We remember our favorite experiences throughout Destiny‘s Alpha test, detailing our impressions on the skills, missions, weapons and more.
As someone who poured quite a bit of time into Destiny‘s Alpha test, I can honestly say that Bungie has hit the mark with incredible accuracy.*The Alpha was meant to be a preview, a bite-sized look at what Destiny has to offer when it ships this September–but in actuality this First Look Alpha was*more than just a glance: it opened our eyes to the majesty of Bungie’s new franchise.
Join us as we venture into the*remnants of a shattered Earth to fight the shadows of our past. To conquer these Fallen, we’ll need to be brave–but that comes easy to Guardians.
Reminder: This preview is focused on the Alpha version of Destiny, and it’s important to remember that these game mechanics can (and probably will) change over the next few months. The content written below doesn’t reflect on the final version of Destiny.
The Journey Begins
The Destiny Alpha featured featured the three different classes that will ship with the final version: the heavily armored Titan, the swift and agile Hunter, and the arcane-infused Warlock. Players were allowed to customize the race (Exo, Human or Awoken) and gender of each class, all while customizing their facial features, hairstyles, eye-color and more.
After I crafted my Exo Titan, I was sent into the frosty wastelands of Russia, one of the many zones across Earth that have been rendered N0-Man’s Land. Right away I encountered Fallen, which serve as one of the enemy factions in the game, and engaged in my first firefight.
The FPS mechanics are incredible in Destiny. Bungie has crafted a game that takes all the best elements from Call of Duty and Borderlands to create something extremely entertaining from start to finish. To discuss how firefights work, we must first highlight our Guardian’s Heads Up Display, or HUD.
The HUD is decidedly very Halo-esque, featuring a replenishing Shield bar that serves as your main health. How fast your shield falls is dependent upon your Armor rating as well as your overall Defense, which is tallied up by your gear.
The real magic of your HUD is the radar, which in all honesty is the best radar I’ve ever seen in a video game. The radar is separated into quadrants with outlying sectors for the express purpose of telling you the proximity of enemies–farther enemies are on the outer edges, whereas near enemies are represented smack-dab in the middle of the circle.
Now that we’ve covered the HUD, let’s talk about the basics of battle. Every Guardian has a jet-pack like lift function that can be used by holding X. Every class has a different lift–Hunters do a double jump, Titans do a powered jump, and Warlocks have a floaty, awkward lift that can hurt more than it helps.
Not only can we lift to advantageously avoid enemy fire, but Guardians can also do a slide maneuver when running. This is extremely useful and can often by the difference between life and death when things get too hot.
Using strafing, sliding and lifting in tandem give players a huge advantage over even the most powerful of Fallen Ultra Captains or Spider Tanks–but even still we’re not invincible. Players will need to use cover quite often to reload or regen their shields, and this plays as a huge part of the game.
Another*major asset players are given is their classes superpower. Each Guardian is infused with the power of Light by the Traveler, and taps this immense power to deliver a devastating attack.
The Titan’s ability is called Fists of Havoc, which is best-used on a clump of baddies. The Titan leaps in the air and slams his fists down, sending a Light-infused shockwave that annihilates enemies on the spot.
Since Destiny is first and foremost an FPS, headshots make all the difference in the world. Headshotting a foe deals critical damage and often decimates them with a one-shot kill.
Enemy AI is pretty impressive at first; baddies will often run behind cover and juke out of your fire in evasive maneuvers. There are two main factions to take on in the alpha: the Fallen, which are the more orderly and disciplined group, and the Hive, which are animalistic and more feral.
Each faction has its own different grade of commanders and higher ups, all of which have some specific abilities and weapons. Interestingly enough the Hive and the Fallen hate each other as much as they do Guardians, and often you’ll see them exchanging heated plasma–taking advantage of this is sometimes necessary for survival.
After headshotting a group of Fallen Vandals, I jumped on the back of my Sparrow and sped off to my mission destination. The Sparrow is another amazingly fun addition that allows players to get from Point A to Point B with speed, and the best part about the Sparrows is that they look, sound and even maneuver like a speeder bike straight out of Star Wars.
My journey across Old Russia proved to me that Bungie has become a master of open-world environments. The sheer level of detail expressed in these breathtaking expanses and vistas literally blew me away, and many times I’ve simply watched as the moon drifts upward, shrouded in the eerie blue-green shades of the aurora borealis.
