Destiny 2 first thoughts
A while ago Blizzard made Destiny 2 free to download, and I immediately wanted to try it out. The downloading and installing didn’t go smoothly though, as the game weights about 80 GB! I didn’t have enough disk space on my PC at first, so to download Destiny I had to uninstall something else. It hurt me a bit but I temporarily said goodbye to my dear Dragon Age: Inquisition.
After 3 days some time, when the download was finally complete I was able to open the game. And it did make a good impression on me. The first thing that I got to experience was music and I have to say I absolutely love Destiny 2 soundtrack. It’s epic and very atmospheric. It’s great to listen to it while playing the game and there’s no way I make a custom background music (what I recently did for ESO). You can listen to Destiny 2 soundtrack for free on Spotify.
Another thing I noticed immediately was that this game is fully controller compatible. Not that it was a big surprise – all modern games are controller compatible. And if your game is not controller compatible or you want to adjust the controller settings in a way the game doesn’t let you – I recommend installing Padstarr.
Also – a hint for using a controller in Destiny 2 – you can seamlessly switch between mouse/keyboard and controller modes (UNLIKE IN ESO) just by using them, but the controller mode doesn’t activate until you press a button, so don’t worry, your game didn’t freeze, you just have to activate the controller 🙂
As for the graphic – I honestly can’t say if I’m demanding or not – on one hand I have difficulties with playing games that I don’t like visually but on the other hand I played many pixel games that I loved, including Ib, that, in my opinion, has bad illustrations and I love those games with all my heart. Additionally, one of my beloved games, Dragon Age: Origins can’t be objectively praised for amazing graphics either, not in 2018 anyway.
That being said – I absolutely love the way Destiny 2 looks. It’s absolutely stunning, the lighting effects are great and you can clearly see the developer made everything so you enjoy the view. And by no means I’m saying the graphics in this game are perfect – sometimes objects have way too saturated colours and trees often look weird – but still, to my tastes most of the time everything looks absolutely great.
What about the character creation, you ask though – and I answer. The game offers 3 classes to choose from: Titan, which matches your warrior archetype, Hunter, a typical rogue/sniper and Warlock, which is, as you probably have guessed, generally speaking, a mage. All the classes can use all the looted and bought weapons but each class has a unique set of “ultimate” abilities and resistances. For now I only have my warlock somewhat leveled up but the ultimate abilities already look super cool and powerful and it’s very satisfying to use them.
After choosing the class you can pick your race and gender as well as customize your character’s looks. Destiny 2 doesn’t give you too many customizing options but it’s still decent and you’re able to create interesting, pretty and badass characters. You can pick from between 3 races (humans, Awoken – blue-ish skinned aliens who also are my favourite race in Destiny 2 and Exo – a self-aware humanoid war robot). Each race has 7 face shapes, 15 hairstyles/head features, 8 face markings, and each feature has at least 9 colours to choose from.
What I hate in the game is that you don’t name your characters. Not officially at least. They go by “guardian” which is their role in the plot and other players will only see your username in the game rather than your character’s or both yours and your character’s names. I really dislike this feature (or rather the lack of it!) a lot, because I love giving my characters background stories and a character without a name, just going through the story mindlessly, feels like they are not only missing the name but also their personality.
Anyway, below there is a pretty good YouTube video showing the character creation is Destiny 2:
When you’re done with creating your character and start actually playing the game you are thrown straight into the middle of an intensive plot. I was really impressed by the intro that explains how you end up powerless (and leveling up) and what is the main focus of your future missions. Because of the intensity of the intro and some of the games mechanics as well as its setting Destiny 2 reminds me of Mass Effect: Andromeda a bit (and hey, unpopular opinion here: ME:A is NOT a bad game) but it was to be expected (and the reason I actually installed this game), since it’s a sci-fi shooter and I’ve only played several of these.
Destiny 2 during missions is a typical FPS, but in a combat safe zone (like The Farm) you can see your character from a third person view (from behind the character’s back). I’m not a fan of a first-person view, I’d rather see the character I spent time on creating but it’s a personal preference and having mostly the first-person view is something I can get used to. Also, the game is FPS after all, so I either accept it or not play it.
Destiny 2 is also a game where I can continue my “Spot Gideon” minigame which is a lot of fun and I had no idea I’ll be able to play it in Destiny before I downloaded it. I’m still not far in the plot yet, so I’m not sure if Mr. Emery voices more characters, but so far I’ve met the gentleman below and it’s extremely funny and weird at the same time, because for some reason the character reminds me of George Clooney but he speaks with Gideon Emery’s voice. It makes my brain go even more crazy 😀
When I have time for gaming I still focus on playing ESO but I do need to shoot some stuff sometimes and then I reach for my Destiny (2) 😉 But I have to mention that in my opinion Destiny 2’s missions are quite intense so I do have to be in the right mood to play it, but believe it or not – it happens, and I really like the experience so far.
I was recently told that “Destiny 2 sucks and no wonder Blizzard released it for free”. But it was said by someone who didn’t even try the game out and even if they did they’d probably complain just for the sake of it. It’s not a perfect game, it might not be an extremely great game either. But I don’t think its quality has anything to do with it being temporarily released for free. Remember that Dragon Age: Origins (claimed to be a terrible game by the same person) was released for free too and in the gaming community it’s actually quite high scored. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same situation with Destiny 2 but it was most likely released for free for the same reason – promotion of the game.
And so far it definitely doesn’t “suck” for me. Sure, it will almost certainly not become my favourite game, but for me – so far it’s fun. Of course someone else may say it’s boring it and it’s also a valid opinion. You just shouldn’t build your own opinions solely on what others say. Yes, they say it for a reason, but everyone is different and has different tastes, so you may end up actually liking the thing others criticize. It happened to me in several cases so why not giving a try the thing that you think “sucks” because “cool kids” say so?
