Destiny 2 - Review (PS4, PC)

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IamLEAM1983
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Destiny 2 - Review (PS4, PC)

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

Remember my Beta impressions and how I said Destiny reminds me of a few other first-timer franchise releases? That still applies, seeing as I now largely have the sense that my trek across the solar system to kick Dominus Ghaul in the teeth has a lot in common with Ezio Auditore's first forays around Venice and Florence's rooftops. This is another case of a series first released as little more than a tech demo with promises to shareholders attached, only to later be tackled again - this time with actual passion and dedication. This is Bungie knowing it's jumped its technical hurdles and that it can deliver a shared-world shooter. It's done so with enough aplomb that what plot is there to enjoy can actually breathe, for once, and no longer is couched in the kind of self-serious gravitas the first game didn't so much as earn.

One of the returning merchants, Erick Avari's Cryptarch, notably asks that you avoid mentioning the Darkness in his presence. It's framed as if its mere mention were a source of embarrassment or shame. Nathan Fillion's Cayde-6 gets himself caught in time-bending shenanigans, and thumbs the Exo Stranger's nose by saying he "doesn't have the time to explain what he doesn't have the time to understand"... Effectively, it gives the sense that D2's successes aren't so much mechanical as they are diegetic, in the realization that the cut-up and restituted husk of Joseph Staten's initial draft as a Dark Souls-y morass of Grimoire cards and half-remembered legends doesn't quite foster attachment in the average player. Now, the level designs speaks clearly, the plot serves as a clear propelling force, and lore is left to item descriptions for Legendary and Exotic drops. The scanning mechanic from The Taken King makes a return, allowing your Nolanbot - your Ghost, as voiced by Nolan North - to briefly expose a few additional plot details at the favor of a keen eye. Your character's own sparse retorts are here kept mute, as this allows more leeway for Ghost and the regions' various questgivers to gab and plot-dump away. It's all done with a breezy combination of self-seriousness, self-deprecating humour, sarcasm and even barbs landed towards the player - in ways that liven up the universe exceptionally well.

The core storyline isn't remarkable, but it's a huge improvement on the first game's vague progression. You essentially begin as one of the previous game's smattering of Guardians, ideally one of which you would've created for the original game, and you seem to have had a storied rebirth. It's strongly implied that you've done everything the first game and its expansions offered, and that you've risen as an exemplar of what it means to be a Titan, a Warlock or a Hunter. You're basically The Best, and come back from a routine patrol probably expecting a flagon of mead or some fluffy pillows. Unfortunately, your busting up the massive, hulking Cabal on Mars in the first game seems to have caused a rift in that species' command structure. Emperor Calus seems fine with hovering around Nessus, in the shadow of Saturn's rings, hedging his bets in the face of Earth and the Guardians' potency - while an upstart named Dominus Ghaul seems incensed at the idea that such a puny species as Mankind could've earned the Traveler's favor. Determined to right old wrongs and to lead a coup against his ruler, Ghaul launches an unauthorized surprise attack against the Last City and manages to imprison both the Traveler's Speaker and the Traveler's Light - the source of your Space Fantasy Magic.

So, like many a hero following the textbook Bradford Wright Hero's Journey, you and your Guardian buddies are reduced to mere mortality and take massive downgrades in statistics only an hour into the game proper. You'll now have to find a way to restore the Traveler's Light, reclaim your powers and save the Last City.

I remember reaching that point and being impressed. I hoped the game would explore what happens when a haughty and powerful figure is brought low and made to re-examine his origins, or that it would dwell on the idea that being a Guardian is more than simply being able to respawn at the press of a button. In some ways, it does. the three constituting members of the Vanguard - Zavala, Ikora Rey and Cayde-6, are each given lengthy narrative arcs that explore their sorrow and their sense of loss. The first two stick to typical moping and melodrama until you come along as a beacon of hope and restore their spirits, but the Exo Hunter at least has the benefit of being proactive. He'll have landed on Nessus in order to obtain time-bending Vex technology to be used against Ghaul. True to himself, he's both bumbling, charismatic and fairly genial, which makes his take on coping with loss a lot more interesting than the other two.

However, your own loss isn't nearly as well-developed. Your character will have been brought down to the lowest of all lows and should justifiably have a hard time moving forward, but it seems your powers waited behind the shortest vision quest imaginable and one area filled with a smattering of bad guys. That crippling, soul-shattering loss is wiped away all too quickly, foisting the burden of pathos and tonal delivery to everyone except those chiefly affected by the Last City's fall. By that measure, that specific element of the storytelling feels a bit clumsy. I understand why it happens on a gameplay-oriented perspective, of course - the game just wouldn't be fun without our double jumps, our grenades and our Super Attacks - but it does seem as though I could've stood to feel my character wallow in suffering for a while longer. Getting our Light back should've felt a little more demanding, all things considered. It also leads to confusion regarding a specific area of the Earth-centric European Dead Zone and its much-vaunted Haunted Forest vibes - and how none of it is present. All that gloom, and all you do is check a box. Boom. Powers are back, the area's corruption never directly affects you - please move on. Nothing to see here!

