Video Game Review: Destiny.

I'm ready to review it now.

Not as a Level 17/18 who just finished the campaign, but as a Level 24 with three Legendary weapons.
And you know how I feel about Destiny?

"10 year plan!" the Bungie execs said, whilst playing in their office ball pit or swimming around in the indoor swimming pool at Bungie HQ. It's the perfect MMO! This is the new generation, baby!

I've played MMO's. And this is a 6/10. And that is being generous.

See it all comes down to the grind. The treadmill.

The treadmill is what keeps you engaged in an MMO outside of the main storyline. It's usually in the form of character development, gaining stats or points or better weapons for your character. It is hard to be invested in an MMO without a treadmill.

Destiny's treadmill of choice is gear. Gear is everything.

They even have a unique system called The Grimoire, in which you gain passive bonuses such as better weapon experience, more materials from gathering nodes, etc, etc. Grimoire Points overall increase your likelihood of better gear drops. Groovy.

However, nobody knows or cares because it isn't in-game and you have to log on to Bungie.net, type in your password and sign in with PSN or the Facingbook or whatever you rascals are using these days.

It is capped at Rank 3, meaning that any enemies you kill that spawn on all of the planets become pretty much moot after a while.

Well done, Bungie. You officially fucked up.

Here's what you should have done.

- Add an in-game computer to the hub world. You can check Grimoire progress and see which bonuses are active.

- Grimoire Ranks are no longer capped at Rank 3. If you kill an extra number of enemies, dependent on their level and skill, you will continue to gain ranks. You will no longer gain Grimoire points for drops but will instead gain bonuses. For example,

Enemy Kill-Based Grimoire Bonus:

+5% Damage to Enemy.
+10% extra Glimmer from Glimmer based consumables.
+1% chance of Glimmer from Enemy.

Weapon Bonuses:

5% extra Weapon experience from weapon kills.
2% chance of Weapon dealing extra damage.
1% chance of Weapon automatically reloading without pause.

Area Based Bonuses (For every 1000 extra enemies killed on every planet):
+10% chance of extra materials from this area on top of your existing 2 materials.


This is to stop players from being lulled into a sense that they no longer need to fight against certain enemy factions due to a full grimoire and thus play the game less.

As extra "treadmill" fixing, all enemy ranks have the chance of giving an extra bonus.

+1% chance of dealing extra Weapon damage against a Fallen/Vex/Cabal/Hive boss.

It is supposedly easier to get these extra bonuses by ranking up your kills with minions of the boss subtype. For example, Centurion kill ranks would be more likely to give you the extra bonus of extra damage against a Cabal boss when you rank up.

Some bonuses will be rarer than others, but are otherwise randomised. You do not know what extra bonus/bonuses you will get until you rank up.

There we go. Now there's an incentive to actually play the game instead of just join strike and raid queues. It makes it a game where you can make your character infinitely stronger and therefore much more likely to be invited into groups. Grinding and playing solo should be a viable option.

This is basic game design. You make the treadmill, you make the game better, you extend the playable hours.

Additionally, the invisible walls in the game suck, as well as the "TURN BACK" messages you get from simply trying to get over a small lunar hillock to get to the other side.

Also, you can't join raids unless you have a large group of online friends.

It's a little bit... embarrassing really. £49.99 demo pretty much cuts a fine description.

I just expect more from an MMO.