After slaying the dreaded Fallen Wizard Eir Spawn, I decided to visit the Tower, which is the last safe bastion-city on Earth and is the home of the Traveler. The Tower is the main social hub where players can interact with one another, decrypt their found gear, put items in their vaults and stock up on new artillery.
#gallery-21 margin: auto; #gallery-21 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-21 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-21 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
Game Modes: Crucible,*Free Roam, Story and The Devil’s Lair
The Alpha featured three different modes: a one-off Story mission or Free Roam across Russia, the Devil’s Lair which is a sort of co-operative scripted Firefight match, and the PvP Control match featured in the Crucible. I reached the level 8 cap quite fast, but in all honesty there was hardly a dull moment thanks to the expansive region.
My favorite mode was the Devil’s Lair. I’ve always liked the idea of joining up with other heroic allies to take down devastatingly tough foes, and in this respect Bungie didn’t disappoint.
The mode featured two different bosses–The Spider Tank and Sepkis Prime, both of which have a huge amount of health.
These boss battles were epic in nature and were pretty tough on the Legendary difficulty. The Tank, for example, often took around 20-30 minutes to kill (until we learned to shoot its legs first), with Sepkis taking around 10 or so minutes. All the while we were swarmed with Fallen and trying like mad to survive, blasting the weak points of the bosses and tossing grenades.
Free Roam was a journey you set at your own pace, and allowed you to pretty much go anywhere. I myself found many locations where enemies hadn’t yet been scripted into the game, thus causing them to have a ?? level count and an immortal health bar.
This mode was also the best way to really capture the MMO feel of the game, as you could join up with players on-the-fly and start up a new fireteam to dispatch enemies.
There were also a huge amount of missions that netted you Glimmer (the in-game currency) and EXP, all while taking in the huge open-world splendor of Mother Russia.
Free Roam also gave way to randomly timed Public Events, which were huge global missions that players seamlessly join to take down enemies. The events ranged from simple waves of baddies to huge onslaughts with Spider Tanks and purple shielder orbs. These events were epic in scale and were tons of fun, especially for max-leveled Guardians.
#gallery-22 margin: auto; #gallery-22 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-22 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-22 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
RPG Mechanics: Weapons, Items, Skills and Stats
Spoiler Warning: If you didn’t play the Alpha and want to keep some mechanics a surprise, consider moving on. In this section*we go into detail on the unique gun-based mechanics featured in Destiny.
Destiny‘s Alpha gave a helping of content as far as weapons and RPG mechanics go. We were privy to some of the most innovative features that (hopefully) will be available in the final release, all of which underline classic RPG sentiments.
Let’s begin with the massive array of weaponry. Every gun in Destiny can has a set of stats as well as a grade. Most of the time the general damage output and stats are determined upon the grade: an Uncommon weapon will almost always be better than a common one. Uncommon weapons are denoted by a green name, and must be decrypted by the Cryptographer in the Tower before they can be equipped.
Every Guardian can equip up to three different guns–a Primary, Heavy and Special. Primary weapons are your Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles and Hand Cannon revolvers. Heavy weapons include Shotguns and Fusion Rifles, whereas Special firearms are your ultra-powerful Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers.
Each type of weapon takes different ammo drops–white for primary, green for heavy and purple for special–that are dropped by fallen enemies.
The Alpha showed*four*different grades of item: common (white), uncommon (green), rare (blue) and legendary (purple). Due to the level cap we could pretty much only wear common and uncommon gear.
The real innovation in the gear*system is that Uncommon and up weapons and armor each had their own randomized skill trees associated with that item. The more you used the item, the better it got, and players could equip different augmentations–like scopes for Scout Rifles–to wreak more havoc.
Furthermore Uncommon armor–chestplates, helmets, gauntlets and boots–added extra stat boosts for Guardians like Strength, Discipline and Intellect.
These boosted different things for each character–for example, Strength for my Titan affected the cool-down for my melee attack, whereas Discipline affected the cool-down of my Fists of Havoc superpower.
Not only does armor have random stat bonuses and mini-skill trees, but they also can have random effects that boost reload times for certain weapons. As the Scout Rifle was my favorite gun, I chose pieces of armor that made reloads for these accurate DMR guns faster.
Armor also tallies up Defense, which reduces damage taken by enemies. Equipping armor pieces with higher defense boosts your overall DEF rating and makes your Guardian more effective. It’s important to balance utility vs. survivability, though, so sometimes the highest armor isn’t always the best.
Lumped in with the class-based stats of Armor, Recovery and Agility, these added bonuses and gear-based boosts provided a nice advantage in firefights.