If anything, Dominus Ghaul gets several long cutscenes in which to detail his descent from an aspiring Guardian showing issues with pride to a full-blown monster who's come to grips that he doesn't wish to claim the Light for the Cabal - but for himself alone. That offers us a fairly well layered baddie to focus on, and allows a moderately graceful exit for Bill Nighy's Speaker, who is forced by circumstances to lay off the guru-speech and to offer a more cogent discussion on the nature of the Traveler, the Light and what it means to be a Guardian. As self-sacrifice comes to the fore of the offered arguments, the Ghosts' ability to resurrect their Guardians comes across as less of a gameplay-related concession to respawning, and more of a means to offer Guardians the means to repeatedly sacrifice their lives for the greater good. In any case, props to Neil Kaplan for his effective portrayal of a growing tyrant - and to Frank Langella for playing the requisite, if fairly thankless part of the Consul, Ghaul's source of counsel and apparent father figure.

Otherwise, the mechanics and level designs come across as confident retreads of the original's. The first one was a mechanically excellent Bungie shooter, this one still is a mechanically excellent Bungie shooter - and the first one you'll get to play on PC, come October. The PC versions boasts crisper textures and higher framerates providing you're packing a decent i5 and 16 GBs of RAM, but the PS4's rock-solid 60 FPS basis is still very appreciable. Fire effects are a little unconvincing, this time around, but depth-of-field and Bokeh effects are both expertly put to use. It's not hard to see the PS4 being pushed to its limits with this title - and the PS4 Pro taking things a step or two beyond that. No matter on which platform you play this, the guns feel punchy and enemies pack just enough threat to spice things up. Their combat AI isn't the best - nobody's ever managed to beat F.E.A.R.'s flanking, flushing and retreating AI since, well, F.E.A.R. - but it does the job quite well. It picks cover spots, peeks out from them, dashes between spots and prefers grenade-spamming to anything resembling a decent flanking approach, but is still unfortunately given to headlong bull-rushes. A few enemy types have an excuse for it - the Thralls are basically Fast Zombies built for overwhelming you with a flurry of weak attacks and the average Legionary is an eight-feet-tall Space Rhino that butts human heads to mush for breakfast, but even enemies outside of that range tend to fall prey to that tactic. At least, this allows for the use of the diversified weapons systems, in which some guns are more suited for chip damage, whereas others are excellent at chewing away at enemy shields. This ties into the improved loot mechanics, which make it easier to steadily grow in power. You're no longer forced to grind Patrols or Strikes in the hopes of finding something worthwhile. 

That is, based on my experience, until Level 275. The cap is currently set at 300, and gear stops scaling to your level around 269. The rest of the climb - all seven additional Power levels - was an absolute slog. The revamped Gear Infusion mechanic helps, but there's a point where adding the stronger stats of a lower-tier item to a Legendary or Exotic item only imparts incremental bonuses. Seeing as the "Raid-ready" threshold is set at 280, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

At least, I can rest easy in knowing the game's mentoring features are in their Beta phase. In theory, if I need help completing the game's single seven-hour Raid, I can request help from a seasoned player; someone who'll walk me through Calus' stronghold. The biggest disappointment, however, is that some people have reported that the Raid sometimes poops out items that really aren't worth all that time investment. What's puzzling, however, is that Nightfall strikes are still left with no matchmaking options.

So it looks a little better, flows a lot better, it has a better sense of style and humor, but plays about the same... Is it worth it? Honestly, I'd say it is. I've largely skipped the Multiplayer, seeing as it's merely adequate, with nowhere near the charm or flexibility of Overwatch, while lacking the haywire twitch-fest qualities of the usual Call of Duty maps. It rewards closer team play, which is a relief for third-tier players like myself whose KD ratio rarely goes above 0.9. It also doesn't lock much of its story content behind high levels, making it easy to pick D2 up as a single-player offering. It also doesn't end with the Big Bad's demise, but rather refocuses on each planet's specific needs, ending each major planetside questline with the opportunity to score one of the game's several Exotic items.

It's a confidently-served package that's brimming with content and cleverly-delivered lore, as opposed to the first game's vapid grandiosity. It's still got its warts and quirks, but at least it seems aware of them.
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