Quick Look: Destiny: The Taken King

I'm scared to watch this QL in case it convinces me to pick Destiny back up. It got hooked pretty bad on shitty vanilla Destiny; this new expansion could be like heroin.

I think what's going to save me is that I bought Destiny for Xbox One and right now I like my PS4 much better.

That just gives you more of an excuse to pick up the legendary edition with all the DLC packed in. ;)

Pffft Destiny isn't even in beta yet. Beta means content complete.

That Red Death is a Year One version, but it gives you access to the Year Two version.

Also Jeff/Brad once you fulfill the requirements of the Gunsmith weapons you can scrap them. That's why you can't put it in the vault. It is odd the game doesn't tell you that.

The second part of that Titan subclass mission was way easier then the Nightstalker one (not that it was hard). Basically kill these few dudes and align this thing. That being said I LOVE that mission for letting you just spam your super over and over. Great way to get a feel for it and just wreck shit. Smart decision on Bungie's part there. (Also that Titan Super has an enhanced Melee attack I'm pretty sure).

I quite enjoy the time the game goes into third person as well, since I like actually seeing my Guardian.

Most are pretty much what this is. It's weird that Destiny gets flak for this, but other games just skate by, but then again Destiny gets an abnormal amount of irrational hatred I'll just never understand.

@zeik: Is there any reason for me to pick up the other DLCs? Or can I roll right into Taken King? The first mission Brad and Jeff play is level 25 and all my characters were above that. More importantly, will I get that sweet grey/red/white shader Jeff got? I legitimately played Destiny for weeks after I stopped having fun with it to get a New Monarchy shader.

If you don't already own them the only version you can buy is the one that includes both of them anyway.

I got you on the ODB reference, Jeff.

The game design and graphics are still breathtaking. Also: Nathan Fillion!

Could only watch 37min's in still the same old game I will keep playing defiance and firefall as they are pretty much the same but for more interesting to me.

Looks like Destiny's story graduated from non-existent to mediocre. Fuck this game man.

@efesell: What if I'm buying it digitally?

Fuck I can't believe I'm doing this.

I fell asleep during the last Destiny QL. Let's see if I fall asleep for this one too!

EDIT: I did it!

Will Destiny be the first game in history to be in the giantbomb's top 10 list of the year 2 years in a row? i''m saying this in the most sarcastic tone possible.

Ghost sounds too similar to 343 Guilty Spark now.

For all the bad stuff that people said about Peter Dinklage, there are lines that I think he did that are iconic to me, and way better in delivery than Nolan North ie "We've woken the Hive!" "Where is his ghost...?" "A Cell! From the Prison of Elders!" etc. However, North really comes into his own with the character in TTK, so now that only thing I can say is this - The script was so blargh in vanilla that Peter Dinklage actually saved a lot of the material without the audience even realizing it. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me at this point. Seeing the improvement in story and character as the DLCs have been released and with this expansion, I think they went from having a pretty dull/poor script to having a better one. Not leaps and bounds better, but certainly more engaging, to me as a player, and amusing. The humor really helps a lot.

Once I have enough light to do heroic dailies and weekly strikes, I'm really going to miss hearing the original Ghost voice in the older missions. It's just, well, I played a lot of Destiny and it's going to be weird hearing things I've heard tens to hundreds of times said in such a different way.

@jadegl: Yeah. I'm worried that all this kerfuffle will turn him off voice acting. I like his voice and would love to see what he can do with a good script.
I mean I'm sure even Nolan North or Troy Baker couldn't make "that wizard came from the moon" not sound laughable.

I'll like, favorite and THUMB THIS VIDEO UPPP!

It's the same, you can buy the 40$ version if you own the DLC or the $60 all in version otherwise.

@darbish: i think that might be narcolepsy...

I......am probably gonna wait till the Taken King is on sale for like $20

Brad: "Take all these guns and flush them down the toilet! Find a gun toilet and dispose of them!"

I'm pretty sure VinnCo makes a Gun Toilet.

I feel the same way. I didn't mind Dinklage's voice in vanilla Destiny. As you pointed out, I think it had more to do with it being crappy writing. I'll miss the original Ghost.

