Destiny 360/PS3/XBOX ONE/PS4 review

[dave heats]

I don't think I've ever seen Borderlands 2 mentioned so often as it has been since Destiny launched. If anything, I'm more excited about playing that for the first time!

Also, quick question to those currently smashing Destiny....is the maximum level really 20? If so, surely most people are already up to level 5-10? If it is capped at 20, will you effectively just hit a brick wall once you reach it, with no incentive to continue further?

[Brad]

I don't think I've ever seen Borderlands 2 mentioned so often as it has been since Destiny launched. If anything, I'm more excited about playing that for the first time!

Also, quick question to those currently smashing Destiny....is the maximum level really 20? If so, surely most people are already up to level 5-10? If it is capped at 20, will you effectively just hit a brick wall once you reach it, with no incentive to continue further?

That's a good question. Testament to this place once again that no one here has actually awarded the game a score yet. People everywhere seem cautious about judging it early on. I'm watching with interest.

Sorry about the Borderlands spam, at least half of that will be me. I know that I dismissed the first game very quickly and wasn't going to bother with the second but I grabbed it at a bargain price and it's been one of the best games I've ever played (when played with friends) so I'm keen to let others who may be in the same boat I was know about it. Sorry, back to Destiny; I'll just sit back and watch for now.

[dave heats]

It's not just you Brad, literally every discussion or message board I've seen discussing Destiny is mentioning it. General consensus seems to agree with you too, in that Borderlands 2 handled many aspects better than Destiny.

[Golgo]

It's not just you Brad, literally every discussion or message board I've seen discussing Destiny is mentioning it. General consensus seems to agree with you too, in that Borderlands 2 handled many aspects better than Destiny.

There's less loot-drops in Destiny than BL2 but they seem to me more useful for your character (i.e., less useless or nearly identical trash to sort and throw out). I think that's an improvement. The discrete areas separated by long load-times in which you fight hordes of enemies in various combinations is practically the same. It's much more po-faced than Borderlands 2 - in fact it's utterly and almost oppressively humourless - but otherwise I can't see how BL2 is better in moment-to-moment gameplay terms. Oh, apart from the ease of cooperative matchmaking, there it's miles ahead of Destiny.

[Lebowski]

id say the kotaku impression is spot on this line really sums it up for me

Mission variety does seem a bit limited too. There only really seems to be 'fight off a horde of enemies' and 'fight off a horde of enemies while Ghost takes forever to do something'.

[S3M]

What now? You can't play offline on your own out the box?

Very funny and not what my last post is about. I didn't however expect the Beta to be on the retail disc however, it's just madness.

Based on the size of the Beta and the full game, I think you downloaded the full game with the Beta and I suspect you may be able to hack it to unlock the full game.

[Golgo]

I don't think I've ever seen Borderlands 2 mentioned so often as it has been since Destiny launched. If anything, I'm more excited about playing that for the first time!

Also, quick question to those currently smashing Destiny....is the maximum level really 20? If so, surely most people are already up to level 5-10? If it is capped at 20, will you effectively just hit a brick wall once you reach it, with no incentive to continue further?

Once you hit level twenty your level is stuck but you can further upgrade your kit by getting 'Vanguard Points' and 'Crucible Points' and by collecting 'Motes of Light' (don't ask me what any of that means as it's not at all clear to me!!) and cashing them in with various people in the hubworld for choice loot and upgrades. These become available only when you hit level 20. So you are level 20 but your loadout is not, or something...

[capcom_suicide]

Most of all, I was hoping it might have had some tactical missions, where you needed to have a sniper giving cover, a tank in the thick of it and magic based person causing havoc and taking down shields etc. As far as I can tell after the first few hours, if you die you can just respawn, and there isn't any obvious encouragement for playing tactically in a team.

I also can't understand how GRAW could manage 16 player coop (If you had the bandwidth) with levels that had two secondary and one primary objective, and Destiny a 500MUSD game has a limit on coop of 3. THREE! T-H-R-E-E!!!!

