Destiny: The Taken King reviewed: Your loot’s light shines across a hill of content

(Note: This post first appeared on games.on.net. Unfortunately, they're now offline, so I thought I'd save this one too.)

One thing becomes clear when you boot up Destiny following the release of The Taken King: you’re supposed to feel dread. That overwhelming sense of awe and discovery that was inspired by Year One’s theme has taken an ominous turn. The composition that once played while I was in orbit — one of my favourite pieces of video game music — has now been replaced by an arrangement that sounds just that little bit more sinister. There’s a change in mood here that starts with the soundtrack and permeates through the level design.

That being said, the latest chapter of the story has been brought to life by a small, but memorable cast of characters, many of whom had appeared from the beginning but have only now found their voice. Cayde-6, voiced by Firefly and Castle star Nathan Fillion is the primary quest-giver for the fight against Oryx. Fillion doesn’t just provide mission briefings, he’s the star of several cutscenes and also provides colourful mid mission dialogue.

Nolan North of Uncharted fame replaces the unfairly-maligned Peter Dinklage in the role of your Ghost. Both actors turn in stellar performances, and while the script isn’t written to elicit much of an emotional response, the added dramatic flavour makes it that little bit easier to complete a strike, story or patrol mission for the three hundredth time.

Web 2.0

With the arrival of Destiny‘s 2.0 patch, each chapter of the story has now been “questified”. Additionally, the amount of bounty slots (for tasks like ‘Kill 50 enemies with precision damage’) has been increased with the added ability to cash them in on the go. What this should’ve meant was less time travelling to and from the Tower and Reef social spaces; however, quest lines still require players to return, and their touch points crop up just as often as the requirement to turn in bounties in Year One.

If you’re more of a PvP player, this ends up working pretty well. If you’re more inclined to take on AI-controlled opponents, you’ll end up exposed to just as many pretty loading screens as you would have pre-patch. Not a game breaker, but a missed opportunity all the same.

Even after putting in a solid few days of questing, I’m still yet to see all The Taken King has to offer. The main line lasts longer than House of Wolves, and doesn’t rely on lengthy seek and destroy tasks like The Dark Below did. Destiny is getting bigger and better.

New story missions are open to any character at level 25 or greater, meaning that it’s possible to bypass earlier quest lines and move straight on to the more exciting, better-written stuff. While this is great for writers needing to meet a deadline (huehuehue), I imagine it would make a story already infamous for being poorly told all the more confusing. I have a Hunter that I got to level 33 in Year One by equipping high level gear I bought from Xur (the mysterious weekend vendor of all things exotic) and Variks (the warden of the Prison of Elders).

Without even beating the original lot of story missions, I can skip straight to a scene where a key character dies. Without this character, the events of each Year One quest line would make little sense at all, if I were to revisit them.

You’re the one for me

It’s a good thing then that the economy has been overhauled so that it makes playing with one character a viable option. Crucible (PvP) and Vanguard (PvE) marks, forms of in-game currency used to buy high-end gear from various vendors, have now been merged into a single form, Legendary marks. Legendary marks are still subject to caps like their predecessors, but the best gear is found out in the field in The Taken King, and it’s not just found in the new raid.

Rare, legendary, and exotic gear can all be rolled with high enough light scores for players to be able to traverse the end game. Previously, you needed to be able to run the raids (Prison of Elders, and Iron Banner) to have a hope of hitting the light cap, but now it’s been opened up. At first it was disorienting, because as a veteran player my instinct was to rock purple (legendary) and gold (exotic) exclusively. Given time though, my elitism gave way to me actually wanting to progress.

Changing the way players view and treat their equipment will go along way to remedy the old end game conundrum of everyone rocking exactly the same loadout. The Infusion system takes this even further, by allowing players to upgrade lower light gear. In a game where items define your character more than anything else, this is a much-needed addition.

