PlayStation 4 Destiny beta thoughts

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been as excited for a game as I am for Bungie’s upcoming epic, “Destiny.” The intergalactic saga takes place countless years into future, after the fall of humanity’s golden age. Beset by alien threats on all sides, humanity is confined to a solitary city beneath the remnants of a massive extraterrestrial entity known as The Traveler. Taking on the role of a Guardian, you set out to restore humanity to its former glory by pushing back the alien invaders and collecting scattered pieces of technology.

The PlayStation 4 Destiny beta began on Thursday, July 17 while the beta for Xbox players begins on July 23. The beta itself has been offline since Sunday for maintenance and even though I’ve already played through every mission available, I can’t wait to get back in there and try out a different class.

My initial character was a Titan class – your typical Tank, in RPG terms. The Titan is the most heavily armored and physically powerful class in Destiny and as such, packs the biggest melee punch and wield the biggest weapons. The Hunter class is more geared toward long-distance weapons while the Warlock utilizes the Traveler’s technology in what I can only describe as “space magic.”

Each class has tons of different perks and traits that can be unlocked and leveled up which enhance your base abilities. Along with those upgrades, you’ll also be able to choose a sub-class which grants you even more abilities along more specialized lines.

You’ll also get a taste of the character creation system in the Destiny beta. In addition to picking a class, you can also choose from three races – human, exo and awoken. Not much info has been released about the awoken or the exo, though they appear to have common cause with humans. The exo seem vaguely robotic and may be some form of Artificial Intelligence while the awoken look humanoid but have strikingly different physical features and have been compared to elves.

The playable areas in the Destiny beta include the Tower, a Crucible map and mission areas on Earth in what used to be Russia.

The Tower is your home base where you can unlock new weaponry and armor, collect mission rewards and more easily manage your inventory thanks to personal storage lockers. It’s a breeze to manage your items while out on missions, though, thanks to the slick inventory screen implemented by Bungie. Utilizing a cursor, you can easily select and change different armor parts, weapons and other aspects of your Guardian, rather than having to flip through highlighted menus.

 

A comparison of the visuals on the PS3 and PS4 versions of the Destiny beta

Once you’re ready, you can return to orbit where you select a planet and mission – though only Earth is available in the beta. In this menu, you can view the different types of missions available in Destiny – Story missions, Strike missions, and Exploration. Story missions advance the story, obviously, and often lead to unlocking new areas while Strike missions are similar to Story missions but often harder. The Strike mission available in the beta, called the Devil’s Lair, has you infiltrating a Fallen hive area which culminates in a massive boss battle. In the beta, Exploration sets you in the Story mission area and tasks you with smaller objectives like killing a certain number of enemies or collecting specific items. The Exploration missions also seem to go towards unlocking your sub class, though I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Exploring the landscape of Old Russia, as it’s called, has been almost as fun as smashing the alien hordes inhabiting it. The draw distance in Destiny is very impressive and the visuals are highly detailed with a deep, rich color palate. You’ll also be able to utilize a mode of personal transportation in Destiny, a vehicle that resembles a speeder bike from Star Wars called the Sparrow. The Sparrow is a one-person hover bike which can quickly transport you around the map and can be called in whenever you need it. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to upgrade your Sparrow’s abilities but I’d say it’s a very likely possibility. From my experience with Halo, Bungie often adds creative multiplayer modes and I’ll be interested to see if they include Sparrow racing.

What’s been the most interesting aspect of Destiny so far is how much this game feels like an MMO. Granted, I’ve never been into those types of games so I’m sure there are other elements missing from the typical PC MMO, but there are several elements that give me this impression. While you’re out in the mission areas, you’ll often see several other Guardians going about their business and sometimes they’ll offer you to join with their fire team. Granted, you won’t be seeing everyone who is playing in that area at that time, but enough people to make the world feel populated. Also, you’ll often stumble onto areas with much more powerful enemies than you’re able to handle, marking the location of another mission or just an area you can’t explore until you reach a higher level.

And every so often, Events will occur that any Guardian in the area can join and earn rewards. The one I participated in was to protect a crashed satellite from seemingly endless waves of enemies. The encounter was incredibly epic as there were numerous Guardians involved and the enemies were large, varied and very powerful. I can’t wait to see the other types of Events which can occur in the final game.

The enemy AI in Destiny, even in the beta, is pretty impressive. They’ll work together, try to flank you, take cover – all actions you would expect competent killing machines to pull off. I’ve even noticed that, while sniping from a distance, if an enemy sees me, he’ll get to the nearest cover and hide until I’ve moved or fired. It seems like they’ll even make their friends aware of the threat, as if one sees me, the rest will hide until I move in or look away.

There are only two races of aliens in the beta – the Fallen and the Hive – but there will be others in the full game like the Cabal and the Vex. The Fallen are humanoid looking creatures that, to me, have vaguely insect-like qualities as many classes have extra limbs. They often fight in large numbers, trying to overwhelm rather than outmaneuver. The Hive, on the other hand, resemble the xenomorphs from the Alien movies and have been described on the internet as “undead.” More than just killing all these types of aliens, I’m really interested in learning more about their backstories and why they seek to wipe out humanity.

