When you read about Destiny 2 as of late, the headlines are pretty similar. They all are stating that Destiny 2 is in a tough place. If you ask the fanbase, they’re pretty aware of the state it’s in and they’ve been extremely vocal about its current situation. One of their biggest concerns just happens to be the companies over-reliance of microtransactions and forcing them down the communities throats.
If there is anything Destiny 2 has done better than its previous entry, it would have to be the depth of story it offers, and the history behind some of the most renowned guardians in the history of the Vanguard. While the expansion was announced shortly after launch due to a leak by Microsoft’s Xbox Marketplace, we knew the expansion was coming, but when was the largest question of them all.
When Destiny 2 launched earlier this week on PC, it served as the first release for the series on PC after Destiny bounced right over PC, and served its delicious amount of cooperative play exclusively to console players. A few players, however, have stated they’ve been banned for using Overlays like framecounters or even programs that helped with their stream’s such as X-Split or another third party program. However, Bungie has come out and said that they disagree completely.
Trials of the Nine is the icing on the cake for Destiny 2 players whom like to take on extreme competitive play in order to unlock astonishing rewards, but that is changing according to a blog post by Bungie’s community manager Chris Shannon. In the post, Shannon has stated that Bungie has disabled Trials of the Nine for the next couple of weeks. The cause? A glitch that allows players to use the Monty Python-inspired Bureaucratic Walk and go outside of a maps boundaries.
Pros:
+Social activities are an absolute highlight for the Destiny 2 experience
+Reward systems for all activities have been heavily upgraded since Destiny
+Guided Games make it absolutely fun to attempt Nightfall runs
+The reputation system has been restructured and offers more incentives to play
+More exotic quest lines, which is an absolute thrill to have
+Extremely smooth frame rates on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One
Cons:
-Raid Guided games is absolutely useless and broken
-Subclass talents have been completely restructured and restrict any and all customization
-Extremely short story… Still. Side quests attempt to save the day
[Editors Note: Our review has been updated to reflect that the connection errors have ceased since the recent hotfix]
Since the 2014 launch, Destiny has come a long way. Bungie should be proud that their MMOFPS has managed to do so. When the game first launched it was plagued with issues ranging from its short story, lack of content, and even a laughable reason as to why players should continue to play. Let alone was its DLC questionably short for the price, it didn’t provide fans with what they had hoped for, and left some – like myself – feeling betrayed by the staggering cost to continue playing and experience a story that made little-to-no sense.
While the console betas seemed to go on without a hitch, fans got to dive in, and try to take back the Last City starting on July 19th till July 25th. While there was surely quite a few players that attended, we are unsure just how many played in it, and if the attendance could even boast about Destiny’s 4.6 million players, which broke several records for beta users attending during a new IP beta on consoles.
Since we were unable to attend E3 2017, Destiny 2 was well out of reach. We’d been unable to even get a glimpse of the game except for small press-kits here or there, and the bit of news that would trickle out from developer Bungie. For most enjoying the beta on PlayStation 4, the beta started yesterday while just launching on Xbox One today. If you are on the go and want a version to listen to, you can check out our YouTube version as well.
While we will have plenty of more time with the beta in the upcoming days, there’s no doubt that within four hours, I felt like I got to see almost all of what the beta offered in order to enjoy the game to its fullest to this point. In comparison to the Destiny 1 alphas and betas, Destiny 2 is significantly smaller in what it has to offer, but executes itself as a rather entertaining experience that fans can jump into quite easily.
We all knew it was bound to happen. With Destiny wrapping up its year of events, The Age of Triumph ushers in the end for the game. While Bungie hasn’t released any new images or even news for the game, we can now say we know the title, we know the events leading up to it, but what we don’t know yet is a release date.
We can say it has to be arguably soon thanks to a poster that has been leaked that gives us a September release date. While that may seem a bit far-fetched, it would suit quite well to fit in with the original games launch day, and welcome players in from around the world. Lets just hope the game comes sooner than later for the fans.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Ever wanted to have a chance to revisit raids such as The Vault of Glass or Crota’s End? Welcome to what the upcoming update for Destiny has prepared. Today, Bungie has announced that they will be preparing players to revisit some of the games oldest and most beloved content. With the release of the teaser below, fans are being prepared to get excited for the livestream that’s coming up, but first? Take a look at what they are using to help make you excited for this content.