I find that odd.

Anyway, after a few hours I've only touched the surface, so hopefully it gets better, but so far it under no circumstances feels like an expensive game.

[Brad]

Highest grossing day one in history. $500m

[EvilBoris]

Also, quick question to those currently smashing Destiny....is the maximum level really 20? If so, surely most people are already up to level 5-10? If it is capped at 20, will you effectively just hit a brick wall once you reach it, with no incentive to continue further?

I believe it is level 26, a whole load of things open up at level 20, so it would be strange to end it there, I'm at level 17 at the moment.
Like Borderlands , the level cap will be upped with each expansion, the first one is due in a couple of months.

Beyond your main character level, there are levels attached to each faction and each playlist, so there is actually quite a a lot to do if simply levelling up is your thing.

[Brad]

Level 20 means everything is open to you. You can then go up to 30 via armour sets etc.

[fishbowlhead]

Very funny and not what my last post is about. I didn't however expect the Beta to be on the retail disc however, it's just madness.

Based on the size of the Beta and the full game, I think you downloaded the full game with the Beta and I suspect you may be able to hack it to unlock the full game.

Wasn't sarcasm at all fella I genuinely didn't know.

[stevie vip 99]

Only played a few hours so far, I'll be honest I'm finding it boring.
Same areas with the same respawning enemy's as soon as I've moved 5yards away. Also most enemys i come across whilst travelling are really overpowered compared to my charactrer. I prefer playing set levels so the open world bit annoys me a little in this game. I'll carry on playing through the campaign hoping I like it but so far its as others have said, big fight while waiting for something! Not exactly a leap forward in game play.

Played a couple of online multiplayer games, got my arse kicked as I expected. Everyone was quite high ranked already and had much better weapons etc, I just couldn't kill them before their inevitably one shot kill on me!

I will carry on playing and hope I can post a better impression on the game at a later date.

[Neon Ignition]

Been interesting to read about on impressions, seems like if the beta etc grabbed you you're home free but for a good few others the faith seems to be wavering a little. Curious to see what detailed reviews come in with and whether they have concerns too as the impressions in some hands on hint at or are just wary of being the first to officially slap a sub 8 score though I get the feeling 8 is going to be the most common number around. Mostly, in terms of buying it myself, I'm curious about how much strike missions feature meaning coop is needed more so and whether later planets are larger in scope than Earth. With Pre-Sequel just around the corner I'm not diving on this quick unless it turns out to be more than the beta suggested

[EvilBoris]

So I've just hit level 20 and I'm actually really enjoying it, I seem to still be gaining access to new multiplayer modes and gameplay systems. I've still got a few locked.
I wasn't too fussed about it prior to launch and I'm not a fan of Borderlands or MMOs.

I was playing it by myself earlier with some randoms and found it ok to pass some time, I was a few levels higher than the enemies I was fighting, so it was actually pretty easy on the normal setting. When the enemies aren't being bullet sponges it does kinda feel like playing he Halo campaign.

The story seems pretty sparse so far, with many story missions involving hunting down some kind of relic or Lore, as part of your duty as a guardian.

One thing that seems pretty obvious at this point is that if you want to get the most of the game, you will need to play the competitive modes, there are hundreds of items that you cannot even access if you haven't levelled up high enough in the Crucible (multiplayer vs).
it's pretty clever as it will encourage you to do modes that you may otherwise not be interested in , so that you progress your character.

The matchmaking seems to have settled down very quickly and I was finding I was getting matched into games that were very close on every occasion, so if you have any concerns about losing to people who are much better then it should be ok.

It's still taking me a while to get my head around how everything works, I'd say it was probably when I got to level 12 that everything seemed to click. You have unlocked enough character abilities to make the game play differently to just a regular FPS game and when you go online with those you will immediately find you stand a better chance against everyone else.