Destiny 2 Open Beta – A Lot of Hassle For Something Somewhat Generic

So I spent twelve hours slowly downloading Destiny 2. It’s brilliant, everyone told me. It’s like a cross between Warframe and Borderlands, multiple people said to me. You HAVE to try the Open Beta! But as I downloaded the game, a lot of worries went through my head. Wasn’t Destiny 1 supposed to be a long-running game? Didn’t it need a bunch of DLCs to be playable? What if Destiny 2 is exactly the same? I haven’t actually played Destiny 1, but that’s what reviews told me.

Finally, I got the game installed. Except it wouldn’t work. I spent 30 minutes stuck behind loading screens. Then I closed the game and opened it and it wouldn’t start. Turns out I need the NEWEST RIGHT NOW graphics card updates. My graphics card driver, which is one behind the newest version (because last time I updated it to the newest version my computer freaked), apparently wasn’t good enough.

An hour later and I’m finally in game. I pick the Titan character, simply because this feels a lot like the Soldier/Rogue/Mage system that we’ve seen a billion times, and I wanted something rounded. Still took a while to load, but not nearly as long as the first time. A loading screen, pick your character, loading screen, cut scene, loading screen, cut scene, then finally into the introduction story mission.

Right off the bat, I realised this game was not aimed at me. It has the same problem the introduction to Skyrim has, if you haven’t played before, you get a bunch of jargon thrown at you. It’s not as bad as Skyrim, but you don’t know who any of these people you’re supposed to go and find are. Who is the speaker? Why is there a massive moon above this city? Who knows. I’m clearly supposed to know and care about them, but who are they?

I also realised that it’s nothing like Warfame. It’s about as close to Warframe as Borderlands is. Whoever said that is a fucking liar. “Oh it’s got abilities and stuff and subclasses and things!” Nope, not at all alike. There’s maybe a few abilities that are the same, but Warframe is jittery jumping, rolling and bouncing while Destiny is running and hovering with jetpacks.

There’s also no tips. At least there wasn’t when I played. And considering this was the first time I played, I often ended up pressing buttons to see what would work. There’s supposedly abilities, but I only found the ultimate by accidentally pressing F. Which was basically “get a shield, get damage resistance and do melee damage.” The number keys swap weapons, as does the scroll wheel, but I could never swap weapons as quickly as I wanted using the scroll wheel.

Gun play was standard shooting stuff. Felt a lot like Borderlands. Abilities are more on par with Overwatch, with an ultimate that charges up over time. I was never sure whether to just run in and shoot things or whether to take cover, but taking cover was way more effective for me.

The HUD wasn’t much to talk about either. The minimap isn’t that good and you can only see health when you take damage – it appears just above the middle of the screen and quickly fades away once you’re back to full health. I’m not sure if the regenerating health is always that strong though, I just ran back a bit, waited then ran back once my health was full.

The game does look nice and shiny, even on lowest settings, but that’s about it. Nothing special, and way too dark in some areas, even with high brightness settings.

The whole thing just felt a bit generic. Like a super serious version of Borderlands or something. I know I should go further into the game, go into the first main area (there’s only one story mission, one PvE area and two types of PvP available), but the whole point of an opening starter mission is to make me WANT to continue to play. I didn’t feel like continuing. Especially with that boring old trope of you being defeated with ease by the big bad and being left for dead, then rebuilding your strength and coming back later.

And yet again, just like every other game like this, you’re a special one. Are we really suggesting that the big bad boss goes and kicks every single guardian off that ship like that? No. Of course not. Would make more sense if there were loads of ships and all these guardians are trying to disable shields, and the big bad sends out a massive power spike that disables everyone or something, but no, it’s just you that he pushes over a ledge then ignores them, when we all know that we’re going to kill him later.

So yeah, it all felt… boring. There wasn’t anything that stood out to me. And if the story was supposed to be the selling point, then I’m utterly clueless.

If you LIKE a basic looter FPS shooter thing, then you’ll probably like Destiny 2, but that’s assuming that it releases with plenty of content. It’s solid but basic. Destiny 1’s biggest problem was the lack of content and needing DLC, and I’m seriously worried about whether Bungie have learned from that or not. Overall, the game feels like it is definitely aimed at past Destiny players, less aimed at complete newbies like myself.

The worst thing is, even if I WAS interested in buying Destiny 2, the PC version won’t be released until 2 months after the console versions. Which means I’ll have to dodge spoilers and stuff.

At the price Bungie and Activision are asking for, it’s not worth pre-ordering unless you’re a dedicated Destiny fan. And no, I’m not going to tell you to play Warframe instead. Go play Borderlands the Pre-Sequel.