Eurogamer said: Except it maybe wasn't the Halo sequel many were pining for. The one where Bungie's infamous 30 seconds of fun is spun out to new and exciting places, or where fresh ideas are folded into the formula. It's Destiny that fits that billing, of course, and it's the evolution you sense Bungie was yearning for when it saw out its last years alongside Microsoft with Reach. Click to expand...

Having slept on my last night's first impressions , I think I'm ready to articulate my feelings about the Destiny beta in a more thorough fashion.First of all, my huge thanks goes to RonanN1 who was kind enough to provide me with an Xbox One beta key. Cheers, mate! Also, I need to stress that I haven't played any PvP yet. I rarely play competitive multiplayer, although I quite enjoyed it in Titanfall, and the last multiplayer shooter I've played before that was probably the original Enemy Territory (which wasgood). I've never played a multiplayer match in any Halo game, so I wouldn't have a point of comparison there either.This is purely about the campaign missions, which I mostly soloed, and I'm sure my experience would have been at least somewhat more positive had I played with a few friends.Let's start with the most obvious, the visuals. I really wasn't overly impressed by the game's technical merits, and a higher resolution wouldn't change that. The good news is I don't really care much about those things (although the lack of physical reactions demonstrated by most objects in the game felt quite jarring at times - especially static pieces of fabric; the game is really inconsistent with those since some do react as they should), but I thought it was worth mentioning; this is a Bungie game through and through, where art and scale take precedence over other visual aspects.Unfortunately, the art didn't do much for me here. The beta offers a glimpse into a severely limited array of environments, for sure, but Old Russia being mostly just rocks, concrete and corroded metal really dampened my enthusiasm for exploration. Interiors are yet again Bungie's weak point, they are bland and interchangeable, saved somewhat by occasionally pretty lighting. The skies are nice, but Old Russia's skyboxes, while dramatic and beautiful, have clouds that look like flat bitmaps moving across the sky. At times it gives Destiny more of a painted-on feel of Halo 4 than something like Reach. The sky in the hub level is much better. I haven't been on the Moon yet, so maybe I'll like that area as well.But let me say something about what I find the most important, the gameplay. It's all right. As a huge Halo fan, I was wondering whether Destiny would really be the next big step in refinement of Bungie's signature gameplay, especially after reading gushing like this (talking about Halo 4 and Destiny):Having spent several hours playing the beta, all I can say is - what a crock of horse shit. The moment to moment gameplay feelsto every Halo FPS that I've ever played, including Halo 4, and it's not a step forward in any respect that I care about. Let's tackle the most important thing first, the AI. It's just serviceable. Sure, the enemies know how to dodge, flank, and do all those elementary manoeuvres, but there's nothing that I experienced in the beta that quite compares to Elites or Halo 3's Brutes on Heroic or Legendary (well, they can be jerks on Legendary, so let's stick to Heroic), let alone the interplay between the different species. I understand that the game is still unfinished, but the enemies will lean out of cover and just stay there while being shot at far too often. There are glitches like in Halo 4 (which caused a big uproar from Halo fans) where enemies will fail to properly react to getting shot. For instance, when they're standing right behind cover, and you circle around them, enemies will sometimes fail to turn around, seemingly getting stuck in the orientation they were facing while you were still in front of them. But I expect that to get fixed, the far more disconcerting is the fact that Destiny's idea of escalating difficulty (I chose hard for every mission where it was an option) seems to be making enemies more of bullet sponges, rather than improving their reactions. Seriously, there are bullet sponges everywhere in this game, and I suppose that stems from its underlying design as a loot shooter, but I don't like it one bit (ironically, being inert bullet sponges was yet another criticism leveled against Halo 4 and its Promethean Knights). Fighting against enemies of your own level is far too easy (I often just rush them and melee everyone to death), akin to playing Halo on Normal, but there's no real equivalent of Heroic. Raising difficulty in Destiny makes battles more drawn out (since now you're fighting bullet sponges above your level), but not more interesting.That said, I had one really intense battle last night, at the end of the level 4 story mission, so not all hope is lost. However, I'm not sure how much of that was a product of cramped interior level design, and the number of enemies thrown at you. Why do most enemies simply not follow you when you retreat to the start of the area? It makes them seem even more stupid and artificially held back, when their other reactions don't really betray the feeling of them fearing for their own lives. I mean, I understand the need for giving the player a retreat zone, but if you can't just go out in the open and survive the onslaught by virtue of your skill, without having to retreat every now and then because there's just too much constantly spawning stuff shooting and rushing at you... I don't know, it just feels lazy in a way uncharacteristic of Bungie's encounter design. And the regeneratinggrenade, whose brilliant idea was that? No enemy weapon pickups I can live with, although it also changes the gameplay significantly, and there are other things that I have issues with, like hit reactions, weapon sounds and stopping power, but they can and undoubtedly will be tuned. The whole level-based combat, however, I really don't know how they could make that more enjoyable, given the RPG-like nature of the game.So Destiny is no Halo when it comes to minute to minute gameplay (and frankly, I'd also put it behind Titanfall, although that's perhaps not a fair comparison since the AI aspect will obviously favor Titanfall where your main enemies are real humans), but once you realize that it has its own thing going, it becomes rather enjoyable, albeit in an unspectacular fashion. I also liked some community events that I took part in, they were fun and reminded me of Firefight (in concept; I've never actually played Firefight, except for when Firefight-like objectives were integrated in campaign missions), but I don't know... I'm just not really feeling the combat so far. It's decent, but that's it.I like how big the levels seem to be, but do they really have to be populated by enemies that constantly respawn at exactly the same spots? I understand that there are also dynamic encounters, but it's not fun having to kill the same underpowered guys over and over, especially in that exploration mission where beacons will have you repeatedly backtracking over the same terrain (often through those annoying underground sections, although there's some fun to be had in tackling those on that armed bike). There has also not been much of interest to find in the Old Russia so far, most of it looks rather similar, so exploration is pointless. It's very much about grinding, and I have absolutely nothing against repetitive grind if the payoffs are good or if the journey is fun and challenging, but so far the game has been merely fine in both those respects. The hub world is also quite pointless, but then again, hubs are practically always a necessary evil. One thing that I'd really like to know is if there's going to be more to the space exploration aspect, apart from choosing the next destination from the screen showcasing your space ship (I admit I haven't really been following the game, partly because the initial gameplay footage turned me away, and partly because I didn't want to get anything spoiled in case I did end up getting it). There's not much to be said about the story at this point, except for that I really didn't mind the voice acting.Anyway, I'll stop for now. I might sound harsh, but I do like the game, I just don'tit at this point, and considering the nature of some of the issues I have with it, I don't know if there's a real chance for those feelings to change. Maybe I'll feel better about everything when I spend more time with the beta, but right now Destiny feels like possibly the most overhyped game in recent history. As it stands, I will buy it, play it, and likely have fun doing it, just not at launch, and not at the full price.