Destiny- The Fast Food of Modern Gaming

The story, which concerns nothing much in particular, is naff. It is an outline at best; an excuse to kill bad guys. Thankfully, it doesn't stop you from doing much, and it suits the kind of game Destiny is. There just isn't much personality to invest in.

Reading the title, I suppose you could take my view of Bungie's latest bestseller as being fairly negative, if not outright dismissive. Fast food- otherwise known as junk food, to put it bluntly -never makes for a good comparison, generally. And you cannot possibly call Destiny cheap in the literal sense. Google how many people work on keeping everything online, or how much it cost to develop. Destiny is anything but cheap.

Comparing it to fast food could imply that I think Destiny is bad for you, or that you won't get much out of buying it. Far from it, as it happens. I think it's brilliant. And if you're still on the fence about buying it, what with the depressingly average reviews it's received so far, I will now do my best to shove you towards the fancy grey loading screen. You have been warned.

To start with, Destiny undoubtedly has it's flaws. Accepting them is a big part of enjoying it, in my opinion, and they are pretty obvious too.

First up, the story. The story, which concerns nothing much in particular, is naff. It is an outline at best; an excuse to kill bad guys. Thankfully, it doesn't stop you from doing much, and it suits the kind of game Destiny is. There just isn't much personality to invest in.

Destiny's enemies aren't the best either. Sometimes they appear in hordes, some of them charge a lot, some of them hide a lot, and some of them soak up ammo like it's made of bubble-wrap. They don't ever force you to think too hard.

Don't get me wrong- you might, as I frequently do, die a lot, but you'll see it coming a mile off. I don't mind it, but- as with the plot - I completely understand those who do.

Finally, getting better equipment in Destiny is infamously hit & miss. You get new stuff after each mission, but it's not necessarily better or more valuable than what you already have; rare items are acquired by no small amount of sheer luck.

As with fast food, there's not much depth or nuance to this game. The landscapes look beautiful at times, but they are largely empty- small things, like native fauna, are noticeably lacking. It separates Destiny from games like World of Warcraft, which thrive on players interacting with the online world, and it's hard to make any sort of emphatic connection with what's going on.

It's fortunate that Destiny doesn't require much time to get stuck into either. The game-play itself only improves with time, rewarding you with new abilities and better weaponry, which you can then test against tougher enemies and more objectives to complete.

Granted, there are only three classes to choose from. By the time you get one of them to level twenty, I doubt you will feel the need to complain. There is a lot to unlock with each class, even without the DLC heading our way in the near future, and level twenty barely scratches the surface.

Enjoying Destiny is reliant more on the player than the game. Play too much and it probably will become tedious; look at the detail and it is incredibly average. But where it delivers, it delivers frequently. For all it's flaws, it continues to remain satisfying.

Destiny is, I concur, the fast food of modern gaming. It's simple to indulge in, it's grossly addictive, it doesn't take long to finish, and some bits you're much better off not trying to examine.

What's not to like?

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