I spent most of Friday night getting some proper hands on time with Destiny, as the launch, for me, had been marred by bad connections and personal internet issues, typical huh!
The first few hours of the game were mainly replaying what I’d already played in the beta, this wasn’t really a bad thing, it just meant that it wasn’t new for me. I also dabbled in some PVP action. So after playing it all night, what did I make of it?
Well, I personally thought it was great fun. Sure it isn’t the best game I’ve ever played and the story leaves something to be desired, but the gameplay is great, and it looks lovely too. I like the RPG style elements, although they aren’t exactly that deep, but that’s ok by me.
One thing that is lacking is communication. The game, being completely online and marketed kind of like an MMO is silent. There is no direct chat, there is no proximity chat, there are no message boards or anything of the sort. The only way to talk with other people is to have them in a party with you. It takes away from the MMO side of it. Yea you can see other players doing their thing whilst you explore areas, but the most you can do is engage in a quick dance, or wave at them. Doing missions in co-op is something that Bungie have bigged up a fair bit, but when they seem to have put these unnecessary barriers in the way which restrict it.
I’ve found a couple of times that when I’ve been doing a mission, someone may be tagging along with me helping out, but then it gets to the ‘spawning restricted’ area, and they will just disappear and we would then effectively carry on, on our own. Even if there was an option or a message to join someone if you are both near the restricted area would be a decent addition, and would help to promote playing together. But as it stands, I’ve done it all solo, so far.
But the lack of communication aside, it’s still a really good game, and the fact that Bungie plan to bring new content along regularly, has me excited to play more.
This weekend was the ‘Bristol Doors Open Day’ weekend, which is essentially where you get the chance to look behind closed doors of many of the cities historical buildings. As this only happens once a year, me and Meg thought we better take advantage of this. So around Saturday lunch time we headed off to check things out.
Our first port of call was Redcliffe Caves, they are a network of mines underneath the area of Redcliffe in Bristol. The caves were mostly used for glass production as the sand that was available within the caves was some of the best sand around for glass making apparently. But there are also stories of pirates using the caves for smuggling amongst many others.
It was pretty fascinating to get a look around them. I managed to get a few photos, that didn’t turn out too bad.
We also took a look around St Mary Redcliffe Church, which is an amazing building dating back to the 12th century! So, super old.
Unfortunately this is all we got to see, as it actually takes a fair amount of time to get around all these places. But if you ever find yourself in Bristol when this is on again, I would seriously recommend checking it out as its really interesting, plus, there are loads more places to go and see all around the area.
Sunday, we were ever so slightly hung over from the previous night of celebrating a friend’s birthday, so we spent the day being pretty lazy. I played a bit more Destiny, naturally, I’ve got passed all the beta stuff, and I’m now in to ‘unchartered territory’ for myself. It does seem to be getting better as it goes on, but maybe that’s just because its bits that I haven’t experienced. Either way, bring on more Destiny I say! With that in mind, I will be streaming a whole evening of Destiny this Friday on Twitch, so if you fancy dropping by, please do!
– Will
Well, I was also excited about playing a new game this weekend. However it wasn’t Destiny, Nope I picked up Infamous First Light DLC for PS4. But I didn’t get to touch it till Sunday.
Friday after work I went over to GSRR’s #1 fan’s new house to have our inaugural Friday gaming session with some friends. It was Mario Kart 8 till about midnight which was incredible fun. I believe I was constantly second, but it’s very rare I’ll finish above Mike at Mario Kart. We took it online for a while too and had some success in 3 races before Nintendo connection dropped. Once we finished MK8 we had a quick blast on WarioWare multiplayer and then NintendoLand. It was a fun, beer filled evening, And I look forward to future Friday Nintendo gaming sessions that we have planned.
Saturday my Wife bought a new car, so we had to be up early to drive to the seller and do the trade. She’s happy now, but won’t be able to drive it officially till it’s taxed and insurance is switched, We’re also waiting on my new car so we can trade our old ones in, so hopefully by next weekend we’ll both be in nice shiny new cars. After that I went to Ashton Gate with a friend to see Bristol City vs Doncaster Rovers. It was a good day out which saw Bristol pick up an easy 3 points in a 3-0. There were some serious calamity’s for 2 of City’s goals which made for great entertainment especially as we were sat right behind the goal to see them. After that my wife and I headed out to our local pub for an evening of drinks with friends, The Morgans Spice was flowing very nicely.
Sunday I finally got to play Infamous First Light, and wow I’m loving it. For £15 this is some really substantial DLC that Sucker Punch have put out. Half of the map of Seattle is available to explore again with Fetch. The DLC itself is a prequel to Second Son, explaining the back story of Fetch and how she came to be in custody of the D.U.P and her struggles. One thing I really enjoyed about Second Son was the amount of things to do other than the main story, like clearing each section out of D.U.P. I was happy to see that in First Light there are also things to keep you side tracked such as Neon graffiti which is fun and other tasks to help you gain points to increase your skill set. if you’re feeling like you’ve had too much time in Seattle then you can switch to an arena mode to test yourself and your skills out against hologram DUP agents, with your scores being uploaded to PSN. It’s another way to earn points to help progress your skill levels.
If all DLC can continue to be as good value as Nintendo and Sony have set so far, then I’ll be more than willing to delve into future DLC they offer.
Anyways that aside, I spent the majority of the day on this, finally stopping at 4pm for Football.
Manchester United’s first game since the transfer window, so I was excited to see the new players get starts. United won 4-0 with first goals for Di Maria and Herrera which I was happy to see. Mata got on the score sheet too, to continue his impressive start to the season. Overall very happy with the performance and things look good. After this I watched NFL redzone for around 3 hours. For UK readers that may not be sure, NFL Redzone if effectively Soccer Saturday but for NFL. It flicks between the games on when they believe it’s important or something will happen. Unfortunately my team the Giants lost again. From a pre-season where they won 5 games, to regular season and they’ve lost 2. Not good.
So yeah a sporty weekend accompanied by beer and some awesome gaming.
– Murr