Destiny Alpha review – first look at the sharing shooter

Destiny - the social shooter

GameCentral goes hands-on with the Destiny First Look Alpha, as the creators of Halo try to redefine both the shooter and MMO genres.

We really must be suckers for punishment, because the first thing we did after to getting off a 10 hour flight from L.A. was sit down and play a video game. Specifically we downloaded the Destiny First Look Alpha, not just because it only runs for this weekend (specifically until 7.59am today, UK time) but because at E3 we'd be slightly disappointed in our first chance to play the game.

Halo developer Bungie are one of those developers that don't really like talking to the press (we had an interview with one of their animation guys at E3, but it revealed almost nothing of substance) and so with the so far low key marketing of the game it's still been very hard to figure out exactly what kind of game it is. 'Shared world shooter' is the term publisher Activision has been using, as specifically avoid using the term MMO (massively multiplayer online).

We can understand their concern though and certainly Destiny isn't quite like anything else out there - even if most of the component parts are all very familiar. Setting up your character doesn't take long and the customisation options are all organised around pre-set options, so you can't fine tune their appearance. Or at least you can't in the alpha, but although much may change before the beta (starting July 17) and the final game (September 9) we can only judge what's actually in the alpha.

At the moment you can't even give your character a name, you're just stuck with whatever your PNS ID is, and the choice of three races: human, the Awoken and the Exo. The Awoken are all vaguely supernatural looking, with white skin or elvish ears, and the Exo are basically robots. What role they play in the game's lore we're not sure though as although knowing Bungie the backstories are all extremely complicated the alpha gives little real indication of what's going on.

All we gathered is what we'd already knew from the previews: after a brief golden age of space exploration the human race has been saved from extinction by a large sentient sphere called the Traveller, who was almost destroyed and now doles out a special power to humans called 'The Light', with which they're meant to fight his enemy 'The Darkness'.

Storytelling is clearly not a priority for the alpha, and instead we move on to our final customisation choice, of choosing a character class. There are three pre-set options: hunter (the fast but weak scout type), titan (heavy weapon specialists), and warlock (basically a wizard). Each has their own unique skills and abilities but with their double jump and throwing knives we found the hunters the most immediately appealing. As the closest thing to Master Chief the titans were also obviously popular, but we saw hardly any warlocks in our time playing.

It's very unusual for an alpha (the first stage at which a game can be played with all its major features working) to be made available to the public, even in limited numbers, but from a technical point the game works almost flawlessly. We only had it crash on us once and didn't have a moment's trouble with lag or matchmaking. Although you could only level up to a maximum of level 8, so it was still a lot odd that we only ever saw two or three other people at a time in the two optional co-op levels.

There are a lot of different ways to play Destiny, and the alpha offered up an example of each: there's a story mission, an exploration mission, and a co-op only mission (only available if you have PlayStation Plus) - all of which were set in and around an abandoned cosmodrome in Russia. On top of this is competitive multiplayer set in The Crucible, whatever that is, and the social area of The Tower.

Naturally enough we started in the story mission, which involved exploring the cosmodrome and trying to work out the source of a mysterious power signal. It's at this point that we realise that game has a similar problem to something like The Division, where all the months of hype and speculation lead to an inevitable deflation when you realise that despite all the amazing concept art and fan excitement this is still just a first person shooter.

In terms of basic movement and action there's nothing extraordinary at all. In fact in some ways it's not even as good as Halo, with unremarkable enemy artificial intelligence and a frame rate that is apparently locked at 30 frames per second but feels lower. Our initial disappointment with the game at E3 came from the disappointingly generic game mechanics and visuals that while certainly good didn't seem to take full advantage of the amazing art direction.

But by playing the alpha we got to experience what is Destiny's real killer app: the fact that other human players are taking part in the same missions alongside you and it's entirely up to you whether you have anything to do with them or not. After wandering around the story mission stage at random we starting heading towards the objective and suddenly see another player up ahead. They're just standing there, occasionally looking toward the objective and seemingly as unsure as to whether to approach us as we are to them.

But we catch up and after giving a wave we follow in their wake and try to help out as they take out a few more random enemies. There is voice chat in Destiny but apparently in fireteams, although we never got to prove this either way as we never met a single person using a microphone (or PlayStation Camera in our case) in the whole seven or so hours we were playing. But mundane conversation often takes the magic away from multiplayer, especially co-op, and as we carry on after our mute friend it almost seems like we're communicating with some alien visitor - with hand signals and a mutual contempt for bad guys being enough to encourage a sense of trust.

