if the new content is only about the same length as the Year One game, it still adds a considerable amount to the game. If you haven't played Destiny but kinda want to, this is a really great time to start doing so because you will be buying into a more complete and fleshed out game. If you have no interest in the PvP you'll still get an easy 40-60 hours out of this which is not too bad. If, like me, you quit playing, I would argue you should come back and give it a shot because man the 2.0 changes have really made the game more vibrant and faster paced. There is still grindy-ness, but nothing even remotely on the same level as the old Destiny.

The fact that I own just the base game and would have to spend $80 dollars to get the game to this point is rather disgusting.

@evilsbane: You don't. It's $60 for all three expansions, which easily contain more content than the base game combined.

immediately after the stream of this was over (midnight for me) i fell asleep way more quickly than it usually takes, so thank you!

Destiny isn't something I want to play YET, but it's getting closer.

I played TTK for like 8 hours yesterday, and there is still so much to do. The story is awesome, the writing is great, the new missions are amazing. I realllly hope Jeff and Brad have a good time in this...

UPDATE: I can already see why Jeff doesn't enjoy this game very much. He literally just rushes for the objective arrow instead of stopping to explore his surroundings. Then he straight says that Destiny gives you no reason to stop and look at things. Huh? Destiny gives you hundreds of reasons. It's a gorgeous game. If you just run from point A to point B you're missing out on a lot, especially in TTK with all the stuff you can scan. Poor Jeff.

I'd disagree. There is something especially characterless and vapid about Destiny. It isn't fun as much as it is full of mechanics that seem to work very well on certain people's addictive tendencies. I wonder how many psychologists they have on staff.

@evilsbane: I don't knowing you're in the U.S. But games to actually had a really good deal going if you didn't buy the two expansions. You can trade in your original copy of Destiny for 20 dollars off the legendary edition. as someone who stopped just after the first expansion released this was a pretty rad deal to take advantage of.

@stanleypain Thanks for that bit of insight on starting a new character. If I were to pick up Destiny again that's what I'd do. I've only ever played a Warlock and TTK seems like as good a time as any to try a different class.

A question to those that have played it: can you mute the music yet? As good as the music is I don't want to hear it anymore.

I really liked Destiny, but I ultimately traded it in because an MMO experience isn't something that fits with the time I have to play games. But goddamn does this video make me really want to play Destiny again.

Thanks for the walkthrough yesterday. Enjoyed it. Only have the changes that came with DLC packs without playing the TK content so I can only comment on that. Disappointed in the content and voice updates to the Ghost. I felt so embarrassed after hearing it. I've had to play the PvE on mute ever since. It's Lucas-esque cheese. The Taken enemies look cool, but I can't help feel as though someone sat there and thought "Let's just mash together the shadow beasts from Twilight Princess and Bigdadddy from Bioshock." Bungie have got to have greater resources than this, right?

Nolan North giving some guilty spark (or general robot0 style intonations on some of these reads. I quite like it.

Yep, Destiny is still Destiny, but perhaps it's starting to be something more.

I need to change to color blind settings, everything is exotic!

@ronniebarzel: Appreciate the heads up but I have the digital version :(

It's nuts that you can't just buy taken king by itself or with the other (first) two expansions. Why would people even need another copy of Destiny? I know it helps people who've never played it but selling the same game to people who already own the damn thing is insane. Maybe they're just trying to bloat the sales numbers?

Regardless, they can count me out for year 2 or whatever. They didn't poison the well. More like filled it with concrete

WOW! This latest patch to WARFRAME looks awesome!!!! =)

"It's out now on every platform."

Except for PC. No sale.

Ha! This is like some weird gamer evolution chart.

@daltimond Bro, go buy the Legendary edition at retail, that's EXACTLY what it is.

@the_ruckus: The thing about the Witcher 3 is that they said it's going to be as long as the Witcher 2. My buddy picked this expansion up last night and beat the story bits in three hours.

where is the youtube upload

@robopengy: That's good to know thanks for the info.