Wired's Hands-On Impressions [Mixed / not positive] (Destiny)

by Zeouterlimits, Ireland, Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 14:34 (3828 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

With Crucible not being my cup of tea and the Strike mission off the table, I had nothing else to do but jump back into Free Roaming and do missions. The world of the Destiny alpha feels like a graveyard, and not one of those wacky fun graveyards you hear about. Everything’s dead, and nobody’s hanging around to witness it. The fact that missions come not from eclectic side characters but from glow sticks, that exploring just finds more outdoorsy areas and uninhabited nondescript passageways, makes wandering and exploring less exciting than it could be. This could turn out not to matter when the Death Star is fully operational, but that was what was running through my head as I played.

It’s really quite a fun combination of genres, though. The loop — fight, gather, return to town, equip, repeat — makes sense. It’s fun to keep going. It’s rewarding to finish a firefight, because you’ve done more than just survive to see the next firefight. You can take breaks, you can explore… to an extent.

I racked up a few more missions, running and jumping across the remnants of a transport ship that had broken cleanly in half, melee attacking low-level enemies to clear the mission’s requirements (kill guys). I leveled up, and the game helpfully informed me that I had reached the level cap for the Destiny alpha. I had nothing more to do. No one was there to celebrate my accomplishment. I stood alone on a broken-down hunk of rusting metal.

I danced alone, to no music.

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/destiny-alpha/?mbid=social_twitter