Destiny (PREVIEW)

written by Justin Prince (@prince_justin)

Over the past few days, many gamers got the chance to sink their teeth into Bungie's forthcoming and highly anticipated game, Destiny. With the beta live, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts in this preview piece for the game. So far, I'm really looking forward to it and it looks like I'll have to pre-order the game now after sinking a considerable amount of time into this extreme meaty beta.

The first comparison I've noticed while playing was how this game reminds me of some of the best bits of other games. The loot mechanic and co-op of games like Borderlands, a shooting mechanic very reminiscent of Halo (one of Bungie's most recognizable franchises), and power usage much like the Mass Effect series. The beta starts out with creating a character and swiftly drops you into the main campaign. While completing objectives in this small taste of the campaign mode, you can team up with other players online to create fire teams, thus making completing objectives that much easier. It isn't hard to solo much of the game, but playing with others is far too much fun to pass up.

While missions are played in a first-person perspective, when you explore non hostile areas (like this massive open forum for other players) the perspective switches to a third person view, giving you full view of the character you got to proudly create. This part of the game allows you to purchase new armaments and weaponry, meet other players you'd like to add to your fire teams, or just dance randomly with random players you meet, something about that bit makes me think of Night at the Roxbury. After powering through the short slice of campaign, the game unlocks the Crucible where you can take your guardian into some multi-player PVP matches.

Overall, the beta was a blast to play and Fall can't come any sooner! Destiny drops on September 9th here in the US.