Kinda want to play this + Persona 5 + Bloodborn but man those consoles are expensive if you already have a PC. (Keep in mind the monthly fee on top of the base price... Say $600 for potentially 3 games because I'm not seeing a lot of interesting stuff on the horizon.)

It totally is that. It's like a background game. Something you play while chatting and that injects you with an endorphin shot every now and then and potentially gets you addicted because of the shots, not because it's great. That is kinda the appeal though. Getting some shots.

Love how Jeff cares 0% about the levels and things that unlock. He's keeping a clear head. I'm not as bad as Brad (I think he's even into achievements?!) but I let myself go a little with these types of 'games'.

I think Destiny represents a lot of what I really dislike in video games. Numbers for the sake of numbers, a structure built upon solely mechanics with the intent of gameplay loops. Devoid of themes, narrative, or a world where a player feels welcome to create their own. It was a hollowed out idea of a fiction run by a machine designed to chew on its audience. Everything in it is executed with the specific purpose of perpetuating that machine, and it is just the sort of thing that I find horribly off-putting.

I came here fully ready to entirely dismiss this expansion--or whatever it is. And although I'm not fully convinced Destiny is near where it could be, it does seem like they're listening and trying to do better. It's interesting.

This is exactly how I feel about Destiny and the things that have been turning me off from video games in general these past few years. Just existing to exist and waste time. I prefer video games as a storytelling device or at least entertainment that isn't build on bigger numbers.

On the writing in particular, Destiny really does go above and beyond. There's plenty of bad cheese and mockable moments (pay respects etc) in games writing. Destiny isn't like that. It does hours and hours of sustained awful bathos and self-importance. All the Things have Capital Letters to let you know how Important this is. The tone is always cranked to 11 and therefore feels flat.

Other games jump the shark, Destiny swims laps with it.

Not like all that is totally unique either, there are other properties that go full ham on the grimdark. So you have a point that Destiny might get more flack than usual for it. Destiny gets extra criticism due to the effort and attention that went into the bad writing, and the lingering bad promises about story they made pre-release. When they claim they have something amazing, then deliver minute 25-35 of this video, people are more disappointed than usual.

Destiny. Still the game that doesn't deserve to be on a best of list..........

Watching this makes me want to play Dragon Age Inquisition for some reason

Naw it's me coming to accept that I would really enjoy the expansion.

I bought it. I was right. This is my shit again, for at least a month (I don't expect it to be a MMO, just a Bungie-quality shooter with a better story this time).

So far, the story is enough to keep me going and the progression and loot are really enjoyable. I actually am doing Patrol missions and enjoying it because there's a bunch of people around again waving, dancing, etc.

For me, I'd already invested into the game and DLC, and hadn't really explored the DLCs. I mainlined the Taken King story, then went back to the DLC. It's been a great bit of fun after MGSV.

They finally released Destiny, im so happy about it.

@anund: Good action games have story, character, themes, gameplay variety - reasons to keep playing. Destiny has none of that. It's one of the most cynically produced games ever made. No respect for it's audiences intelligence and recycling mill gameplay. Even this new $40 expansion reuses tons of assets.

Man, good video games are fun to play. Destiny has that in spades. This expansion is packed with story and interesting characters, which only makes an already good game even better.

That said, I understand that on this website it's cool to hate on Destiny. Jeff says it's bad, so people here think it's bad too. It's not a mystery, and I completely understand. I have done the same thing with other games. There are games I bought and never played because Jeff said they sucked, Max Payne 3 comes to mind. When I finally booted that up 6 months later, guess what? Turns out I loved it.

This sure looks dull as shit.

@anund: "You must stop the darkness" and one dimensional archetypes pass for good story and characters? I know gamers have bottom of the barrel expectations for writing, lower than any other medium, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. If people gobble this shit up the industry will regress even further into adolescent stupidity. Halo 4 is Shakespeare compared to the garbage of the vanilla Destiny campaign.

Hey man, good for you! You don't like something. I hope that enriches your life and makes you feel good about yourself. Meanwhile, I will be off here having a lot of fun playing a great game.

Personally, I love the characters they fleshed out for the expansion, and yet again, any story can be reduced down to its base components to ridicule it. "The old man and the sea"? Oh, you mean that book where a man goes fishing. Sounds boring.