The new rituals

The systems that define the Destiny experience wouldn’t be worth discussing if the core action wasn’t compelling. Thankfully, the new story missions and strikes are thrilling and varied additions to the growing rotation of activities that you’ll play ad infinitum in the hope of netting better gear. There’s a competent stealth mission, a boss fight reminiscent of Devil May Cry, and a wealth of teleporting bullet sponges.

I did find it curious that several story missions are written to contradict a central aspect of Year One mission design: you’re tasked with escaping invincible foes, dark rituals, and exploding space stations, rather than facing a wave-based boss fight and warping to orbit. “Escape from overwhelming enemy threat,” is a staple of FPS mission design, but it’s not something that’s ever been done in Destiny until now. While I welcome new types of objectives and experiences, the few chase sequences offer up little challenge, and they feel a bit jarring given the last year of mowing down each last alien down before heading home.

What works, however, is the return to spaces that had previously been the domain of raiders only. The Vault of Glass and Crota’s End open up sans puzzles for players who may have found the idea of teaming up with six friends and/or random players a little too daunting. This is great as these are some of the best examples of level design you’re likely to see with a gun in your hand. Yes, the enigmatic riddles that had players stumped are absent, but they’re visually striking locales with interesting stories to tell, and I’m glad they’ll be exposed to more guardians.

In good company

Speaking of raids, King’s Fall is visually distinct, and features even more mind-bending situations than its predecessors. I’d go as far to say that the platforming sections in the initial stages of the raid are some of the most visually stunning set pieces I’ve seen throughout a year of playing Destiny. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve sampled two of the boss fights and they are brutally difficult, and absolutely require communication and careful coordination to progress. Some of the solutions seem a little too abstract for my tastes, and it’s a fair bit stingier than those that came before it, but I recommend giving it a go all the same.

Four new strikes have been added for PvE enthusiasts, and the Taken have also been added to existing strikes in a bid to freshen up some of the more tired examples of bullet spongery from Year One. Sunless Cell is my favourite of the bunch, with a boss fight that takes place in near darkness. It’s a bog standard fight, but it looks amazing and is sure to elicit the odd squeal if you’re easily startled. Shield Brothers is easily the most enjoyable clash you’ll have with the Cabal, whereas Fallen S.A.B.E.R and Echo Chamber have extremely durable enemies overstaying their welcome.

Heroic and Nightfall strikes (the same coop missions with more difficulty modifiers) have been overhauled to respect your time just that little bit more. New strikes drop strike-specific gear. One of the more grindy aspects of Destiny‘s end game is becoming dangerously close to enjoyable.

Holding court

Last, but not least, is the Dreadnaught, the new explorable environment and ship that houses Oryx and his Taken and Hive armies. It’s easy to get lost in the network of caves, hidden platforms, and crashed spaceships, but the mysteries hiding within are sure to keep me spelunking in the months to come.

The Court of Oryx, a space within the ship where players can initiate public events (read: timed boss fights), is a stingy disappointment that has its secrets spoiled prematurely. You’re prompted with hints as you play through all but the highest tier of these encounters, and if you’re not the player that initiates the fight, don’t hope for anything but blue engrams.

Patrolling the Dreadnaught falls into a rhythm similar to that which you’d find on Earth, Venus, Mars or the moon. The key difference here is that, for the first few hours at least, the Dreadnaught doesn’t feel like yet another sandbox with endlessly spawning enemies: there is more to it than killing low level ads and searching for collectables.

A bridge between worlds

The new subclasses for the Titan, Warlock and Hunter classes have supers that cover the gaps in their respective arsenals. I didn’t get the chance to test them all, but the Warlock finally has a close quarters arc attack to churn out orbs in PvE, and rack up quick kills in PvP. I’ve seen Hunters offer effective support as Nightstalkers, and Titans burn through minions of the Darkness with the Hammer of Sol projectile attack.

