Hey guys! Here's a Twitch stream of the handful of story missions and strike that make up the beta campaign. I just go through all of them in order: it's about 3 hours of gameplay.

One thing to note - the missions aren't tied together by... well, anything really. Just a little notification in the upper left of the screen and a waypoint marker. In my opinion this is just a shortcoming of the beta, and the full version will likely have much more in the way of cutscenes, dialog, and story depth than what we're getting in the beta. We are, after all, testing the game and not the cutscenes.

http://www.twitch.tv/psyrixx/b/548554912

First Impressions:

As is usual for a Bungie game, Destiny feels more polished than... well practically every AAA release I've played for the past several years - even as a beta. The weapons feel nice and substantial, I really like the aiming mechanics, and about the only thing I wish I could do would be turn on my flashlight at will - not just because my Ghost feels that it's too dark. There were a couple of spots I went exploring into that would have been nicer to explore with a little bit more light.

The only other concern I have, which I don't think will end up being a concern upon full release (because I know this is but a slice of the actual game), is that the map of earth seems pretty small. What I mean by this is that if the entirety of story content happening on earth takes place in this tiny slice of old Russia (which, admittedly, is a large game space) I feel that missions might start to feel a little stale after several of them in the same area. Again, my opinion on the matter is that much like Guild Wars 2, the map will likely expand once you've beaten all of the missions in a specific area and allow more varied environments after a certain point.

I am aware that we also travel to Venus, the Moon, Mars, etc. and have no doubt that those play spaces will be as gorgeous or even more so than the Old Russia Earth portion of the game (which, by the way, IS absolutely stunning). I also understand that these separate locations will add a good amount of variety to the environments of the missions we undertake throughout the campaign. That being said, it would still be nice if the entirety of stuff-to-do on Earth in a shared world shooter MMORPGish game that touts itself as huge and epic wasn't confined to this smallish portion of Old Russia. I don't expect it will be.

I haven't jumped into the Crucible yet, but I enjoyed the brief time I had with the campaign. If you don't have a beta code, or aren't able to play the game yet, I hope my stream gives you a taste of what to expect from Destiny. I can't wait to see what the finished product brings to the table in terms of actual story. Considering Bungie's long history of delivering top notch experiences - and despite the abysmal advertising of the game up to this point - after getting quality hands on time with the beta I have high hopes.

=)