Destiny Beta Open to all Platforms for Free

Just wanted to give anyone who has any interest a heads up. Bungie has made the Destiny Beta available for free for the next two days for all Playstation and XBOX owners. No pre-order required.

Yeah, Barnes is trying it right now. It's a huge download. I'm waiting to hear what people think first. I watched some live play game footage last night and it sure looks a ton like Halo (albeit with even more beautiful graphics).

The part in the trailer where you pilot a spaceship, does anyone know what that is? Is that just for one single segment or can you always do that?

In short, I don't actually even know what the game is about. Is it a FPS? It sure looks it. Or is it some type of MMORPG?

It is Halo. With some light RPG character progression and some magicky special abilities that you can earn. There is also equipment, which can be crafted and leveled up on its own. Like Halo, it also has several different types of enemies that have completely different "cultures", which results in completely different AI behaviors between them.

Gameplay is absolutely top notch, impeccable. It's HIGHLY refined and tuned to almost inhuman level of perfection as far as FPS go. Weapons all behave differently and like Halo, they have specific utility. Unlike Halo, you can carry more than two but you can only have two equipped to hot switch. It maintains the Halo triangle of guns>grenade>melee.

There is only one vehicle, a speederbike sort of thing. It's awesome, very fun to scoot around on. You can "transmat" it anywhere. I believe there will be more vehicles in the final game. The spaceship you're talking about isn't something you can actually pilot, it's how you get between the various locations in the game. There is no "mode menu". If you go to the Tower, you're effectively going to the "town" for shopping, socialization, taking up bounties, meeting with class bosses and so forth. If you go to Earth (or the Moon, apparently), you're taking on story or exploration missions. These are all online, but you aren't ever put on a fireteam or forced to run with anyone except in Strike missions where you're REALLY going to want to have help. Citadel is the multiplayer area.

The format is BRILLIANT and truly next generation. Everything about the game is diegetic. You're always immersed in the game world. Even the loading screen, it's your ship heading to its destination.

The genius of the game is that it marries classic Halo-style FPS with very modern elements- the MMORPG stuff, the crafting, the detailed character customization and so forth.

For example...you might be on a story mission with a specific goal. You might see a couple of other guardians running around doing something else. But then an event happens, and there might be a Fallen dropship showing up. So you have a timed instance where you can go get some extra VP, loot and other rewards for joining in the instance. The exploration missions are totally free form. You drop down, and there are these beacons you can pick up and they give you a pretty standard MMORPG style mission- go to this place, kill X number of these guys, find Y of these things. Or you can just wander around looking for chests and racking up XP by getting into gunfights with the baddies.

Last night I was on story mission and I wandered off...went down in some wreckage and realized "hey, I haven't seen this part before". Then these big ass Hive Knights or whatever showed up and scared the shit out of me. Shooting them with everything and it says "immune". Their level tag was "?"

This game is really fucking awesome and I think it will be the next big thing. It feels modern and innovative in ways that FPS games haven't since Modern Warfare. The world design is really compelling, the scenario and setup are hugely appealing. I read a review in some major mainstream paper (think it was Forbes) and the reviewer said "this it the kind of game that you can't wait to get home to" and that's kind of how I feel about- and I've not really felt like that about a AAA video game in a while.

I'm no reviewer, so I'm not even going to try to go into the detail Barnes does. However, I can say that this is easily one of the best fps, if not one of the best games in general, that I've played in the last almost ten years.

It's got all the loot grabbyness of Diablo and Borderlands, and all the awesome action I so fondly remember of playing Halo 3 with my buddies online in Jacksonville.

I've got almost 30+ hours. . . IN A DEMO!!! And this is barely a scratch in the surface of the overall game.

Barney, go download it for free and play for the weekend. Seriously. Don't wait to watch videos or read reviews, try it!! You'll be glad you did!!!

One thing I'll say for sure; in Diablo I had one, maybe two classes I wanted to play as, and only one that I went full on end-game+paragon on. With Destiny, each of the classes are quite unique in style and I'll look forward to leveling EACH one.

alright, alright, I'll download it. I really dislike Diablo and Borderlands, Halo 3 got tired really fast (I think it's only fun in 4-way split-screen) and this MMORPG stuff sounds like it'll be poison to my marriage. I'll try it anyway.

People went nuts over the Titanfall demo too which I found lacklustre.

Thanks for talking me into it, I'll let you know what I think

Yeah, I'm getting up there with my second character and I'll try to hit 8 with the third before it wraps up.

It really does feel like something bridging the distance between playing games in the early 2000s and the future.

I am a little worried about microtransactions...there are some things where I can see them potentially creeping in, but hopefully Bungie will have the good sense to keep things on the up and up.

I think it's going to be huge...it has that EVENT game aura about it, it really stands apart from all of the other AAA stuff out there right now. Just play it, you'll see what we're talking about.

Black Barney wrote: alright, alright, I'll download it. I really dislike Diablo and Borderlands, Halo 3 got tired really fast (I think it's only fun in 4-way split-screen) and this MMORPG stuff sounds like it'll be poison to my marriage. I'll try it anyway.

People went nuts over the Titanfall demo too which I found lacklustre.

Thanks for talking me into it, I'll let you know what I think

It's only a MMO in the sense that you see people around. You're never forced to play multiplayer unless you're in the Strike(which you'll soon see), and pvp, thich is your standard tdm, king of the hill deathmatchy games.

What a terribly misleading thread title.

You'll have to excuse Cloudy, he's new around here.

Um, should I have included "except for pc"?

Bull Nakano is still trying to get it to download it to his Gameboy. Thanks for the confusion.

QPCloudy wrote: Um, should I have included "except for pc"?

Not only that, even if I wanted to play it on a console, which I don't (if you prefer to play shooters on a console/gamepad, you are human garbage entitled to your opinion), I don't have a Gold account, so it's a no-go.

/boredom induced faux-outrage

Disgustipater wrote:

QPCloudy wrote: Um, should I have included "except for pc"?

Not only that, even if I wanted to play it on a console, which I don't (if you prefer to play shooters on a console/gamepad, you are human garbage entitled to your opinion), I don't have a Gold account, so it's a no-go.

/boredom induced faux-outrage

Ah gotcha. To be honest though, I think you can play the single player items. Only the Strikes and PVP require gold. If I understand correctly. At least that's how it is working on Playstation.

Michael Barnes wrote: Bull Nakano is still trying to get it to download it to his Gameboy. Thanks for the confusion.

A great game is a great game, regardless of screen size.

Black Barney wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Bull Nakano is still trying to get it to download it to his Gameboy. Thanks for the confusion.

A great game is a great game, regardless of screen size.

That's what she said.