The RPG mechanics are clearly evident early on, as each class has its own distinct strengths and weaknesses along with varying skill trees and abilities. The Titan starts with higher Armor than a Hunter, for example, but the Hunter has more Agility. The Warlock has terrible Armor and Agility, but his Recovery is stellar. Each of these stats can be augmented with unlocked abilities in the skill tree.
Every class of Guardian has its own unique skill tree with passives and other unlockables suited for their combat roles. Rather than the skill-point allocation system, Destiny skills basically unlock whenever a player gets enough EXP to level up. While I’m not 100% sure on the dynamics, it appears that they unlock automatically based on EXP progression and then can be activated via the tree.
#gallery-23 margin: auto; #gallery-23 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-23 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-23 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ 
Conclusion
The First Look Alpha was an incredible experience that gave players a look into the depth and sci-fi mastery of Destiny. Bungie’s new social MMOFPS IP has blown away my personal expectations, providing a unique mix of sci-fi shoot-em-up with MMORPG dynamics in an amazingly detailed world.
Our four-day stint in Bungie’s digital playground was filled to the brim with chaotic Fallen-slaying action, culminating in a huge helping of co-operative Strike missions and team-based Crucible control. While we maxed out our levels pretty fast and found a huge smattering of gear we couldn’t wear, the alpha test was an uncannily fun playthrough that kept wowing us with something new each time.
While we will likely see a ton of changes thanks to player feedback from the alpha, thousands of gamers are undoubtedly pumped for upcoming Beta (which begins July 17th). Bungie has affirmed that the alpha features less than 10% of the content offered in the final release, so it’s fair to assume that a wealth of sci-fi splendor is in store for us come September.
The alpha is proof that Bungie still is very much on their game and remembers their FPS roots. Battle was so fluid and dynamic, with no lag or loading or awkward glitches (not that I encountered, anyway). The slide and lift mechanics offer a whole new dimension to FPS action, giving players the tools they need to tackle near-immortal bosses with tactical strategy and teamwork.
Overall the experience was something that I personally will remember fondly, but in a month’s time we’ll be right back in the shattered universe to guard it against the Fallen and the Hive. Be strong, my friends–and more importantly, be brave.
#gallery-24 margin: auto; #gallery-24 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-24 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-24 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
Read More: http://ift.tt/1smV3BX
As someone who poured quite a bit of time into Destiny‘s Alpha test, I can honestly say that Bungie has hit the mark with incredible accuracy.*The Alpha was meant to be a preview, a bite-sized look at what Destiny has to offer when it ships this September–but in actuality this First Look Alpha was*more than just a glance: it opened our eyes to the majesty of Bungie’s new franchise.
Join us as we venture into the*remnants of a shattered Earth to fight the shadows of our past. To conquer these Fallen, we’ll need to be brave–but that comes easy to Guardians.
Reminder: This preview is focused on the Alpha version of Destiny, and it’s important to remember that these game mechanics can (and probably will) change over the next few months. The content written below doesn’t reflect on the final version of Destiny.
The Journey Begins
The Destiny Alpha featured featured the three different classes that will ship with the final version: the heavily armored Titan, the swift and agile Hunter, and the arcane-infused Warlock. Players were allowed to customize the race (Exo, Human or Awoken) and gender of each class, all while customizing their facial features, hairstyles, eye-color and more.
After I crafted my Exo Titan, I was sent into the frosty wastelands of Russia, one of the many zones across Earth that have been rendered N0-Man’s Land. Right away I encountered Fallen, which serve as one of the enemy factions in the game, and engaged in my first firefight.
The FPS mechanics are incredible in Destiny. Bungie has crafted a game that takes all the best elements from Call of Duty and Borderlands to create something extremely entertaining from start to finish. To discuss how firefights work, we must first highlight our Guardian’s Heads Up Display, or HUD.
The HUD is decidedly very Halo-esque, featuring a replenishing Shield bar that serves as your main health. How fast your shield falls is dependent upon your Armor rating as well as your overall Defense, which is tallied up by your gear.
The real magic of your HUD is the radar, which in all honesty is the best radar I’ve ever seen in a video game. The radar is separated into quadrants with outlying sectors for the express purpose of telling you the proximity of enemies–farther enemies are on the outer edges, whereas near enemies are represented smack-dab in the middle of the circle.
Now that we’ve covered the HUD, let’s talk about the basics of battle. Every Guardian has a jet-pack like lift function that can be used by holding X. Every class has a different lift–Hunters do a double jump, Titans do a powered jump, and Warlocks have a floaty, awkward lift that can hurt more than it helps.
