Destiny Beta: The Reaper Review

Destiny has been well under the microscope lately and for good reasons. Bungie’s most ambitious project yet just underwent a closed beta turned open recently. I got in both platforms and I was not disappointed. My small review begins now.

Story

The small portion of story was fun and involved taking down enemies called the Fallen and the Hive. The hive and the fallen are both shown off as enemies themselves, which at times during missions can play to your advantage if you are not looking to get into confrontation. The last two days featured a new mission that was set on the moon. Our guardian was dead for years until they were awoken by a small cortana-like device called a Ghost. The ghost was voiced by Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage.

Enemies

The enemies were reminiscent of two of the mainstay enemies of Halo for their involvment in the story and with each other; The Covenant and The Flood

The Fallen:

• Dreg- The Dreg are quick and elusive enemies that are the equivalent enemies to Halo’s Covenant Jackals
• Shank- The Shank have no equivalent to any enemy in Halo, but they are hovering attack bots that are some of the easiest to defeat in the game.
• Vandal- The Vandals felt more like the Elites from Halo with their size and sometimes through the way they behaved.
• Captain- The Captains are shielded enemies which pose one of the tougher enemies of the Fallen as expected.
• Servitor- The Servitor are robotic orb-like enemies that can teleport, feed out more enemies and even shield their comrades.
• Devil Walker- The Devil Walker is a Spider-like robot that was one of the toughest enemies even with a squad of 3 plus another squad.

The Hive:

• Thrall- The Thrall are the most elusive of the hive, and when in packs can overwhelm you for a second. They are the weakest of the hive.
• Acolyte- The Acolyte are pretty impressive, smaller versions of the Knight that are primarily the hive’s main fighting infantry.
• Knight- The Knights are similar to Halo’s Hunter. They have the ability to throw down a shield to protect them from frontal attacks and have huge power with their weapon as it tends to be the most powerful of any infantry enemy.
• Wizard- The Wizard is somewhat like the Servitor in the fact that it tends to feed out enemies and also shield them, unlike the Servitor he has a shield.

The beta on PS4 was running at 30 FPS on 1080p while the Xbox version ran at 900p. Bungie assures it was only because they had to push some things back for the beta. Both version will run at 1080p; 30 FPS on full release. The multiplayer was definitely no Halo, but it was fun, seeing as it only had one mode, so I am sure it will be a little better or at least more fun with the full release.

Destiny also features an explore mode, which is essentially free-roam with small, but plentiful missions around the landscape. They also had a strike mission which was even more difficult than story missions. The strike mission was titled, “The Devil’s Lair” and involved fighting off the hive and fallen. Your secondary boss was a devil walker leading to the main baddie, a giant Servitor the fallen seemed to worship named Sepiks Prime.

The Tower in the last city on earth is a sort of social hub as well as the place where you can get new armor, weapons and miscellaneous items.  Not to mention, you can dance, wave, and point to others as well as sit down and just relax enjoying the many beautiful views of what the game has to offer. I found the beta for Destiny to be very addictive and after it ended I don’t even know what to do with myself. The game was even more enjoyable with the friendly interaction from other players. 

Destiny’s beta did suffer from not being able to hear or talk to friends in party chat, but was not a big deal to influence my review. If the full game is better than the beta, then Bungie has a new success on their hands. September 9th cannot come sooner.