There are quest lines to attain each of the new classes, and in the case of the Warlock Stormcaller, it becomes apparent that Bungie missed an opportunity in building up the subclasses that came before it. The Sunsinger can defy death, surely that would’ve made for a more interesting quest line than inFamous In Space. In any case, reports from fellow players indicate that the new digs are just as enjoyable for the other classes.

Sportsball

Each of the new classes seem built for use in the Crucible, Destiny’s PvP component, and the new Rift mode is the perfect playground for Hammers, Bows, and Palpatines. What other competitive multiplayer mode allows you to slam dunk a futuristic basketball while dodging gunfire? No takers? I thought not. The previously near-invisible Salvage mode has also risen to prominence, and is a great fit for the new maps.

PvP is still very much a tale of corridors, but I actually enjoy Rift and Salvage, as opposed to the Call of Duty with Superpowers that was Control (Domination) and Clash (TDM). Here’s hoping that the next time the Iron Banner flies, we’ll be offered the chance to dunk instead of corner camping.

Hill of content

As a veteran player, The Taken King offers everything I was looking for: hours worth of fetch quests, new playgrounds to explore alone and with friends/randos, and thousands of opportunities to pray to RNGesus. Best of all, strikes like Sunless Cell, and the King’s Fall raid have me feeling that the best is yet to come.

The price to confront Oryx is steep, but the additions to the weekly set of rituals that isDestiny are worthwhile and, for the most part, enjoyable. The return to experience levelling and the new quest system may appear to be geared towards recruiting new players, but there are plenty of challenges available to experienced guardians as well. If you love the grind, it’s time to crash the Dreadnaught.

The author purchased Destiny: The Taken King at their own expense.

Destiny: The Taken King gives life and takes over

(Note: This post first appeared on games.on.net. Unfortunately, they're offline as of 30 November, so I thought I'd rescue it.)

It’s strange to acknowledge my attachment to guns. Fictional guns, no less. This Tuesday night at 7pm, however, the moment I’d been dreading for about a month came to pass. My two most reliable tools got locked away in my vault in first person inventory space manager and MMO-lite, Destiny.

My Gjallahorn, the exotic (for those not in the know, the highest grade of rarity) rocket launcher that was key to undoing any end game enemy, was now ostensibly useless. An uncommon machine gun of the filthiest green was presented early on as a more powerful replacement. My Vision of Confluence, the lynchpin of loadouts that felled Crota, Atheon and Skolas, was now holding me back from cracking Destiny’s new missions and its latest mystery, the Light system.

The Light system was used in Year One to determine your character’s level after hitting the experience cap of level 20. Now, instead of being determined solely by your equipped armour, it now looks at everything your character wears, holds, or otherwise has fastened to them. The mystery is all the more vexing (haha! Destiny pun) now that you can earn experience again, up to the new cap of 40.

“This is going to hurt,” I said to myself as I stashed my redundant weapons. For Destiny, until now, was never about the characters, or the lore at large. It was about elusive loot, and the cruelty or, as was often the case with me, mercy doled out by a random number generator. Guns were adored more than quest givers, and they were written better than them too.

Until now that is.

Now, with the 2.0 update and a wealth of new missions, the focus is on the story. Everyone in the Tower is a lot more talkative, now that Dinklebot (RIP) is gone. Quests are being passed out faster than I can keep track of them, and after skipping from vendor to vendor, I find myself ready to care about Eris Morn, Cayde 6, and a whole bunch of others that had previously been consigned to giving brief thanks for retrieving items and/or turning in bounties as recently as two weeks ago.

Where the campaign from the last expansion, The House of Wolves, felt like a set of mirror tracks, the fight against Crota’s absent father Oryx offers up something never before seen inDestiny: life. The cast doesn’t just stand still and deliver lines of dialogue, they emote, they gesticulate, and rebel, and they act as more than glorified mailboxes.

Sure, the whole revenge plot that’s the crux (another pun!) of the single player experience, is unabashed in its silliness, it’s still more compelling than find the garden. You know, the black one that’s teeming with deathbots.

