Destiny 2
I bought Destiny 2 on a whim this week. I did not play the first instalment but many of my friends and colleagues gave the game positive feedback. They continued to extol the virtues of the franchise with the recent launch of the sequel, so I decided to give it a try. I’ve always enjoyed the FPS genre and the fact that this title is a pseudo MMO, piqued my interest. So, I shopped around as usual and bought the base game for £42.79, which isn’t a bad price. I didn’t commit to the season pass in case the overall game wasn’t to my liking. However, so far things have been both enjoyable and interesting. I’ve only played for about five or six hours, so haven’t got that far into the game but overall Destiny 2 seems to be a wise investment.
Before, I start on what I like about the game, let me voice one criticism. At present it is my only one I have. I was expecting Destiny 2 to start with a specific tutorial, as you would find in an MMO. Something that would introduce all the game systems and provide you with an overview of managing my character and their gear. I appreciate that tutorials are not universally loved. Some players hate the way they slow you down, but I feel it would be beneficial to the game. I’d even settle for highlighted tooltips. Yet both options are conspicuously absent. I therefore had to muddle through the best I could initially and when I encountered something I wasn’t sure about, such as replacing gear or seeking a quest log, I had to tab out of the game and Google it. I always feel that it is a fundamental flaw in any game if you have to temporarily leave it to seek information.
However, the tutorial issue aside, there is much that I like about Destiny 2. Firstly, it looks devilishly saucy. I make no bones about the fact that I like my game to be visually attractive and Destiny 2 makes my graphics card “sing”. Then there’s the actual combat itself, which is very fluid and requires a lot of situational awareness. The mobs are not confined to linear movement and therefore you have to fire very selectively if you wish to conserve ammunition and maintain accuracy. I like the fact that combat is not a cakewalk and that you have to understand your enemy, pick the right weapon and fight tactically. I also enjoy the public events, having become a big fan of this game mechanic in Guild Wars 2. The player interaction has been better than I expected so far, with people banding together and broadly supporting each other.
I found out that I won’t be getting a Sparrow until endgame but frankly that’s fine with me. This is an open world game and wondering about is part of the appeal. From what I’ve seen, having transport would certainly cut down the length of the central campaign and possibly afford to much of an opportunity to miss the out on the game’s striking environment. As an intermediate player who doesn’t always ways feel social, I like the way that all the usual voice chat and text options are turned off by default. I may well have had other players cursing me for my ineptitude in the last few days but I haven’t had to listen to such garrulous inanities. Overall, I think that Destiny 2 is going to scratch an itch I’ve had for a while. I won’t be buying Call of Duty: World War II as a result and the only immediate competition this game has at present is the imminent release of Star Wars Battlefront II.
