Destiny Public BETA [PS4 / PS3 / 360 / XBO] review

[originalbadboy]

How did you only spend a few hours in the Russia area? It's packed with things to look at and crannies, then there's the free mission to mess around in with other players just milling around. The way the events happen is really organic as well, the way random strangers suddenly all pile in and help each other is awesome. Then you have the much better AI, though not to halo CE standard, plus the way enemies appear from drop ships is infinitely better than a magic door.

After recently completing borderlands2 this is on a whole nother level.

I'm just talking about mission time here rather than just mulling about .. In reality this weekend I probably spent 5 - 6 hours (maybe more) checking out some of the public events and playing MP.

I agree that the public events are nice and all, but they will appear in the same place, and do the same thing every time. It just seems like they are organic, however they are not in reality. That is no different to how something like Guild Wars works. If you completed a public event and waited long enough you would see that same event replay again.

There is certainly enough content for a game, dont get me wrong, but possibly not a 'big' game thats all I am getting at. If the game on release day ends up being made a lot smaller for the sake of DLC, then I will have a problem with that.

No way of knowing at the moment though.

[EvilBoris]

Its's just a demo and many demo's don't always reflect well on the final product . Looking over that if I just played the 1st level of Halo say in a demo - I would have thought the game was total crap- it took a while to get going and by the 3rd level of Halo I was totaly hooked .

The official Demo for Halo was actually of the Silent Cartographer, supposedly the best campaign level in the whole franchise.

I suppose the trick is make sure you make a good demo.

[originalbadboy]

The official Demo for Halo was actually of the Silent Cartographer, supposedly the best campaign level in the whole franchise.

I suppose the trick is make sure you make a good demo.

Indeed, I remember when I first played the Batman AA demo, it was terrible, really didnt understand what was going on. The actual game of course was excellent. But if I had gone by the demo I would have never had bought the game.

Sometimes demo's / beta's can be very deceiving ... Like for example the BF3 beta on the 360 / PS3 using low res textures.

[Golgo]

Re. game size, now confirmed just 4 'destinations', 1 per planet. That makes the beta 1 qtr of release game: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rea-per-planet

[Team Andromeda]

Indeed, I remember when I first played the Batman AA demo, it was terrible, really didnt understand what was going on. The actual game of course was excellent. But if I had gone by the demo I would have never had bought the game.

Same goes for the Forza demo which was utter pants on the old XBox or the likes Deep Space demo I didn't think much of the Ninja Gaiden 2 demo either

[fishbowlhead]

Re. game size, now confirmed just 4 'destinations', 1 per planet. That makes the beta 1 qtr of release game: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rea-per-planet

I can see the time well spent on polishing the current experience rather than shoe horning more content into it for the sake of it. Though if they are going after the long term single player for the online coop, they will need more planets fairly quickly. Next year they will have to make more solar systems available otherwise people will just get bored very quickly.

Honestly i can see people getting excited, rinsing the single player in a weekend then trading it in if new planets are not announced almost straight away.

[nakamura]

I liked it like I said but the beta was enough for me. Quite happy I played it because I have no desire to buy the game as a result!

[originalbadboy]

I can see the time well spent on polishing the current experience rather than shoe horning more content into it for the sake of it. Though if they are going after the long term single player for the online coop, they will need more planets fairly quickly. Next year they will have to make more solar systems available otherwise people will just get bored very quickly.

Honestly i can see people getting excited, rinsing the single player in a weekend then trading it in if new planets are not announced almost straight away.

If they were adding extra content for free simply because they didnt have time to do it before release then fair enough. But this is starting to stink of an Activision cash cow.

We wont know till launch, and if there is enough MP i would still buy if for that anyway, but its still deeply worrying that potentially we may have already seen a quarter of the content that's in the game. Hopefully I am wrong and there is a lot more stuff in there, but seriously I cant see it currently.

[fishbowlhead]

If they were adding extra content for free simply because they didnt have time to do it before release then fair enough. But this is starting to stink of an Activision cash cow.

We wont know till launch, and if there is enough MP i would still buy if for that anyway, but its still deeply worrying that potentially we may have already seen a quarter of the content that's in the game. Hopefully I am wrong and there is a lot more stuff in there, but seriously I cant see it currently.

Honestly if that really was a quater of the content, then it's not a very big game, I'm all for quality over quantity, however a persistent online game world like that needs a dam lot of content to keep you and your buddies going back day after day to complete quests.

Hahaha silly goose, free? Activision? Hell will poof into existence and freeze over before that happens

[PeteJ]

If they took the Guild Wars 2 model it'd be a huge success, but I really doubt they will. GW2 was a full priced MMO with zero monthly subscription and regular - weekly - content updates, also free.
They introduced real money in-app purchasing, but as far as I'm aware this is only used for cosmetic enhancements and not pay to win. Also see, Hats (TF2).

So around ten hours for single player, plus strike missions (one or two per planet), one raid, and lots of random mini-quests and public quests. I also believe they are changing up the Strike and Raid missions every now and then so they are much harder than usual, but that's only rumoured so far.
I think the game will have enough content to justify it being full price, but it's in a weird position that it has targeted this semi-MMO game space that automatically assumes masses of content and grinding for loot until the end of time. Somehow it feels like the game is content light even though it offers more than your average FPS.

[fishbowlhead]

If they took the Guild Wars 2 model it'd be a huge success, but I really doubt they will. GW2 was a full priced MMO with zero monthly subscription and regular - weekly - content updates, also free.
They introduced real money in-app purchasing, but as far as I'm aware this is only used for cosmetic enhancements and not pay to win. Also see, Hats (TF2).

So around ten hours for single player, plus strike missions (one or two per planet), one raid, and lots of random mini-quests and public quests. I also believe they are changing up the Strike and Raid missions every now and then so they are much harder than usual, but that's only rumoured so far.
I think the game will have enough content to justify it being full price, but it's in a weird position that it has targeted this semi-MMO game space that automatically assumes masses of content and grinding for loot until the end of time. Somehow it feels like the game is content light even though it offers more than your average FPS.

I think most hardcore will probably rush through it in a weekend easy. I can see some people finishing it day one if there playing all day.

[Golgo]

Indeed, no longer a very intriguing prospect, especially bearing in mind we've already seen and played in all four areas: earth, moon, venus and mars (whether in sp or mp modes). Maybe the beta was just too generous

[originalbadboy]

I think the game will have enough content to justify it being full price, but it's in a weird position that it has targeted this semi-MMO game space that automatically assumes masses of content and grinding for loot until the end of time. Somehow it feels like the game is content light even though it offers more than your average FPS.

As long as the MP holds up its worth the asking price .... if there wasnt DLC around the corner already, thats half the issue, especially considering how much the DLC costs. Its not exactly cheap.

[S3M]

In case anyone missed it, I'll be uploading videos of the Beta all this week, starting with the opening level and intro:

Really hit the Beta up this weekend, I really enjoyed it, but I don't see why it has to be online only. I will buy the main game just not sure when, I'll see how much DLC appears first. Certain the best run Beta I've ever played in.

[bcass]

The official Demo for Halo was actually of the Silent Cartographer, supposedly the best campaign level in the whole franchise.

What platform was that for?