By Austin Chiavaroli, Staff Writer
The upcoming Sept. 9 release for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4 and PS3, is the hyped game “Destiny.” This game is made by the creators of Halo and Bungie, and the publishers of Call of Duty and Activision.
The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth in a future where the last known remaining colony of humans survives in “The City.” They are threatened by the Fallen and the Hive, which are two of the known alien races in the game. Both races have the goal of conquering all of the solar system and have come close conquering Earth. It is the player’s duty to save “The City” and the rest of the Solar System.
The playable characters in this game are called “Guardians” which can be played as either gender. There are three forms of guardians known as Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks. If the player chooses the class Titan, they are adorned with the heaviest armor and will later earn multiple explosive abilities. The Hunter class is the most agile and wear average armor, which means they have less protection than Titans but are much more mobile. The Hunters have a “Golden Gun,” which is a three shot pistol that instantaneously disintegrates anyone in its line of fire. Warlocks have the least armor of the three, but make up for it with a massive area of affect spells.
The pre-order beta was released on July 17 for both Sony PlayStation systems and on July 22 for Microsoft’s Xbox systems. The beta player count was 4.6 million players over the one week beta, with 88 million games played, and 6.5 million guardians created, with most people testing out the player versus player option.
In “Crucible,” the player versus player mode, also known as PVP, there are four maps, but one beta game type being “Control.” Control is a combination of king of the hill, which is a territorial control game mode, and team death match, which is two teams fighting to the death. Gear was rounded in “Crucible;” however, the iron banner is a competitive PVP game mode where gear matters and is not equalized.
PVE, also known as player versus environment, is where the player fights against computer programs known as NPC’s- non-playable characters. In PVE, there are dungeons, which are group activities that the players are dropped into and fight their way through objectives to survive. There are events as well in PVE, in which anyone in the zone holding the event can attend.
The game is an MMORPG, a genre known more commonly as massive multiplayer online role playing game. This means that servers are not cross platform, so one console is not compatible with others. This makes the communities smaller and wait time for games longer than average MMO’s.
Due to Destiny being created by Bungie, the game is looking like it will be a big success and will bring in new gamers and PC gamers to the console gaming community. People who play first shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty will likely return and love this game.