Not only can we lift to advantageously avoid enemy fire, but Guardians can also do a slide maneuver when running. This is extremely useful and can often by the difference between life and death when things get too hot.
Using strafing, sliding and lifting in tandem give players a huge advantage over even the most powerful of Fallen Ultra Captains or Spider Tanks–but even still we’re not invincible. Players will need to use cover quite often to reload or regen their shields, and this plays as a huge part of the game.
Another*major asset players are given is their classes superpower. Each Guardian is infused with the power of Light by the Traveler, and taps this immense power to deliver a devastating attack.
The Titan’s ability is called Fists of Havoc, which is best-used on a clump of baddies. The Titan leaps in the air and slams his fists down, sending a Light-infused shockwave that annihilates enemies on the spot.
Since Destiny is first and foremost an FPS, headshots make all the difference in the world. Headshotting a foe deals critical damage and often decimates them with a one-shot kill.
Enemy AI is pretty impressive at first; baddies will often run behind cover and juke out of your fire in evasive maneuvers. There are two main factions to take on in the alpha: the Fallen, which are the more orderly and disciplined group, and the Hive, which are animalistic and more feral.
Each faction has its own different grade of commanders and higher ups, all of which have some specific abilities and weapons. Interestingly enough the Hive and the Fallen hate each other as much as they do Guardians, and often you’ll see them exchanging heated plasma–taking advantage of this is sometimes necessary for survival.
After headshotting a group of Fallen Vandals, I jumped on the back of my Sparrow and sped off to my mission destination. The Sparrow is another amazingly fun addition that allows players to get from Point A to Point B with speed, and the best part about the Sparrows is that they look, sound and even maneuver like a speeder bike straight out of Star Wars.
My journey across Old Russia proved to me that Bungie has become a master of open-world environments. The sheer level of detail expressed in these breathtaking expanses and vistas literally blew me away, and many times I’ve simply watched as the moon drifts upward, shrouded in the eerie blue-green shades of the aurora borealis.
After slaying the dreaded Fallen Wizard Eir Spawn, I decided to visit the Tower, which is the last safe bastion-city on Earth and is the home of the Traveler. The Tower is the main social hub where players can interact with one another, decrypt their found gear, put items in their vaults and stock up on new artillery.
#gallery-21 margin: auto; #gallery-21 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-21 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-21 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
Game Modes: Crucible,*Free Roam, Story and The Devil’s Lair
The Alpha featured three different modes: a one-off Story mission or Free Roam across Russia, the Devil’s Lair which is a sort of co-operative scripted Firefight match, and the PvP Control match featured in the Crucible. I reached the level 8 cap quite fast, but in all honesty there was hardly a dull moment thanks to the expansive region.
My favorite mode was the Devil’s Lair. I’ve always liked the idea of joining up with other heroic allies to take down devastatingly tough foes, and in this respect Bungie didn’t disappoint.
The mode featured two different bosses–The Spider Tank and Sepkis Prime, both of which have a huge amount of health.
These boss battles were epic in nature and were pretty tough on the Legendary difficulty. The Tank, for example, often took around 20-30 minutes to kill (until we learned to shoot its legs first), with Sepkis taking around 10 or so minutes. All the while we were swarmed with Fallen and trying like mad to survive, blasting the weak points of the bosses and tossing grenades.
Free Roam was a journey you set at your own pace, and allowed you to pretty much go anywhere. I myself found many locations where enemies hadn’t yet been scripted into the game, thus causing them to have a ?? level count and an immortal health bar.
This mode was also the best way to really capture the MMO feel of the game, as you could join up with players on-the-fly and start up a new fireteam to dispatch enemies.
There were also a huge amount of missions that netted you Glimmer (the in-game currency) and EXP, all while taking in the huge open-world splendor of Mother Russia.
Free Roam also gave way to randomly timed Public Events, which were huge global missions that players seamlessly join to take down enemies. The events ranged from simple waves of baddies to huge onslaughts with Spider Tanks and purple shielder orbs. These events were epic in scale and were tons of fun, especially for max-leveled Guardians.
#gallery-22 margin: auto; #gallery-22 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-22 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-22 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
RPG Mechanics: Weapons, Items, Skills and Stats
Spoiler Warning: If you didn’t play the Alpha and want to keep some mechanics a surprise, consider moving on. In this section*we go into detail on the unique gun-based mechanics featured in Destiny.