Destiny - everyone starts the game with their very own speeder bike

Although our partnership is strengthened further when we both end up reviving each other a couple of teams, encouraging us to add them to our fireteam - which only lasts for that match and has a maximum of just three people. We do well enough with just the two of us though, entering a nearly pitch black area filled with an enemy type that apparently should've been restricted to the moon. The dialogue at this point is extremely cheesy, as your AI companion warns you 'look out, there's a wizard!' and to 'shoot anything that floats!' The game's unusual mix of genres and influences does a lot for enemy variety though and even just in the alpha we're fighting the wizard's acolytes, the four-armed 'Fallen', and zombie-like space mutants that run straight at you.

After completing the story mission we pop in to The Tower, the game's social area. Once again though nobody's being very social and so we just wander around the various shops and facilities, buying new weapons and decoding 'engrams' we've picked up that unlock rarer items. The Tower isn't particularly big though and so we soon leave and head off into the more free-form exploration mission.

Although it's not that big compared to a dedicated open world game this is a sort of hub area filled with little beacons that offer up side missions, most of which centre around killing a certain number of enemies and/or collecting items they leave behind. This can go on forever if you want, with enemies respawning after a short time and no sign of an end to the missions that we ever saw.

It's at this point though that we started properly exploring the game's role-playing elements, which strike a sensible balance between shooter style accessibility and role-playing style complexity. It may be a first person shooter but Destiny also has many elements of dungeon crawlers like Diablo. You're constantly picking up loot and deciding which piece of armour is better to wear, since most have extra buffs and benefits beyond their basic function. You also have a skill tree for each character, which is slowly unlocked as you earn experience. Although at any one time you can only use one of each type, such as a range of different grenades.

Although the inventory is of a generous size, allowing you to hold multiple guns at once, you can only switch instantly between three: a standard, special, and heavy weapon. Ammo is in relatively short supply for the special weapon (and even more so the heavy) so it's a bit irritating that if you switch types, say a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle, your special ammo is immediately set to zero. Which doesn't make any logical sense but does force you to think through your tactics a bit harder.

As you wander around the exploration hub other players to continue to come and go but you can also witness random events, from the fairly regular appearance of enemy dropships to other craft arriving to drop of tanks and the appearance of escape pods that you have to defend for a few minutes. These events are entirely optional though and you can ignore them if you want.

After a few hours of happy grinding we try out the Strike mission, the one game type where co-op is compulsory. This is a level 6 mission, and so much tougher than the two level 3 types we've played before. It's also surprisingly long and more like a standard, linear first person shooter - albeit it with plenty of optional nooks and crannies to explore. There are three key set pieces, a three wave survival mode sequence where you're trying to hack an impenetrable barrier, a boss fight against a giant spider-like tank, and a boss fight against a big giant robot eyeball.

None of these are easy and we have a great deal of fun working out the necessary tactics with our allies, with the survival section requiring a highly mobile response as you try not to get cornered and yet remain within reviving distance of your partners. The boss battles were also fun but the bosses themselves are basically just bullet sponges. Having to shoot the leg armour off the tank or getting the end boss in the pupil are very simple tactics and given how long these fights are it's a shame nothing more inventive was concocted as a means to take them down. The final type of game mode is at The Crucible, which seems to be some sort of in-game gladiatorial school. Only one game mode was available in the alpha: a Conquest style mode across one of two maps. Just like Battlefield et al. you have to capture and hold three control points, with the first stage being a fairly small castle-like area on Earth and the other a moonbase.

The latter is the only chance to play on another planet, but apart from the visuals the difference seems minor. Although it's a little hard to judge exactly what the gravity's like when you can always double jump anyway. The moon level is a little larger than the earth one, and comes complete with a range of vehicles and turrets that add to the fun. It's still nothing you couldn't get from any other game though, apart from the bizarre intonations of the announcer - who seems to think he's narrating an episode of Jackanory rather than an intense first person shooter.

Despite being the least unique of the game styles The Crucible seems to be very important in terms of acquiring upgrades. Many advanced weapons, vehicles, and armour customisations can only be acquired via repeated success at the competitive multiplayer, and we wonder whether this might not become a point of contention in the final game.

But we had a lot of fun with all the game types and once we got past the initial disappointment of how much of the game is familiar we really started to enjoy ourselves. Getting upset that we'd reached the level cap even after not sleeping for 34 hours says a lot about any game; especially one like this, that still has a number of questions to answer.

It's a shame the alpha is PlayStation-only (one of several exclusive deals that see Sony almost treating the game like a first party title) but thankfully the beta itself is multiformat. We at least can't wait to play the game again and now genuinely fear how much spare time we're going to spend on the final thing. Plus, it's only then we'll find out how those concerns we've already outlined affect the overall experience. But while we may not like MMOs, we can already say that we definitely like Destiny.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (tested), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Xbox OneEmail gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on TwitterPublisher: ActivisionDeveloper: BungieRelease Date: 9th September 2014

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