Destiny – are its faults the same as Halo’s?

A reader argues the issues with Destiny are the same in all Bungie’s games, and that being the next Halo isn’t a good thing.

It’s sad, really. Yet another transformative experience that promises to forever alter the way we perceive games, and blur the lines between single and multiplayer experiences, has released and to say that the reception has been mixed is an understatement. Complaints of boring level design, predictable enemies and a monotonous grind to the level cap plague many of Destiny’s reviews – but should any of us be surprised? This is just Bungie, after all.



Wait! Don’t march towards Twitter with torches aflame and pitchforks set to impale just yet, I haven’t even begun to explain myself!

Bungie are one of the most celebrated and adored developers to have graced us with their games in the last two consoles generations, so the hype generated for their first release away from Microsoft and on the more competent current gen machines reached an incredible fever pitch, becoming the most pre-ordered new IP and breaking first day sales records for a new IP. But, why? Incredibly successful marketing aside, the reason is Bungie’s hugely celebrated series – often lauded as a masterpiece by fans – Halo is one of the best-selling franchises of the last gen.


It’s easy to see why it was such a success, when Halo launched it was that transformative experience. The controls felt smooth and precise, the world looked beautiful, unlike anything we had seen before, and most incredibly, looking down would reveal your character had a working pair of legs. Truly astonishing.

But it wasn’t for these reasons that Halo became a massive success, instead it was the blend of addictive and frenetic multiplayer combined with lush environments and vehicle combat – things we may take for granted now were utterly mind-blowing when the Xbox first released and it cemented Bungie’s place as one of the great developers of the new generation.

But now that grand vistas, vehicle combat and seeing your own legs is all very much commonplace how does the Halo series stack up to other games? The answer is: not amazingly. Level design in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 is, by today’s standards, bland and uninspired.

Exploring Covenant ships in Halo: Combat Evolved is so bland and repetitive it’s easy to get lost, the corridor taking you to the next boring enemy shoot-a-thon looks identical to the corridor which you used to enter the boring enemy shoot-a-thon, I myself found myself getting disorientated after jumping around the room shooting lead into a group on angry aliens.

Despite this rinse-and-repeat gameplay of shooting bullets into damage sponges before progressing through a sci-fi themed alien world to meet more damage sponges, the Halo series is critically acclaimed upon almost every release, despite fans complaining of becoming more weary of the franchise with every instalment.



So now that Bungie’s broken away from Microsoft, surely the developer can now finally truly begin developing incredible multi-platform titles that break away from the heavily beaten path that Halo continues to tread, right? Wrong.

Destiny is very much the logical end point for boring slogs. The world is utterly gorgeous and breath-taking, all the mechanics the game throws at you are tight and feel precise, and every single mission – Patrol, Story or Strike – is a boring, monotonous and painful experience. Aliens that are clearly inspired by a myriad of other sci-fi universes – including Star Wars and Star Trek – bumble about battlefields and relentlessly shoot at your guardian.

Not to say they’re stupid, they’ll move out of sight and out of fire as soon as their health starts running low, but the only movements they make include; walk slowly, shoot, walk a bit more, shoot, and some enemies have a special ability they might pull out. That’s it. All the player needs to keep in mind is that different enemy types have a different weak point, so instead of headshot you might want to be aiming at the opponent’s chest, for example.

What we have here are the very same problems that have plagued Bungie’s games since Halo: Combat Evolved and those problems aren’t going away. A machine made of well-oiled parts, all smoothly clinking and grinding together correctly, but all the machine does is dry paint slightly faster than a sixty watt light bulb. But that’s Bungie, they’re doing here exactly what they have always done, make fantastic looking set pieces and immensely grand levels where not much interesting happens.


Honestly, Destiny is a nice game and I enjoyed my time with it, but the number of times I got bored of playing a mission and would rather have it end swiftly than have to continue any longer far outweighs the times I felt immersed and excited about the experience.

But, this is tradition now. Multi-million dollar publishers can and will pour money into huge triple-A projects with equally large marketing budgets and the gaming community will inevitably pre-order, purchase and then sit with their controller in their hands, watching the final cut scene of the story mode pass them by and cry; ‘Was that really it?’ We’ve seen it happen with Watch Dogs, Call Of Duty, Battlefield, Halo… the only question is which franchise is doomed to fail next? Rainbow Six? Assassin’s Creed?

On the upside, those well-oiled mechanics make for a pretty decent multiplayer shooter.

By reader Dave Aubrey (Twitter/YouTube)

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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