REVIEW - Destiny 2 - One Man's Destiny is Another Man's Destiny

Title: Destiny 2

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Activision

Platform: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, PC

Release: 05/09/17

: Electric Boogaloo

Unlike a lot of people, I didn't really play the first Destiny. I finished the story (for what there was of it) and faffed about for a bit in the original incarnation of the post-game stuff. (which was pretty sparse) Needless to say, I wasn't exactly blown away by the experience. Going into Destiny 2 my hopes weren't too high. I've now been playing it pretty solidly for two weeks now and I don't regret a second of it. Firstly, it remembered the character I created all those years ago for the first game. It was like seeing an old friend. (An old friend that could shoot blackholes from their hands. The best kind of friend) You then get dropped into an intense situation with most of the powers you knew and loved. Pew pew, you're kicking ass while everything is going to shit around you. New Big Bad shows his face. Breaks your powers. Disposes of you. Oh.

Any chance of sorting this out over a pint? No? Okay.

There's actually a story this time. Yay! You have to get your powers back and beat Dominus Ghaul (pictured) before he kidnaps the Traveler and gets superpowers of his very own. Luckily, as the chosen one, you find a way to regain your powers in pretty short order and are sent all over the solar system rescuing those necessary to save the universe. I have one little problem with this. Throughout the game, you are referred to as the only one to have been able to regain your powers. The place you got them back is accessible to everyone. Why doesn't everyone just form an orderly queue and get suped up again? Also, as an MMO, literally thousands of players have gone through the same process. Why can't we just pull together and finish this invasion 5 minutes after it started? I know. I'm picking holes in a story I couldn't come close to writing myself. It just removed any immersion for me, story-wise.

I love the way my eyes really bring out my eyes

Have I mentioned how pretty this game is? It's pretty. There you go. I've said it.

There are so many screenshots of me pointing a gun at beautiful scenery

Bang bang, take that stunning vista

Alright, alien landscape, this is a stick-up

I've played the majority of what the game has to offer at the time of writing. (Everything except the Leviathan Raid, which is a pretty big undertaking if what I'm told is true) Story missions and side missions (adventures) can keep you occupied for a fair amount of time. Like I say, I'm two weeks in and I still have a few to do. Activities unlock as you progress and if anything, the main story acts as a prelude to the actual game. Once you're done with it you're then presented with a whole plethora of new quests and activities to challenge you. As this is an MMO, you are encouraged to team up with others and take on these challenges together. This is done best with friends (in my experience anyway) as playing with strangers can result in encountering the worst examples of humanity. (Again, in my experience) Post story I've pretty much played with a couple of friends exclusively and it really makes the game a lot more enjoyable, especially when enemies are coming at you like rats from a sinking ship.

I've found my new summer getaway

PvP is something I've dabbled with as much as to get a feel for it. That feeling is "Eww, I suck at this, nevermind". Some matches are good, some are embarrassingly bad. My overall experience makes me glad there's so much more to do in the game to advance my character and get decent loot. Speaking of loot, it's everywhere. Hidden chests, tradeable tokens, Legendary and Exotic drops from bosses. There's loot for days. Don't get me wrong, a lot of it you'll look at for two seconds and scrap. In a way, it makes finding the better stuff that much better, but it can also be where the game can be it's most grindy. I haven't experienced too much of a grind which is nice and, again, I think that's in large part to having played with other people. It takes your mind off it so you can just concentrate on blasting aliens and explore new worlds. 

SPACESHIP!!!

The worlds are big, as you might expect. Each one is split into areas that have tonnes of hidden little objectives for you to find. The best of these being the Lost Sectors which act as mini-dungeons for you to explore and fight groups of enemies. The reward at the end of them won't blow you away but I really enjoyed the act of exploring and finding these areas. Strikes are good fun as well. Here you're teamed up with two others and sent on a tougher than average mission with the chance of a pretty decent reward. These do have a habit of repeating themselves as you get assigned a random one when you select "Strike". (Not a massive issue and more Strikes will become available over time) The various quests and adventures (side-missions) reuse a lot of the map you may have already explored through the story missions though they can do a good job of guiding the player in a different direction to keep the gameplay interesting.

Oh, Nathan Fillion is also the best damn robot ever btw

Of course with it being an online game, Destiny 2 is at the mercy of it's servers. Scheduled or not, if the servers are under maintenance then you aren't playing until it's done. This can be a little frustrating, especially if you've planned a game with others. On the other hand, the maintenance is there to improve the game over all and add new features as they're released so it's a bit like complaining about a cake having to be baked before you can eat it. (Also, we can assume you have a few other games you could be playing while you wait. Like Enter the Gungeon *wink*)

The one Grunt that would give Master Chief a run for his money

Would I recommend Destiny 2 to you, most valued and gracious reader? I'm currently having a lot of fun playing with others. If you have a reliable group of friends then go forth and Destiny together. If you have an unreliable group of friends, play something else. Solitaire, maybe, I dunno. (If you want to join a clan, I hear the Pangender Space Octopus [PGSO] is pretty cool, just putting that out there)

Currently £55 for the standard version of the game, £70 to include the season pass and £80 for a little bit extra. (Not, in my opinion, £10 extra though) A bit on the steep side and you can guarantee something happening over the Christmas period when it comes to the sales. Or just ask for it from Santa. (Like a grown-up)

LIST - With Friends Like These...

About a month ago I made a list of companions that helped you on your various journeys. I then thought that there are just as many "companions" that hinder you or outright betray you. Or they just annoy the living fuck out of you. Whatever works. Here are a few of the worst offenders.