You’ve seen it before. We’ve all seen it. Roughly 5.6 million American’s are diagnosed per year with manic depression. It isn’t just something that pops up as you may see in commercials. It’s a imbalance that causes those suffering from it to go from extreme highs (happy places), to mediums (that meh mood), to the lows (good luck consulting these people, Chuck). To those that suffer from manic depression simple tasks like putting on shoes is like asking us to grab the nearest cinder block and put it on. To others it’s like asking them to try and walk through a blizzard without a winter suit on – it’s not happening.
Depression, as you may have read in my article on Creators, is not fun, it is not beautiful, and it’s not what television shows make you believe it is. It’s lonely, it’s painful, it’s emotionally draining, and at times it makes you feel as if all hope is gone. When I first experienced my extreme high to my extreme low – it was hard, it was damning, and it was the single most painful experience in my life. As a gamer, I’ve always played games, I’ve always loved games. If you asked anyone that knows me – my room is a sanctuary to video games. However, I didn’t always have online activity for gaming, I was one that was mostly offline unless a PC was available and could run my titles of interest; Battlefield Vietname, Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2142, Tribes 2, Call of Duty, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six to name a few.
Thanks to the modern era of gaming we’ve seen online focuses become a pivotal role in gaming development. Titles like EA’s Battlefield, Need For Speed, and even Star Wars Battlefront have become titans within the gaming world. Those titles are easily clashed against with competitor titles such as Destiny (Bungie), Call of Duty (Activision), Overwatch (Blizzard), and even upcoming games such as LawBreakers (Boss Key Productions, Nexon America). All these titles have a common theme – they’re all shooters, they’re all filled with competitive components or focus, and they all require team work to enjoy.
As part of suffering depression, there is a trend we tend to follow: social withdrawal, negative thinking, and negative thoughts. All of these as stated in my article I linked above, depression hits all of us differently, but all of us fall into the same routine of isolation, dwelling, and ultimately negativity. As this happens our capabilities of being social begin to decline – this is where video games come in – especially competitive ones requiring team work and communication.
Over the course of the past sixteen years, I’ve fought depression endlessly, sometimes tirelessly – at the middle of this fight has been an interactive media I known much of my life: video games. In the course of going through it I began to explore the involvement of video games, how they help, what medical assistance they could provide (remember those Alzheimer articles?) for those with mental disorders.
So you may be wondering how video games helped me fight depression as well as continue do so – namely with the games listed above, and that’s where we’re going next. As someone who plays a lot of Destiny, Battlefield, and Overwatch when I’m not writing for reviews or even writing to write – I’m playing team based games. The interaction and immersion required has helped me over the years find a way out from my depression, it has allowed me to keep my social interactions with my friends, but it has also kept that big elephant in the room from blowing up like a blimp. The games require team communication, social interaction, high amounts of concentration, and constant mental coordination.
On Battlefield this can include taking objectives while remembering where enemy jets, snipers, helicopters, tanks, or what have you, and being able to make the audible call out. This interaction, while minimally social, can also bring up key points of communication so that the person suffering from a depressive spell – isn’t thinking about it. Games such as Destiny? Require close to the same interaction based upon what a player is doing. If it’s a raid? Players will be communicating with five other fireteam members, making call outs, and even coordinating with their team so that they can have an assured victory. If PvP? Players must coordinate where they are going, what their objective is, where the opposing players are, and how they are going to go about eliminating them to secure their objectives.
When returning to Battlefield, it’s hard to say what portion of the game is going to help others as it does myself. For some, the idea of grabbing a helicopter, piloting around while having team mates shooting, deploying, and ultimately seizing capture points is a rather novel thing – one that offers up a sense of self-worth. It also can provide some ridiculous moments when a team full of combat ready players get their boots on the ground because of the pilot. Let alone does Battlefield offer up many forms of distraction, it offers up a vast beauty of a digital world around the player. One that can’t fully be explored via helicopter or lightening fast jets. Sometimes it requires the player to simply run around, taking in what sights they can in these ever-changing battlefields that they’ll ‘deploy’ onto. As things move on with the next installment; I’m sure I’ll move onto Battlefield 1 when the time comes to continue my coping mechanism.
With ever-changing elements in gaming, Battlefield has served a respective purpose in my life, one that has helped me cope for over 14 years as someone who fights bouts of manic depression. If Battlefield and Destiny can help me, what games have helped you, a loved one, a family member, or a friend of yours? Let us know in the comments.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.