The new environment, the interior of Oryx’s Dreadnaught, appears to be packed with secrets, and has just enough variety in terms of the colour palette to be considered more than Crota’s End 2: Daddy Issues. I haven’t done too much exploring just yet, but once I get my Light shining I’ll be digging deeper.

I’ve fought hundreds of Taken (be prepared to hear and read that word a lot), and they’re not just garden variety Fallen, Hive, Vex and Cabal with twitchy animations. The enemies that Oryx repurposes are a lethal mix of the old and the new, and they’ve been injected throughout old activities, and the new campaign to catch veteran players off guard. Their attacks and abilities mimic some Guardian supers (like the Titan’s bubble shield, for example), while some are altogether new (like the Taken Captain’s very large, blinding projectile shot).

About five hours in and I feel like I’m barely scratching the surface. Even at level 40 (the return to experience levelling feels superfluous), I’m not ready for end game activities like Daily Heroic (higher difficulty level with damage modifiers) story missions, and can’t even imagine what a Nightfall strike (3 player coop missions) would be like at this point. I’ve got some shooting to do.

Copy of The Taken King purchased at the reviewer’s own expense.

Fallout 4 Review (XB1): The revolution will be safe

Fallout 4 is safe. For a game about traversing a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it is so fucking safe.

Fallout 4 is also an ugly game. It doesn't look exactly like (or 'as bad as') Fallout 3, despite what the social media cesspit may have you believing, but the improvement is slight enough to be dismissed as "incremental." That being said, post-bombing Boston isn't a technical marvel, but in terms of concept, it's consistent and effective.

Fallout 4 looks dreadful, but it's supposed to. Dogs aren't supposed to clip up and down through closed elevator doors, but this is the price we pay for Bethesda's janky brand of open world adventuring. To be able to wander through an expanse rarely-rivalled in terms of sheer width and possibility, we need to expect the frequent stuttering of frame rates and V.A.T.S-engaged combatants.

The possibilities aren't quite endless, but they are worth enduring technical difficulties for. How many other games allow you to create a strong, sarcastic woman warrior who brings violent peace to scorched earth? How many other games allow players to work with a diverse cast, including people of colour and women; in leadership positions, no less? Very. Fucking. Few.

But this is what New Vegas did. This is what, to my fallible memory's recollection, Fallout 3 did to a lesser extent.

This is iteration, not innovation.

The attempts at innovation fall flat for anyone rocking anything other than a strength and intelligence-tuned S.P.E.C.I.A.L build. My luck and charisma build made difficult conversations a cinch, but it also barred me from engaging in weapon and armour modding (in any sort of meaningful way) for more than a day's worth of play.

The settlement building is just as poorly explained, and is obtuse as all get out. I purposefully abstained from completing the tutorial mission on the hunch that any friendly territories I acquired before that point would not be subject to invasion.

For more than 40 hours, and the duration of the main questline, this hypothesis proved true. Funnily enough, the second I fast travelled away from the setting for the ultimate action, I received notice that an outpost was under attack. I don't want to say this new system is unusable, as some creative (if not, puerile) players have already published some impressive creations; it's just a little too indecipherable for my tastes.

Another reason I'm failing to engage with these new features is that the barriers to entry in terms of raw resource requirements are set too high for characters who can't carry an abundance of junk that has no application outside of combat. If I want to have access to weapons that will (eventually) kill an array of deadly enemies, I can't carry 10 pounds of paint thinner, 50 fuses, and my entire arsenal.

Yes, inventory management is still a pain after nearly 20 years of Fallout games. I'd love to offer a solution (like, for instance, being able to send companions to nearby settlements a la Torchlight), but I'm sure the internet as a collective would not deem it worthy. For now, at least, I must continue to return to my home settlement and stuff a fabric suitcase with miniguns and power armour pieces. Don't y'all get between gamers and their fucked up notions of realism now.

