On the 8th September, Activision held a launch event for its heavily marketed, Bungie-developed new IP called Destiny. The only way to not know what Destiny is, would be to have literally been living under a rock (if Activision hasn’t put an advert there either, that is). From the invite, it was confirmed that there would be a couple of celebrities and that the game would be playable, but from a personal viewpoint, not too much was expected, to be honest. Was it to be a pleasant surprise, though? All will be revealed in this Cubed3 special report
The event, which took place in the OXO Tower in London, was more of a party than expected. There was free food and drink, a lot of people to talk to, and the celebrities included musicians Professor Green and Tiny Tempah, footballer Ashley Young, boxer Anthony Joshua and a few others whose names are proving elusive currently… They were mainly there to play the game under some commentary, chat to some specific journalists, and – basically – just promote the game in general.
Around the vicinity there were big TV screens with countdown clocks ticking down towards the game’s launch, and places to play the PlayStation 4 version of the game, which was connected to the other consoles in the building to play with the other attendees.
This was the first time playing Bungie’s extravaganza, since sadly the Beta version was missed out on, so it was all fresh as a daisy. One short part of the story was tackled and there was time to explore the moon base, which is set up sort of like Monster Hunter – going to the town to buy new items for the tougher missions. This is before setting off to a planet (in this case Earth) to complete a mission, which incorporates multiplayer, with others able to come along for the ride.
The missions felt a lot like the Borderlands games, with a definite Halo-like art style. Two guns can be equipped at any one time and it is also possible to have an item called a ‘Ghost’ that does various things, as well as points the player in the right direction if on the verge of getting lost. Different classes of character have different abilities, and the RPG-like levelling-up system means that experience points can be gained to boost these abilities higher, on top of buying suitable weapons.
After playing Activision’s ‘event of the year’ release, Destiny, there wasn’t much to do but socialise and wait for the timer to count down to zero, but there was no real need to stay for that since not much happened beyond that point. However, as far as launch events go, it was intriguing, the game was enjoyable, but getting there as early as 7pm was perhaps a mistake. Hindsight is 20:20, though, as they say.
Destiny is available to buy now on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.
