Ye, this is a Halo site. There is however a RARE time when I might talk about something else. And it IS rare.

In this case, I strengthen my resolve to stick with Halo after playing the Destiny Beta for about a hour and a half last night.

Okay, first let me make clear that this was on the 360, so I know the graphics aren’t as good as they would be on XB1 or PS4. That said, there really wasn’t anything groundbreaking that I could take from the graphics. Even imagining it in better res/fps. In fact, and maybe this is because it’s still a BETA, I found the scene at the game start to be a bit wonky. Perspective was terrible off. Again, could be due to the 360 or that it’s still in BETA.

Next was character selection. It was very limited. The Human and Awoken choices were rather bland. I really am not a fan of facial markings. I’d rather have had facial hair for the male characters. Now the EXO (the robotic characters) were pretty cool. Still pretty limited though. I imagine that’s due to this being a BEAT build and that more choices will be available at full launch. I hope so. Because if that really is all there is to choose from…ugh… Mass Effect by comparison had TONS more options and customization and that’s now an older gen title. I also didn’t like that I couldn’t change the color of my character’s outfit from the onset of the game. Further on into it, it looks like you have to pay with in-game currency to change the color. BLEH…that means grinding out stuff to earn in-game rewards. I’ll come back to that.

Let’s move to the first campaign/mission. The controls are okay. However, after having played Halo for so many years, the choices of control settings in the Destiny Beta felt off. I was really surprised that Bungie did NOT have a setting that mimicked Halo settings. Do they really want to distance themselves THAT much from what MADE them? There are many dark areas when you start out and no ‘flashlight’ button to toggle on or off. I found it a little hard to navigate at times.

When it comes to enemies, they are very random and you don’t really know why you’re fighting them. Yes, there is a slight explanation before this, but it doesn’t really explain why. Nor why you were brought back to life and why you had ‘died’ in the first place. I felt very confused by the story at this point.

After finally making it past the mission and making it to the tower ‘hub’, my worst fears of MMOs was once again realized. There I was thrust upon the hub coming into contact with other gamers I had no clue of who they were. That’s just not something I’m into. I want to either game with friends only or solo. But I guess that’s the point of MMOs and why I’m not into them. I tried this last year with the game Defiance (based off of the TV show on the SYFY channel). Then as now, upon the moment of getting to the hub, I found people t-bagging others for no apparent reason. Male characters going up to female characters and ogling them as well as t-bagging. Really? Are you guys THAT hard up that you have to harass digital characters? Grow the ‘F’ up! Now, seeing this in the BETA of Destiny tells me that it won’t go away in the full launch either.

Okay, so while in the hub, I had no idea what to do. So I went exploring. At this point the game felt VERY much like Mass Effect. While that normally would be a good thing, I was expecting something better, newer, groundbreaking. Hell, I’ve played all 3 Mass Effect games. I don’t want to play yet another franchise that mimics another one. Interactions with game AI was very boring and predictable.

I got an invite from a friend and joined in with him, with some trepidation. The reason being, I knew he had a head start on me in the BETA. It showed. He knew the places he needed to go, while I was wandering around like a deer caught in headlights. There were enemies all around. Again why??? And twice we had some random higher ranking enemy appear. No reason it seems than just to get you to fight and help you level up. Now all during this time, there were of course other gamers who were NOT in our ‘fire team’. Those too were fighting the same enemies we were.

Maybe it’s me, but I want to experience this kind of thing on my own or with friends ONLY. Hmm, sound familiar?

Okay, so my bud goes off to the next area where we are supposed to go to. He got ahead of me and I became lost. Another friend had joined in. That guy circled back and found me so that I could follow him to get to my other friend. Man, that sucked. Made me feel like I was being ‘babysat’. I HATE that feeling in a video game. To boot, both guys had a speeder bike (very similar to the ones you see in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). SO they were able to zip about, while I had to run on foot. I couldn’t keep up. Once again, the second fellow doubled back to get me, only to run me over with his speeder. GAH!

I was NOT impressed at all with gameplay so far.

Now let’s move on to character development. OMG, there was WAY too much crap that you have to rank up. No clear explanation in the BETA was given. I can easily see this as something we players will have to grind A LOT for to get better stuff. Given that this is a 10-year project by Bungie, that’s just not time I’m willing to invest. I had no clue why Grimiore was, why it was needed, etc. Same for glass shards. It really was way too much to take in at once, with very little to no explanation as to why we needed to collect it, other than to purchase better gear/outfits/ships. On that not, I’m going to BET on there being a real money micro-transaction system within this game so that the richer gamers will not only rank up faster, but will have the best of the best VERY quickly while others have to grind like hell to get that stuff.

If not and this really is a level playing field where the more you play, the more you earn, well, again, I’m just not into games where I have to grind like that. I do enough of that in Halo for commendations. That’s about as much as I want to do anymore. Should there be another Mass Effect game, as has been said, I may not buy it. I feel that story was finished in ME3 and really got bored of the grinding needed to get better weapons for the multiplayer aspect of that game.

So am I bias? Well, yes, a little. My thing is Halo. I had hopes for Bungie with it’s new title/franchise. Though I had my concerns about it as well. Unfortunately, all of those concerns game to head in the short time I played the BETA.

So my ‘verdict’? It’s a pass for me. Yes, I’ll likely miss out on a new gaming community. Maybe even the next big thing in console gaming. And you know what? I’m totally fine with that. I’m a Halo fan for life and so is this blog. That won’t change with Destiny’s release.

-Sal