Destiny‘s Alpha gave a helping of content as far as weapons and RPG mechanics go. We were privy to some of the most innovative features that (hopefully) will be available in the final release, all of which underline classic RPG sentiments.
Let’s begin with the massive array of weaponry. Every gun in Destiny can has a set of stats as well as a grade. Most of the time the general damage output and stats are determined upon the grade: an Uncommon weapon will almost always be better than a common one. Uncommon weapons are denoted by a green name, and must be decrypted by the Cryptographer in the Tower before they can be equipped.
Every Guardian can equip up to three different guns–a Primary, Heavy and Special. Primary weapons are your Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles and Hand Cannon revolvers. Heavy weapons include Shotguns and Fusion Rifles, whereas Special firearms are your ultra-powerful Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers.
Each type of weapon takes different ammo drops–white for primary, green for heavy and purple for special–that are dropped by fallen enemies.
The Alpha showed*four*different grades of item: common (white), uncommon (green), rare (blue) and legendary (purple). Due to the level cap we could pretty much only wear common and uncommon gear.
The real innovation in the gear*system is that Uncommon and up weapons and armor each had their own randomized skill trees associated with that item. The more you used the item, the better it got, and players could equip different augmentations–like scopes for Scout Rifles–to wreak more havoc.
Furthermore Uncommon armor–chestplates, helmets, gauntlets and boots–added extra stat boosts for Guardians like Strength, Discipline and Intellect.
These boosted different things for each character–for example, Strength for my Titan affected the cool-down for my melee attack, whereas Discipline affected the cool-down of my Fists of Havoc superpower.
Not only does armor have random stat bonuses and mini-skill trees, but they also can have random effects that boost reload times for certain weapons. As the Scout Rifle was my favorite gun, I chose pieces of armor that made reloads for these accurate DMR guns faster.
Armor also tallies up Defense, which reduces damage taken by enemies. Equipping armor pieces with higher defense boosts your overall DEF rating and makes your Guardian more effective. It’s important to balance utility vs. survivability, though, so sometimes the highest armor isn’t always the best.
Lumped in with the class-based stats of Armor, Recovery and Agility, these added bonuses and gear-based boosts provided a nice advantage in firefights.
The RPG mechanics are clearly evident early on, as each class has its own distinct strengths and weaknesses along with varying skill trees and abilities. The Titan starts with higher Armor than a Hunter, for example, but the Hunter has more Agility. The Warlock has terrible Armor and Agility, but his Recovery is stellar. Each of these stats can be augmented with unlocked abilities in the skill tree.
Every class of Guardian has its own unique skill tree with passives and other unlockables suited for their combat roles. Rather than the skill-point allocation system, Destiny skills basically unlock whenever a player gets enough EXP to level up. While I’m not 100% sure on the dynamics, it appears that they unlock automatically based on EXP progression and then can be activated via the tree.
#gallery-23 margin: auto; #gallery-23 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-23 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-23 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
Conclusion
The First Look Alpha was an incredible experience that gave players a look into the depth and sci-fi mastery of Destiny. Bungie’s new social MMOFPS IP has blown away my personal expectations, providing a unique mix of sci-fi shoot-em-up with MMORPG dynamics in an amazingly detailed world.
Our four-day stint in Bungie’s digital playground was filled to the brim with chaotic Fallen-slaying action, culminating in a huge helping of co-operative Strike missions and team-based Crucible control. While we maxed out our levels pretty fast and found a huge smattering of gear we couldn’t wear, the alpha test was an uncannily fun playthrough that kept wowing us with something new each time.
While we will likely see a ton of changes thanks to player feedback from the alpha, thousands of gamers are undoubtedly pumped for upcoming Beta (which begins July 17th). Bungie has affirmed that the alpha features less than 10% of the content offered in the final release, so it’s fair to assume that a wealth of sci-fi splendor is in store for us come September.
The alpha is proof that Bungie still is very much on their game and remembers their FPS roots. Battle was so fluid and dynamic, with no lag or loading or awkward glitches (not that I encountered, anyway). The slide and lift mechanics offer a whole new dimension to FPS action, giving players the tools they need to tackle near-immortal bosses with tactical strategy and teamwork.
Overall the experience was something that I personally will remember fondly, but in a month’s time we’ll be right back in the shattered universe to guard it against the Fallen and the Hive. Be strong, my friends–and more importantly, be brave.
#gallery-24 margin: auto; #gallery-24 .gallery-item float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; #gallery-24 img border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; #gallery-24 .gallery-caption margin-left: 0; /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
Read More: http://ift.tt/1smV3BX
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