Me and my friends have decided that Destiny is basically what you’d get if “Halo” and “Borderlands” had a baby. Bungie took the interstellar elements of Halo – the wild technology, the marauding aliens and unique art style – while mixing it with the character personalization and massive arsenal of Borderlands. With each Guardian specializing in a different main weapon type and the ability to wield special weapons and heavy weapons, and being able to switch between three guns at any given time, you can specialize your loadout while also making sure you’re prepared for any situation that comes your way.

I can’t wait for the beta to begin again on July 23 so I can try out the Hunter or Warlock class.

The full version of Destiny launches on September 9 and you can believe I’ll be there.

I also wanted to take a moment and share an observation I had about Destiny. Though I’ve never played the Warhammer 40k table top games, I’ve played a few video game properties (Dawn of War and Space Marine) and I’m pretty familiar with the lore. And what I’ve noticed is that Destiny and WH40k share quite a bit in common.

First, the Traveler is basically the Emperor of Humanity – a massively powerful entity that, even in death/near-death, is still a strong enough force to protect what remains of humanity. The Traveler’s Ghosts search the galaxy for beings strong enough to become Guardians, who protect what remains of the human race, and these Guardians are essentially the Space Marines/Adeptus Astartes. They aren’t divided up into numerous chapters but each Guardian, much like each chapter of Space Marine, specializes in a different tactic of war.

In WH40k, humanity is fighting a never-ending war against numerous races of marauding aliens and are living off the technology created by the Emperor during humanity’s Golden Age, constantly searching out lost knowledge. This aspect of the two properties is almost identical, as humanity in Destiny was given vast stores of knowledge by the Traveler and must now fight to regain the knowledge and power that has been lost to time and conflict.

Finally, in WK40k, the Emperor can be seen as the most influential, purest form of good in the universe and contrasting that is the forces of Chaos – an evil, unknowable force from the deepest recesses of space. In Destiny, they keep making references to “the Darkness” which seems to be returning and is the driving force behind many of the alien races becoming so bold as to push toward the last bastion of humanity beneath the Traveler. I’m not quite sure exactly what “the Darkness” is because it seems to be a force not necessarily associated with any one alien race, much in the same way that Chaos in WH40k is a force of nature that isn’t associated with the Orks, Eldar, Necrons or any other specific species.

Now, don’t take these observations to be me saying that Destiny is a rip-off of Warhammer 40k, I just thought that the similarities were interesting and wanted to share them. I’m still incredibly excited for Destiny and will be eager to set a course for the Tower and start restoring humanity this September.

Strider and Towerfall Ascension free for the PlayStation 4 on PSN in July

Being a PSN member with a PlayStation 4 keeps getting better and better as Sony has started putting out TWO free games per month, with this month’s titles being updates of classic titles, “Strider” and “Towerfall Ascension.”

Strider was originally released by Capcom in 1989 and this month, the HD remake of the title is available for free to PSN members. Strider is a fast-paced side scrolling action title where you, as Strider Hiryu, cut through innumerable faceless soldiers to try and depose an evil dictator (or something like that). As in the original, Strider is incredibly agile and quick and you must use these attributes, as well as his trusty sword, to cut a swathe through the highly detailed and brightly colored world.

Strider utilizes a “Metroid-Vania” progression system where you need to unlock abilities to reach new areas. Reaching these new abilities often means fighting a massive boss battle, which you’ll often need to use every one of Hiryu’s abilities to defeat. The map is also non-linear, meaning there’s chances for exploration to discover power-ups as well as bonuses like concept art.

Strider is a single player only game (which also utilizes leaderboards) but the other free game this month is perfect for people looking for a good, single screen multiplayer game.

TowerFall Ascension is an 8-bit inspired co-op/competitive arcade title where you can choose to battle up to three friends in a frenetic, single-screen battle or a Quest mode where you can team up with friends to complete stages, clearing waves of enemies.

In Quest mode, you pick one of the four playable characters to clear waves of enemies from a single-screen stage before moving onto the next level. These stages are reminiscent of the first Mario Bros. game, in that you can exit the sides or bottom of the screen and show up on the other side or top of the screen. You’ll need this mobility to stay a step ahead of the numerous, fast-moving enemies as you try to take them out with a limited number of arrows (which must be picked up before they can be used again). A dash maneuver and wall clinging also helps navigate these stages and evade enemies. There are also lots of power ups to be found which can change the way you play too. I never played the original TowerFall but I was kinda disappointed to find out that each character is essentially the same. I had hoped for different classes with unique abilities but each character is basically a different colored archer.

One of the biggest draws of TowerFall Ascension is its fast-paced, competitive mode where you can battle up to three friends on the same screen, in wild arenas packed with power ups. It’s a great game to any get-together or hang out as many people can get in on the fun together and play many rounds in a short amount of time. It’s a great call back to 8-bit games of old where the emphasis was on having fun with friends in the same room as you, instead of playing against strangers online.