The main quest line is home to one too many pointless twists, with inconsistent pacing and some choices that left me feeling indifferent. I don't want to go too far into it for fear of spoiling anything, but the choice of faction for me was obvious, as the two alternatives that I had (could've been three, but I didn't pursue the Minutemen quest chain) had some moustache-twirling, vaudevillian creeds by which I couldn't abide. That being said, my choice didn't result in the satisfying, life-affirming conclusion I was expecting. It wasn't abjectly apocalyptic, but it didn't give me the warm feeling I was hoping for.

As was the case with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the best meat is in the off-cuts. A short sojourn to collect baseball collectibles for a fan who had no idea how the old game worked was far more enjoyable than the central revenge plot. The guy who wanted to experience every drug-induced high available was far more relatable than any of the Brotherhood of Steel lackeys I came across.

I could continue complaining, like say about the conversation system that leads to seemingly-random outcomes based on vague prompts, the transmisgonyst robot gag that is KL-E-0, or the near non-existent changes to V.A.T.S (or the the combat system as a whole, for that matter); but I'd be missing the point. Fallout 4 is a time sink, and for the most part, it's a sink that I and most other nerds are happy to piss into. War never changes, but Fallout does ever so slowly.

Pets and pariahs

The Beautiful Sing

First Lady of Leeson pets

May your garden grow

The Grey Ghost, Kaylee

Vibrant, rebellious cat

Eternally small

Matriarch, Elaine

Ageless and always regal

Please sleep well, my Queen

Constance, the Fragile

Mother's most precious creature

In our hearts always

Carefree Millicent

Naturally peerless white

Grimey pariah

Cautious Adeline

Selfless, quiet, Addy Pie

Love and peace to you

Destiny: The Taken King reviewed

I got commissioned to review the latest expansion to Destiny, The Taken King for games.on.net. If you're interested in hearing my thoughts on Bungie's latest triumph, be sure to check out:

• Early impressions: http://games.on.net/2015/09/destiny-the-taken-king-impressions/
• Review: http://games.on.net/2015/09/destiny-taken-king-review/

If you're not one for scrolling, you can also read my reviews of:

• Base game, with The Dark Below expansion: http://unbearabledutch.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/destiny-review-ps4-cold-dark-loneliness.html
• House of Wolves expansion: http://unbearabledutch.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/destiny-house-of-wolves-review-ps4.html

Volume: Trilogy

Volume

The staggering blow

The staggering blows

Every triumph met with defeats

Nothing is gained in this constant attrition

The number subtracted is always greater

No noise can be heard above the screaming

The maddening howl of consistent grief

I will love you forever

Can you hear me?

Volume II

I would rather not speak

I would not control the flow

The careless sound

I would only speak truth

My version of it is loud with blame

My version has lots of details

There'll be no chance to jump in

My version must be heard

You consider protesting

You know this requires energy

The silence is victory for me

You don't need us anymore

Your version is soft and pointed

Your version cuts and runs

Too bad it won't be played

Your version keeps you here

They know we will end

They sense broken trust

I know the damage irreparable 

They will have to meet us half way

Their version is not final 

Their version spans space and time

You know them better than I

Their version would take years to hear

VOLUME III

LETS TALK

YOU

ME

THE WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY

SETTLE DOWN

IF YOU CANT BE CIVIL

THEN WHATS THE POINT

HEAR ME OUT

NO LISTEN

Listen to your heart

She presses against his face

That lost look in his eyes digitised

Immortalised in high definition 

I've seen that face at home

In other countries

It speaks of hurt

That you want to run

"You might as well rip my heart out"

You answer quickly

I can hear your shame bounce off her cheek

You'll return at once

"You might as well rip my heart out"

A lost vocation 

A locked shed

A set of keys

A single name on a policy

"You might as well rip my heart out"

Reminders of what's been taken

By disease and with the passage of time