• Sheva Alomar - Resident Evil 5
  

My inclusion of Ashley from Resident Evil 4 as a helpful companion was pretty tenuous at best, I admit. Sheva earns her place on this list with the highest (or lowest) of honours possible. Fighting your way through the gloriously sunny Kijuju, filled to the brim with Las Plagas infested locals is hard enough for a hero, Chris Redfield. He's got massive axe-wielding bastards bursting through walls, the occasional chainsaw maniac and unspeakable worm monsters all wanting a piece of his arse. Luckily for him, Sheva is here to provide some backup... Oh, she didn't move fast enough and died. *sigh*

Fine, let's reload and try again. Now I know how this game still falls into the "Survival/Horror" category. Ensuring Sheva's survival is a horror of the highest order. She barely takes out any of the enemies herself and spends a lot of the time on higher difficulties running in the way of your shots and needing to be revived back to life. Unlike Ashley, all of Sheva's unlockable outfits are each skimpier than the last. I don't need titillation when I'm fighting for my life, I need a spring-heeled bullet sponge and an assault rifle with infinite ammo.

I managed to play Resident Evil 5 on every difficulty until about halfway through on Professional. At a certain point, Sheva's inability to dodge a crossbow bolt becomes a deal breaker.

• Zeke Jedediah Dunbar - Infamous
  

WARNING: A few spoilers for an eight-year-old game coming up. In Infamous, you play as Cole MacGrath. A courier who winds up in an accident that grants him various powers. Yay, go you. I'm sure everyone is super stoked about your new condition. Oh, no they are not. In fact, the army is after you, the street gangs want you dead and a mysterious lunatic is trying his best to duff you in as well. At least you still have your good buddy Zeke to help you out. He's alright, he has a rooftop hangout for you to crash on when the heat gets too high. He's your buddy.

Well, all friendships go through their rough patches. None more so than being betrayed and watching your only friend in the world help the people trying to kill you for a promise of getting powers just like you. Jealousy is an ugly thing. He immediately regrets his decision and does his utmost to make it up to you but his selfish choice jeopardises the city you've been trying to save. (Or destroy yourself, depending on how you play)

He's a bit of a tool. You could forgive him for wanting to be able to shoot some sweet lightning from his hands like his besty but frankly, he caused quite a mess and is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. Look at that picture of him. He knows what he's done. Bad Zeke!

• Tama - World of Final Fantasy
  

I love cute animals that have little speech impediments and insist on saying a specific word or phrase in EVERY sentence. (Said everyone. Ever. In opposite world) I picked up World of Final Fantasy because it looked like Pokemon with a Final Fantasy license. What could have gone wrong there, I thought. Quite a lot, it turns out. Nothing particularly wrong with the story, or at least what I saw of the story. You are guided through various worlds that have nods to previous Final Fantasys. This guide comes in the form of this little fox thing. It floats about, telling you something about something, every sentence dotted with the word "the" before or in the middle of words. I couldn't deal with it after about two hours.

A free bit of advice to anyone who ever wants to make a game. It doesn't matter how big the franchise you're working with is, if you are going to insist on lumping the player with a character that has possibly the most annoying speech tick I've ever heard, for an eighty-hour game, go back to the drawing board. Then take a pen and draw a line through "Guide has funny/cute speech thingy". "Guide has funny/cute speech thingy". Like that, perfect example. I might try again with the audio in Japanese. Then again, I have other things to do. Like washing. Or work.

• Roman Bellic - Grand Theft Auto IV
  

Do you have a family member or friend insistently phone you up to go bowling? How about a trip to the nearest strip club to see "big American titties"? No? Niko Bellic does. Now when you live the kind of lifestyle Niko does it's important to unwind every now and then. Roman doesn't seem to have quite the same lifestyle and seemingly infinitely more free time. This leads him to phone you at every conceivable opportunity to hang out.

Not only that but he's a magnet for every possible underworld shenanigan you could think of. He's lucky that Nico can handle himself, and more importantly a gun. He gets kidnapped, has his business burned down, chased. Even his wedding gets shot up. Despite all that, he is a pretty lovable guy though. You can even take him on a helicopter tour of the city if you're feeling generous. It's completely up to you if you decide to jump out of the helicopter mid-flight, leaving him and said helicopter to spiral to the ground. You should only do that if you don't mind getting a slightly irate phone call from him telling you to pick him up from the hospital. Accidents happen. Maybe he'll think twice before bothering you next time. (Spoiler: He won't)

• Navi - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
  

Annoying companion progenitor. HEY! LISTEN! LOOK OUT! Shut up Navi, I have eyes. I could actually see the massive glowing weak point that I'm supposed to hit without you buzzing around my head like you've had Hyrule's entire stockpile of coffee injected into your arse. I know Navi is an easy target when it comes to groups of annoying companions but I could hardly leave her out. She is the vocal equivalent of a vuvuzela being blown into your ear whenever something even vaguely interesting happens on screen.

You're just a clever way of showing off an early (and super influential) lock-on system. That's it, I said what everyone was thinking. Don't look at me like that, you know it's true! Great. See what you did, Navi? You turned everyone against me for being mean to you. I hope you're happy. You ass.

I found parts of this a lot easier to write than most of the positive lists. It's almost like it's easier to be mean and negative about stuff. I've just figured out the Internet. I need to sit down in a dark room for a bit, go about your day, thanks for reading.