Destiny First Look Alpha Review: A story of Moon Wizards and Violence
This past weekend, PS4 users had a chance to get their hands on the first publicly available gameplay of Bungie’s highly anticipated game Destiny. I was lucky enough to get into it, and played a decent amount of what was available to the player.
The area where most of the gameplay was split between the PvE Cosmodrome map, first show in the 2013 E3 trailers, and the PvP Crucible, which I was sadly not able to go to before the Alpha ended. Though the combat was limited to these two areas, a third and equally important hub known as The Tower was also open to explore. This is where you were able to find all of your merchant NPCs, check up on your mail,decode encrypted blueprints that are dropped by some enemies, and pick up your story related mission rewards.
The previously mentioned Cosmodrome is where both the story mission available to the player is located, as well as the Explore and Strike game modes.You can have friends join you in all of these modes, and at times it is almost impossible without them. Explore is an open ended mode that allows the player to traverse the map at his or her leisure while fighting of any enemies they may stumble across. Smaller missions are available from certain points on that map that range from killing a certain number of enemies in a specific area, exploring points on the map, and to just find a certain number of specific items. Strike is a more linear game mode that involves you and your co-op partners fighting your way through certain areas of the map with various obstacles, and a good amount of enemies, trying to stop you.These missions can be difficult at times, so co-op is a must for most players.
The game allows players to pick from 3 different classes that allow somewhat different gameplay. Due to time constraints I was only able to try out 2 of the 3, the Titan and Warlock, and did not get a chance to use the Ranger. The Titan is your typical stronghuge space marine-esque future soldier, able to take the hardests of hits and dole them back out against your foes with your wide arrangement of heavy weapons and your god damned fists.. The Warlock is your space-wizard class, and is a blast to play. Abilities are limited in the alpha, but the few they let you use were just plain fun. Each class gets it’s own unique “Super” ability that can be used to deal massive amounts of damage to groups of enemies, and at leasts the Titan’s and Warlock’s were functionally the same thing. Subclasses will also be available in game, but as the Alpha’s level cap was 8, they were not accessible.
Visually the game is beautiful. From the start you can see and feel Bungie’s distinctive artistic touch around you. Once again, the Alpha area limited players access, but from what we got in it I’m convinced it’ll be a beautiful product throughout when it is released. The views are amazing. Seeing the Traveler upon your first visit to the Tower is astounding, and the cosmodrome is home to many relics from humanities long gone golden age that will leave you staring for some time. The effects from weapons fire, grenades, and various abilities are right up there too. Supers are especially good looking, with your explosive ability drawing everyones attention any time it goes off.
The game itself plays a bit like someone mixed Borderlands with Halo, in a good way. Enemies have health bars and levels and occasionally drop loot, and you’ll find yourself summoning vehicles to travel around the map at a quicker pace than on foot. You are able to have 3 weapons equipped at any given time, but instead of swapping them out for ones you find around, you can go into your inventory at any time and swap them out. You have your primary weapons, the rifles and hard hitting hand cannons, your Special weapons like the shotgun, sniper rifle and others, and the heavy weapons: the machine guns and rocket launchers. In game each of these weapons have many different variations with different stats and level requirements for whatever you find.
Also of note, your A.I. companion is voiced by actor Peter Dinklage. I shouldn’t have to explain to you why that’s neat.
While I can’t recommend the alpha to anyone at this point, I’d say it gives a glimpse of what we will be getting from Bungie this September, and it looks promising.
If you can’t wait to try it out, there will be a beta opening up eventually, so get on that.
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