Level Five: Destiny Beta

I have already talked about the Destiny Alpha and I tried to ignore some of the flaws I noticed because obviously it was an Alpha and wasn't perfect. I have finished the Beta and there are a few things about Destiny I want to cover.

Character creation is beautiful with a nice variety in each race (human, exo, awoken), but while I  am building my dream character I can't change the view. Which becomes increasingly frustrating with hairstyles that have half the head shaved, and I don't really have any idea because I am unable to shift perspective.

While all of these characters are beautiful, graphics-wise, I just want to be able to look at them all the way around. Hopefully this minor issue will be addressed in the final game.

I am aware that Peter Dinklage voices the Ghost, and apparently there are a lot of complaints about the voice acting on his part. I have played several missions, everything available in the Alpha and the Beta, and I have no problems with the Ghost. Although my guess is it has something to do with Cortana, I think people have this idea that the Ghost is going to be like her. At this point I can't complain about Dinklage, I enjoy the Ghost's company and I think that if Dinklage didn't deliver he would have been instructed to alter his performance. The Ghost is an AI (artificial intelligence) and he sounds like just that, perhaps he will have emotions and sound differently in other missions but we haven't gotten that far yet.

The line that caught everyone's attention was when the Ghost said "That wizard came from the Moon", the line was so matter-of-fact that it was funny. I thought the line was hilarious, I was disappointed when it was missing from the Alpha. I practically launched my money at Bungie when I saw the shirt, now with the line missing from the game I am glad I did.

The radar in Destiny is different from Halo, instead of pinpointing the enemy on the radar it shows a flare in the direction where the enemy is. More of a generality than actually saying "Here! He's over here!!". It still requires a bit of finesse to get an enemy that is rushing you, but if you want to see what others have to say there is a post about it on GameFaqs. Crouching is still useful, in Halo when you crouch the radar is useless to your enemies, in Destiny crouching only makes the radar show your presence less frequently than if you were running straight at an enemy. It is still useful to crouch but it can't be relied on exclusively. The radar is dimmer for enemies that are either above or below you and bright red for enemies on the same plane.

This video is pretty long but it showcases the moon mission that was temporarily unlocked during the Beta, it took awhile to explore this area and if you are interested in seeing more of Destiny then this is the video for you.

Speculation points to the chains at 2:53 being attached to this ogre, and if you compare the difference in size from the chain to your character it seems this beastie may be enormous. So that is intriguing. I mean, why is he chained up down there to begin with? Things to think about as you wait for the time to slide by.

Destiny is still a solid game, there are grand possibilities for this game. Although I wish there was couch co-op I won't count Destiny out just for that. So far I highly recommend this game, even with the finite options offered in the Alpha and Beta I spent enormous amounts of time on both of them. As the full game emerges I hope for a grand storyline (which seems to be coming with the Traveler) and vast levels. So far the maps I have seen for Crucible are interesting, well-balanced and allow little room for those campers we so loathe. I am aware of the hate the game has gotten but I have played the game and personally it is something I enjoyed thoroughly. Although I have found that playing by myself isn't as enjoyable, exploration-wise, as it was with my friends.

Congratulations! You completed Level Five!

Lunar Wizard

Trophy (Or Achivement if thats how you roll) Unlocked!

Level Three: Long Live the Queen

Alright, so this game caught my attention from an article on Kotaku and through a bit of research I decided to spend the ten dollars. Directly after my purchase I played the game for about three and a half hours, without actually comprehending the time lapse.

The game is quite simple, a visual novel with all manner of choices. The first scene addresses the death of the Queen, you play the part of her daughter, Princess Elodie. This puts you on the fast track to becoming Queen, placing the realm of Nova in under your care. To properly tend to Nova you must decide which skills are necessary for Elodie to rule.

Long Live the Queen follows a cycle: each week you (Elodie) choose the subjects you wish to study, and how much you learn is dependent on your mood. There are a total of 10 moods that can be dominant at any time: angry, afraid, cheerful, depressed, willful, yielding, pressured, lonely, injured or neutral.

Each mood can either help or hinder the learning process, for example: with pressured as the dominant emotion, athletics or faith will increase at a higher rate. Each week you can train in two skills and each skill, at a neutral rate, will gain 10 points, but with the right mood it is possible to get a boost of +1.00 per 5 day period garnering a total of 15 points week. Also studying the skills in the same set will boost the amount of points you can earn, sometimes up to +3 which will allow a boost of 25 points a week.

On the other hand, if your dominant mood is yielding leveling skills such as weapons or lumen will be impossible with a hindrance of -3.00. To be safe, try not to increase or decrease any one mood to an extreme as it will make switching emotions more difficult. With that in mind, events that happen to Elodie during the week can also influence her emotions.

Leveling a set of skills enough unlocks outfits that boost the entire set which can be useful when you are dangerously close to your goal. That tea dress could be what decides your fate...

Each week there are a variety of different events that will occur and choices that must be made which will impact the future. Depending on your choices there is a possibility that other nobles will either be for or against you. There will also be a slew of assassination attempts, so many assassination attempts. And the assassins aren't all you have to worry about in this game, depending on choices there are any variety of deaths waiting for you. 

