Bungie’s Destiny hit stores on September 9th this year and made it’s entire 5 million dollar budget in only one day, as gamers around the world rushed to get their copy of one of the most anticipated games of the year.

Despite the flood of initial sales, Destiny has not gotten the best reviews, and many players are overall disappointed by the experience for a number of reasons, including the game being too short, repetitive, and unoriginal. The game features a world long after the collapse of humanity’s golden age that started after the discovery of an orb of light and knowledge they would eventually call the traveler. You play the game as a “guardian”, someone said to be forged in light and able to use the traveler’s light as a weapon. The guardians are tasked with protecting the last safe city on earth and repelling the darkness, the ancient foe of the traveler, and its armies.

The game’s mechanics are smooth, and the concept is solid, so the game excels in its PvP known as the crucible. In my opinion, the crucible is better than other similar game’s PvP for the fact you and your team really need to work together, it seems like that was the idea from the start, teamwork. No one person can win or lose the match. In addition, at any given time you can lose a fight, regardless of your skill, from heavy ammo or an enemy’s super attack, which is almost always a one-shot kill.

Exploring the locations Destiny offers is honestly, repetitive, yet oddly satisfying. There is just something about taking on the variety of enemies Destiny has to offer; each small encounter is 30 seconds of fun while larger encounters are a chaotic struggle for survival. In addition to story missions, you and up to two friends can embark on a strike. All strikes have a rather reused idea, fight through hordes of lesser enemies and at the end face a bullet sponge boss surrounded by its minions.
The game truly shines in two game modes: the crucible and raids. Raids essentially work like this: you and five of your friends go on a mission with no waypoint and no direction; you just go solve puzzles and fight extremely powerful enemies in an effort to make it all the way through in under a week. Bungie stated that any guardians that made it through would come out significantly more powerful. Because of the nature of raids, matchmaking is not supported and communication is needed, so you’ll have to put together your own team with your friends. So far the only raid available is The Vault of Glass. At one point the fastest completion time was 37 hours, but that has since become under two, since we now know how the puzzles and mechanics work.
Destiny, in my opinion, is a great game all around, but I understand its flaws. Almost everyone’s concerns should be addressed in future updates and add-ons, and the game will grow. In the end, we really have nothing to compare it to; it is one of, if not the first, massive multiplayer online first person shooter role playing game (MMOFPSRPG for short) to be released for consoles. With one of the best online communities I’ve ever been a part of, Destiny combines all the elements of each game type with Bungie’s game designing skills to make an expanding universe players will enjoy for years.