Destiny: First Impressions

As many are aware, the Destiny beta has begun. The beta gives players a look at Bungie's next new IP, will Destiny live up to expectations? We won't really know until its full release, but that doesn't mean we can't judge it based on the beta.

Character creation is something new Bungie is including in Destiny, you'll be able to design your character in many ways, including 1 of 3 races, hairstyle, hair color, tattoos, and eye color as well as sex.

Human, ??? and Robot, I forget the second race name, they resemble humans, but have beady eyes and are much more pale

The Robots

Humans

These things

You also get to pick your class, Titan, Hunter or Warlock. Each specialize in something different. The Titan is all about power, using weapons to down their enemies. The Hunter is the assassin of the group, using stealth and quickness to take out enemies, the Warlock, as the name implies, is the mage, the use magic energy to down enemies

The classes and their symbols

The story missions are relatively quick, each mission takes, depending on skill and if you want to explore, about 10 minutes. They generally involve reaching the objective point and then killing a bunch of enemies, killing a boss or surviving until your partner, Ghost, can unlock something.

After each mission, you get a summary, how many enemies each person killed, loot you earned and can go back to Destiny, the safe zone where you can buy new gear, turn in quests, interact with others and more.

Destiny is a central hub where you can see and interact with other players, trade stuff, form parties and accept new quests or bounties (basically challenges that earn more money, exp, and reputation with factions), as well as check new messages you may have.

As of now, the MP has only one game mode, Control. You earn exp and Gladiator rank (think *insert current name of PvP currency in World of Warcraft*, earn enough and turn it in for better PvP gear. You also earn less impressive gear during MP (all the stuff I earned was worse than what I had, so I just sold it).

Character with Superior gear, rare and time consuming

You can earn glyphs, which can be converted to gear during missions as well, these are generally uncommon and pretty good gear (at least for now). The tougher the mission, the better gear you can earn, within reason.

A few modes require teams, these are similar to mini dungeons, I haven't successfully done one yet, as my team usually quits before we complete it.

As one may expect, characters can learn some skills and also be upgraded to increase stats, things like more armor, faster recovery and movement are a few of the things that can be upgraded.

MANY skills to be learned

Weapons can also be customized to some degree, rarer weapons have upgrade slots which can be used to do a variety of things such as increase damage, rate of fire, increase accuracy and much more.

2 upgraded spots, one with 3 upgrade options

For obvious reasons, it's too soon to say if the game will be good or not (although I'm sure it will sell well since it's, well, Bungie (and they have a large fan(boy) base)), the game is interesting so far. I woudn't personally buy it right away, I just don't feel enough draw to it. Halo with RPG elements sounds cool, but it doesn't play as I would think.