What makes this game for me is the checklist which has three categories; achievements, deaths, and epilogues. There is a nice abundance of possibility from this game, one of the main reasons I keep getting drawn back for more. I honestly didn't know it could be fun to find ways to lead this innocent girl to her coronation, or even her death, and keep trying to do it until I finished that checklist.

Keep in mind that the choices you make affect the outcome of the game, there isn't one set way to solve a problem. There are a variety of ways to escape assassins and other dangers that lie in wait for you. I won't spoil anything for you in this article so I can't detail too much of the game but I can tell you that if you enjoy a good story and guiding a character down a treacherous path, this game will be worth it. Making it to the coronation isn't the best part of this game, the best part is knowing there are secrets you missed and going back to discover them.

The game pits you against other nobles, some of which are treacherous, and you have to be clever enough to outmaneuver them in this battle royal. If you want any kind of pointer in this game, be careful not to focus too much on just one set of skills. The game is trial and error and it's easy enough to learn from mistakes but the more difficult obstacles require a variety of different skills.

There is also a dash of romance thrown into this game, although be warned it is just a dash. There are possible encounters with individuals and if you play it just right, at the end of the game it will outline your marriage to them. It isn't the main aspect of the game but it is still a nice touch, I am actually glad it isn't a main aspect because with assassins lurking, possibly around every corner, who can be romantic?

I spent my first couple playthroughs with the mentality that I was meant to put a little emphasis on each skill, but depending on your playthrough you may not even need certain skills. I highly recommend Long Live the Queen for anyone that enjoys a fresh taste after so many repetitive games, it is cheap and worth every penny.

Congratulations! You completed Level Three!

Coronation

Trophy (Or Achivement if thats how you roll) Unlocked!

Level Two: Destiny Alpha

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the PlayStation E3 experience and one of the gifts was an alpha code to play Destiny. Firstly, I'd like to show off some Crucible gameplay to give an idea of how the game looks and also how it plays:

Though I dabbled in the other two classes, Titan and Warlock, I grew attached to the Hunter immediately. Each class is completely unique from the next, for one there are different grenade types, the Hunter has a sort of homing grenade as you can see at 1:30.

Also the Hunter has a specific "supercharge", when you get enough kills you can use the Golden Gun which has three shots and kills enemies instantly. It is an activated ability that is timed, it can be found in the first video at 2:00. Another ability of the hunter is the jump, it is just like a double jump which if timed correctly can get you to some pretty cool places.

Weapons of higher rarity are upgradeable with skill trees which is shown in the video below along with the menu in general and Guardian skills.

The game was beautiful and seamless, the only loading screens were when going to different planets, namely going to The Tower or entering the Crucible. The Tower acts as a hub, where it is possible to buy new weapons, new ships, and interact with other players. Not to mention get mail, etcetera, basic MMO layout when it comes to that.

I was able to play one mission, The Dark Within, in which I fought an enemy faction known as The Fallen. I also spent hours exploring the overworld, there were enemies with ? for levels blocking certain paths that weren't meant to be explored which of course made them all the more enticing. My friend was playing on my account and discovered this Ogre:

With only a portion of the map to explore and one type of Crucible match, Control, I still managed to spend at least twenty hours playing it. Exploring was neat, but I really enjoyed the strikes which focus more on teamwork and tactics. You can't just run headfirst into battle firing shots everywhere, and that is something I can appreciate. In the Alpha there was The Devil's Lair strike in which there is basically three parts. The first is when Ghost must hack into a console while waves of Fallen attack, the second is a giant six-legged mech that takes some time to defeat. Third is the objective, Sepiks Prime, a giant orb with a weak spot in the center of his purple "eye/laser".

During my exploration I accepted a few objectives from beacons scattered around the world, each one was pretty different but basically revolved around killing some sort of Fallen. Gameplay was smooth and elegant, of course the storyline was a bit shrouded but that is to be expected. I also spent quite some time exploring character customization which produced this:

I spent quite some time on this game and I can honestly say it is living up to what I envisioned.

Congratulations! You completed Level Two!

Starside
Trophy (Or Achivement if thats how you roll) Unlocked!

Level One

Most gamers can probably name the game that began their journey, for me it was Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island for the Super Nintendo. My gaming library has grown considerably since then but that first love... There's nothing quite like it. To this day I still adore Yoshi.

Level one, commonly a 'tutorial' level, is meant to give you a taste of what I have to offer so let's kick this off with a bit of my experience as a gamer.

Pokemon Heartgold was my first experience with the Pokemon franchise and I ended up sitting for 14 hours straight playing that gambling bit in Goldenrod so I could get a Dratini, afterwards I ditched Cyndaquil and never looked back. So many hours were put into that game, I'm not even sure how I passed high school...

I played Dragon Age II on the PC, probably ten or so times, mostly because I have a problem but also because I loved that game. I may have had too much time on my hands to be playing the game but whatever. I always attempted to romance someone different but that dang Fenris, always enticing... ;)

Since I touched on that, Inquisition is coming up, finally the aspect of DRAGON will be coming to Dragon Age with more force than in the past games. Unbelievably excited for that. But as most games this cannot drag for too long lest it bore you with minor details.

Congratulations! You completed Level One!

ICEBREAKER
Trophy (Or Achivement if thats how you roll) Unlocked!