Crucible Is My Destiny

The long awaited Bungie adoption has arrived, with a loadout that will flood your Halo nostalgia with warm fuzziness. I, for one, played upwards of 12 hours of Destiny on the first day and haven't been this addicted to a game since Halo 3. This unique re-creation of the 'Halo ideal' steers clear of 343 industries' botched COD-style Halo and offers the meat and potatoes of any true franchise fan. This is clearly a Bungie game. For those of like-mind and the individuals that believed Halo 2 and 3 were the height of console gaming, you will truly appreciate the single-player to multiplayer transition. The seamlessness that Bungie/Activision created is a genuinely innovative and revolutionary idea. The concept of bringing in-game single-player 'loot' to a multiplayer setting has yet to be achieved so successfully. Yes, you heard correctly: single-player RPG 'loot' into an arena style FPS PvP.

The most beautiful aspects of this game are the most simple. The idea of summoning a pocket rocket bike in 1.5 seconds changes the entire speed of play, and the wonderfully nostalgic Halo-esque music that begins to drum away in PvE firefights, for instance. It feels like Unreal Tournament mixed with Borderlands and Halo to create some freakishly different, exotic game. To the Halo fans that love the moon boots, they're back. Everyone gets jetpacks (unlike in Reach) so the ninja moves are real and fun as hell. The beauty of this MMORPGFPS is it's ability to diversify multiplayer settings incredibly quickly.

Nonetheless, Destiny has a few daunting features: a soft level cap of 20 leaves it open to quick and shallow criticism. The multiplayer's Titan smash is arguably too powerful and some vehicles need to be nerfed but otherwise the game is well balanced. The AI is moderately intelligent but overall quite predictable yet, it is extremely entertaining to kill nonetheless. The 'worlds' are large but not overwhelmingly awe-inspiring. Nor do they have a sense of endlessness that you would expect from a sandbox title. Regardless, there is a lot to explore with winding sub-level 'dungeons' to keep anyone entertained for extended periods of time.

If Destiny is carried properly onto the competitive platform, it has endless potential. The armour variants offered add countless complexities to multiplayer gameplay. The minute stat boosts offered through a wide variety of armour tweaks individualize play styles tremendously. Every player needs to understand their play style intimately to maximize their gear's efficiency. Destiny has the precision and fluidity of the Halo series but the gear complexities of great RPG. It re-introduced the beautifully simple, yet perfect concept of 'weapons on map': The brilliant idea whereby teams need to fight for control of key areas that spawn 'power weapon ammo'. While this game has the potential to be too far reaching to the point of self-harm, it is by no means a Molyneaux game (Fable 2-3). As long as the publishers release competitive outlets for its more genuine gamer audience, it has a lot of potential. That is, after all, the Halo way.