I quickly noticed that the graphics were not much better then Gears of War 2-3. I played Destiny on my 360, so I'm assuming the graphics are better on the PS4 and the Xbone?

The main thing with the PS360 versions are the huge hits to image quality to get them performing well. In some ways, it's actually astounding how visually similar the PS360 versions are to the PS4/XB1 versions; there's not much in the way of missing objects and visual effects and such.

But The PS4/XB1 versions are astronomically sharper and cleaner. Much better texture quality, better shadows, 3 times as many pixels in every frame, that sort of thing.

My biggest complaint, in the roughly 5 hours of playing, was not knowing where to go.
There were nav markers that popped up from time to time, but when I followed them, I found I was led to the side of a cliff or a dead end or to a small raised area that had nothing there to indicate to me as to why I was led there at all.

If you bring up your ghost, there's usually a description of what its/your current objective is. In explore mode, it just leads you to pulsating green nav markers that you can get missions from, if you don't already have an objective.

In case you're misinterpreting the navigational system: at any particular moment, the "nav point" isn't necessarily an actual objects, but rather just a thing to help indicate which direction you should currently be walking (sort of like ODST's superintendent nav markers that might just sit themselves on a door). The nav markers only exist on a meaningful object if you're very close to your destination. And you don't have to bring up your ghost to be directed to the current nav marker, there's a white arrow on the radar that points toward it.

I somehow walked into a Public Area and shortly after getting there, a mini version of the Halo Scarab with 6 legs materialized. I was under the impression that Destiny was going to be original! There were three other players in the area, and after what must have been thousands of rounds expended at this mini-scarab, we failed the objective. During the later part of this battle two of the players stopped doing anything and just hid behind a building waiting for the battle to end. I walked around hoping I would find a whiz-bang-super-intergalactic heavy weapon, but nothing was available.

Yeah, the game doesn't really provide context-specific weaponry ever, and it doesn't necessarily give out events that are practical for you in particular. For public events, oftentimes you're simply not going to be prepared.

That's just going to be a thing with this game. It offers you the ability to try to tackle things that you aren't leveled/geared for, and that is what it is.

I was not impressed with the enemy AI. It felt exactly like playing against those dumb ass Promethean Knights in Halo 4. Many of the enemies would dart behind an object and never move again. Oftentimes I would walk up to one and it just went still, it didn't fire it's weapons or attack....so I beat it to death. The melee felt powerful and satisfying....for me, this was the only fun I had in the game.

I'm not sure about enemies acting completely stupid doing nothing (there's nothing as bad as Halo 4 elites), though the Fallen seriously lack character in the beta. The Hive are mildly cool, especially on the Moon.

I would like to say that if I had been playing in a party I believe my experience would have been far better.

Yes. Destiny is very strongly designed for coordinated coop, especially in strikes and such.

Incidentally, that's why a lot of us consider the policy with voice chat to be insanely stupid. Voice chat appears to require being in a party and on friend's lists with each other, and this is a game that feels like it could strongly benefit from public proximity chat.

Really? I found the nav markers almost too easy. Instead of just telling a destination, they actually designate a path to follow. Once I noticed the compass arrow it was really easy, and bringing up the ghost made it even easier. I almost never had to think about where to go.

I'm not sure what you mean about the spider tank. I suppose it's a bit like a scarab, because it has six legs? Other than that, it's not very similar. I like it, personally, though if you're going to accuse it of being unoriginal, you should be comparing it to Ghost in the Shell, not Halo.

I had no problems with the AI. Enemies disappear behind cover at long range, and don't come out, which makes total sense. There is less variety of enemies at once, and they are not as expressive as in the Halo games. It can be more difficult to sense that they are communicating or responding intelligently because it's more difficult to understand them. Aside from that, I thought they mostly acted as suspected, moving around based on my last known location. The only issue for me is repetitiveness of behavior in explore mode, but that's probably a scripting issue, not AI.

Just like me, you are playing a new title on outdated hardware. I was not surprised by the fidelity on 360 at all. If you look at the comparisons, it looks much better on PS4, probably XB1 as well. On top of that, this is a game with nearly constant, persistent multiplayer and large, outdoor areas. There's only so much an old system can handle.

As far as enemy frequency, I really hope they don't pack in more than they already did. If you don't see any enemies, walk 10 feet and look at your motion tracker. There is probably a whole pack of them just over the hill.

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I somehow walked into a Public Area and shortly after getting there, a mini version of the Halo Scarab with 6 legs materialized. I was under the impression that Destiny was going to be original! There were three other players in the area, and after what must have been thousands of rounds expended at this mini-scarab, we failed the objective. During the later part of this battle two of the players stopped doing anything and just hid behind a building waiting for the battle to end. I walked around hoping I would find a whiz-bang-super-intergalactic heavy weapon, but nothing was available.

Did you try any, like, you know, strategies? Just shooting at the thing, you realize pretty quickly that you get more damage hitting the legs. Doesn't take long after that to realize damaging a leg enough stuns the tank and reveals a critical hit area. This wasn't even a particularly difficult boss fight, so I'm not sure you can blame it for the thousands of rounds you expended.