The game makes itself easily enjoyable during some times and it makes itself impossible to enjoy at other times.
And that's why it is a masterpiece. It sometimes manages to jolt the player out of gameplay, because it raises the really hefty questions.
You will find yourself spending hours on end upgrading your arsenal just to suddenly face a group of child soldiers. Something you didn't expect. And something that is impossible to enjoy. Makes yourself question why you were so eager to upgrade your arsenal in the first place.
Huh, why were you?
And most importantly, it asks: are YOU any better than the people who recruited those child soldiers?
Of course you are, but you only find out going through this process, having the whole gameplay leading up to moments like this and your harsh and hammered home realisation that Real War is not this, it's not as enjoyable as a video game.
This game is a 10 out of 10 because among other games, playing this, experiencing those moments where all you've been doing for the last 20 hours is being called into question by a turn of events, this is what some might say, qualifies a medium as being of artistic value.
Most of the other garbage out there simply doesn't measure up. More of the same, mouths to feed, culinary pleasures, not ever asking the player to contemplate, or making impractical demands on the player.
And it is also a fucking good GAME in its own right and a towering technical achievement, besides being self-conscious about being just that: a game.
i can live with an 8. This game must be read as a reaction against such crap as The Division and all the tactical stealth shooter slow-moving and aiming down the sights is realistic bunch.
Doom 2016 is a fucking relief from all the crap that has been going on lately.
But then again what some other guy on ign said is also true, to bring back the feel of a game we all played 20 years ago are desperately low ambitions.
But then again, maybe the medium has reached a point where it's either fucking shallow bullshit like Destiny or The Division the "future of games" or taking the whole thing back to the roots... because after all, it's just fucking video games, so let's all get over ourselves and move on
I think this is the point: "Destiny is not a 6 game . It is simply not that bad . if you can detach your personal view a bit , you should see that it does everything it said it would do , with no major hick ups or problems !"
well said!
I think a game reviewer also has a certain responsibility to inquire into what is the original ambition of a game and then measure that against what we factually got with the game.
Like Brink tried to include parcour movement mechanics into fps and failed miserably while Titanfall actually succeeded in taking player movement up a notch.
I think destiny's ambition was more along the lines of, say, Borderlands 2, for example. Therefore it would need to be measured by standards which were at use in rating said game.
And clearly that wasn't the case.
Because then it would turn out that Destiny picks up the direction Borderlands 2 setup and polishes it by refining Borderland's parlty dissatisfying fps mechanics and vehicle driving controls.
Of course destiny has an entirel different scenario. But ask yourself are the ambitions of these two games really that far apart in what they genuinely try to achieve? And wouldn't it be unfair to compare destiny to a full-fledfed mmorpg like wow or a full-fledged story-driven fps like halo 4 ?
BTW: Fairness means measuring the same by the same standards, by definition.
I think as a reviewer you mislead people into believing that there was something seriously off with destiny. And thereby you violated your responsibilty to write an informative review addressing the interested gamer and helping them to form their own opinion on soemthing they haven't had the opportunity to experience first-hand.
You let the disappointment of your own expectations get the better of you.
I have been reading reviews on gamespot for more than ten years and thought their quality was mostly satisfying and decision-guiding when it came to picking up a new game. But this time... your review score is just off the mark.
I think everyone who has played this game for just half an hour would agree to (or just couldn't deny) is that destiny raises to bar in production values. The gameplay mechanics, the enemy AI and the breathtaking vistas to be found here just "feel" right and are impressive.
That alone is what I find most important about an fps game.
Then there is the question whether there are any significant bumps along the road that would diminish the fun to be had. I think there are none that would rationalize the severe downgrading you deemed adequate. (6 to me means that there is something boring, broken or otherwise off the mark during the entire course of the game)
Then there is the question of design choices:
Does this game have a meaningful and gameplay-driving story arc? Probably not. But the question you haven't given mich thought: is a story really needed for the game destiny (by design) was intended to be?
Does everybody like the introduction of a micro-management routine between missions (in the tower)? Maybe not everyone will, neiter do I like this particular point and the fact that destiny decides to go into third person mode upon arriving at the tower.
Does the lack of focus (vastly empty levels) hamper the experience?
I think all of the above are based on design choices and cannot be rated as flaws.
Most of all, don't act as if bungie were good at telling stories! Halo 1 was all about arriving on a foreign world and being thrown into an intergalactic struggle between humans and aliens in medias res. It was more about the awe inspired by comfronting such intelligent enemies on a foreign planet and truly having the feeling of them fighting back! Halo 2 tried to expand on the universe and tried to elaobarate on the covenant's motivation and largely failed in my opinion.
You wrote it isn't clear in destiny why the different races were there and what their motivation was. I think that is asking too much. What is important in an fps is that the enemies react in a credible way to your gunfire. And wow they certainly do in destiny and you know that. Never before have enemies in an fps used maneuvers so cleverly, alternating between putting the player under pressure by charging and retreating and taking cover once shot upon.
So I think destiny returns to what bungie does best: building alien worlds and populing them with enemies who actually act as if they cared to save their own skin and attack the player as a threat. This is what we all enjoyed about Halo 1. And it's here again, now with a focus on drop-in-drop-out collaboration with other guardians and of course, a heavy focus on cooperative game play! Because in coop, atory often only gets in the way.
Now the true drawback is that now in destiny, the experience is more fractured: short missions don't really click with any overarching story elements and the returns to the tower break the player's immersion. Also there is a lot of repetition.
These are the points one can criticize. But they're not points that justify giving the game a 6.
So the reviewer at work here gave the game a 6 against his own professional better judement. He was carried away by (partly misguided) expectations which were not founded in anything the game of itself said it was.
This shows how little if an open-minded approach was at work here. Something is off: either destiny gave you exactly what you always wanted (a close to mechanically flawless fps experience) that you just couldn't stand because you felt stroked against the grain by a game that caters so heavily to the admittedly generic cravings of an fps fan, or, you were just disappointed to not get what the game never promised it would deliver.
It is sad for me to see that such highly personal emotional reactions evoked by what is (after all) just a game have clouded your ability to write a fair review.
I hope this gets better again... I don't like what's happening here.
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