Critizing the story in vanilla Destiny seems like a stretch. There was no story in there, only hints of one, at least in the game proper. Guess what? The game was fun anyway. How many people even read the questlines in WoW? That's still a good game in most people's books.

Having discerning taste does make me feel better about myself, yeah. The only way to recognize when something is good is to also recognize when something is bad, AKA criticism 101.

And yeah, it had barely any story, but what story was there was extremely bad and full of painful dialogue. You might not care about writing or find it to be beyond criticism because it "doesn't matter" in this case, but others do. Even if we're talking strictly about gameplay, I don't see how repeating the exact same combat scenarios over and over again in a small variety of pretty levels is fun. For the first few hours when it was all new, sure, but the repetition sets in quickly and then the game becomes a complete grind. The reason I bring up the writing is because if it were actually good, the grind would be more forgivable. But it's not, and in the end I can't see any purpose to playing Destiny unless you have the loot addict mentality.

edit: Also, I'm not hard on the game because of Jeff. I disagree with him more often than anyone else on the crew, I'm a writing/story > gameplay guy.

Great! So don't play Destiny and the problem is solved. I don't really see why you find it worth while spending your time in a quick look thread for a game you obviously don't like, arguing with people who do like it. You should probably spend your considerable talents and refined taste doing something a bit more worth while, for the good of humanity. Maybe you should go play more of the game where the super agent saves the world from giant robots, featuring the man who repeatedly poops his pants. Now that there is a proper video game for adults.

Nolan sounds goofy and sticks out like a sore thumb. Dinklage was better but both were bad.

The price for this on UK PSN is disgusting... no deal bungie. you lost me.

@daltimond: Not really, no. The story is less than 2 hours.

@almostswedish: No, and that's a good thing.

Those shinblades are scary.

I gotta say, after jumping back into Destiny with this release, I had completely forgotten how much this game feels like it's made by people who hasn't played any popular RPGs ever. It's just flabbergasting how much untapped potential there is to the game, and how it's struggling with concepts that other games figured out and refined years ago.

I'm tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt, in which case they would be genuises with how they've deliberately cherry picked the exacts systems they wanted, but with the type of communication we've seen from the team and how they've already backtracked a lot on earlier design desicions it seems pretty far fetched.

I'm just going to watch this video instead of buying this game! Yay!

This was super weird watching in colour blind, I couldn't tell what all the loot was! :P

Bought the expansion, am feeling kind of over it already. More so than when any of the other DLC dropped. Reason being, the loot system. I keep seeing others testify that the Drop Rates are completely different. I don't see it at all. Bungie has claimed that they changed the system so players could stop buying their gear from Vendors. That would be a nice goal if the gear that was being dropped was better than what was being sold. In my experience, this has not been the case, even in the slightest. It's nice to see loot drop out of enemies, but the quality of said loot is completely worthless 90% of the time.

I could buy my gear, but Bungie has effectively killed the fun aspects of playing PvE and PvP by completely negating the awards received from either. Who the heck grinds only for Reputation Increases? Legendary Marks are a cancer, and the weekly Soft Cap imposed by Bungie is nearly as punishing as when the Cyptarch would give you worthless items for your Best Engrams.

I miss one day of playing, and 30 Marks are completely dropped down the drain. Sorry, I've got a job, a family, and there is unfortunately no way in the game to make up those Marks. I don't know who had that grand idea to completely overhaul that system which worked! I was ready to jump back in, I feel like Destiny 2.0 is a step back, a far step back. I know that opinion isn't shared by most, but I'm not fooled like most of the community by a couple name changes and slightly altered numbers.

Did I heard Lance Reddick as zavala?

I'm really thinking of getting the 360 version and some xbox gold to try destiny. Fuck man I really wish this was on pc.

Edit: I secreretly wished that Destiney won Best and Worst Game for 2014 GOTY

@sinjunb: Isn't playing video games for the writing/story over the gameplay kind of counter-productive? I mean, nobody really sees a movie for the cinematography; it's nice when it's well done but it's not the reason to go see it (in most cases, as with any medium).

Also, HOW DID THEY GET OFF THE DREADNOUGHT IF THEIR SHIP WAS DESTROYED? I NEED ANSWERS.

Still looks interesting, but I feel it wants to be Mass Effect so badly, but without any of the world building and missions that originally made Mass Effect interesting to me.

Maybe in another year...