Tag Archives: sci-fi

Destiny 2: By Gosh, the Price Is Right

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I’ve tried Destiny 2 twice in the past, and both times it failed to impress me much. Nonetheless, not one to turn down a free lunch, I picked it up when they gave it away for free on Battle.Net, but even then I didn’t feel much motivation to actually play.

The warlock Ikora Rey in Destiny 2However, I’ve had a terrible flu the last two weeks, and binging on a simple game seemed like the best way to distract me from my physical misery. At last, Destiny 2’s moment had come.

I started over with a new character to refresh my memory of the game, but I’m still an Awakened warlock, so not much has changed.

I’m not sure exactly how far I am into the game, but the story feels like it’s ramping up toward a conclusion, and I’ve already been at the (pre-DLC) level cap for a while now. Honestly, leveling was so quick I have to wonder why they even bothered including it at all.

When I think of Destiny 2, the first word that comes to mind is “thin.” There’s no depth to anything in this game.

The skill trees are shockingly shallow. There’s not even the illusion of character customization. I’m generally of the opinion these sorts of things should lean towards the stream-lined end of things, but even for me this is too far.

Combat in Destiny 2Plus your active abilities are relatively weak and have very long cooldowns, so there’s not much to the gameplay beyond just shooting things. Ironically I find bosses are usually the easiest thing because you can quickly burst them down with your super weapon or ultimate ability, while hordes of weaker enemies are more dangerous because they’re too spread out to AoE.

Unlike Warframe or Anthem, which are hybrids of RPG and shooter design, Destiny 2 feels more like a pure shooter that had a few minor nods to RPG elements tacked on as an afterthought.

Similarly, the lore and story are equally shallow. None of the characters are at all memorable, save for Failsafe, who is good for the occasional chuckle.

I did have some hope that the villain was developing some nuance, but they just kind of threw that out now that I’m nearer the end.

I also find it weird how the whole story puts such a fine point on you being the only Guardian left with Light, but the game is constantly throwing you into groups with other players who clearly also have their powers. This kind of dissonance is not uncommon in online games, but rarely is it so obvious or extreme.

My character in Destiny 2That said, just because something is mindless doesn’t mean it’s not fun. Considering how underwhelming my first impressions of the game were, I’ve managed to have a pretty good time playing it heavily for the past week.

One thing I will say for Destiny 2: There’s nothing major wrong with it. Everything works, and there’s no significant blunders in its design. Even games I love usually have one or two major flaws, but Destiny 2 manages to maintain an impressively consistent level of quality, even it never really rises above “good enough.”

And there are a handful of things I’d consider worthy of special praise.

For one thing, it’s damn pretty. The graphics are of a very high quality, and there’s a really nice variety to the environments. Some are quite ordinary — forests, space stations — but some of the worlds you visit are quite exotic. Nessus and Io are very alien and absolutely gorgeous.

Also, I will say I really like the crafting system. Destiny 2 is one of those games that just never explains anything, so there’s nothing to let you know it’s even there, but you can craft an at-level version of almost any item you acquire over the life of your character, which is a great way to stick with the guns you like best and fill in any slots where you haven’t gotten an upgrade recently.

This is definitely one of those systems I’d like to see other games steal.

Jupiter's moon of Io in Destiny 2Speaking of items, while the drops are of course painfully rare, the special effects you can get on the top end items can be pretty fun. I found a submachine that starts spraying chain lightning and refunding its ammo whenever I take electricity damage. While somewhat situational, it’s nonetheless very strong and incredibly fun.

Finally, I will admit that the mission with the Almighty was pretty badass, if only for the impressive set pieces.

On the whole my time with Destiny 2 has been a decent ride, though I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay full price, and I’m not sure I’d spring for DLC.

For now, I might as well finish the story at least.

Of City of Heroes, Livestreams, and Singing

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This past Wednesday night, nearly the entire Massively Overpowered staff gathered together to play City of Heroes on the Homecoming rogue servers whilst being livestreamed by our own MJ Guthrie. I’ve been meaning to give CoH a try — having never played back in the day — for a while, and it seemed like a good team-building exercise, so I opted to swallow my stage fright and join in.

The Massively Overpowered staff in City of HeroesI rolled a blaster, mainly because Bree told me it wasn’t a good choice for a newbie. I focused on pistols as my main power set and went with a Victorian-inspired outfit — I was thinking Helen Magnus.

It was a fun evening. I only died once. It wasn’t a good way to learn about the game, though, as we mostly just zerged through things.

To that end, I’ve now made a villain alt to play solo. She’s an Elf, because of course she is. I went brute as my archetype, initially with savage melee and regeneration as my power sets. However, I didn’t like the aesthetics of savage, so I used the ability to import and export costumes to quickly reroll with psionic powers instead, which seem to fit a bit better.

I’m still very early in the game, so my impressions are very basic, but so far I’m enjoying it. I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll sink a lot of time into in the long term, but I see the appeal.

I tell you, that character creator could consume my life. I never thought I’d say this, but it might have too many options. It’s overwhelming. Each character took me at least an hour to create because I just got lost in all the options.

My Elfy brute in City of HeroesWith the wealth of costume and build options, I can see why so many CoH refugees ended up in The Secret World. In a cosmic irony, we may now find ourselves in a world where TSW refugees flee to CoH.

I am impressed with how incredibly well the graphics have held up. They’re clearly not state of the art, but this is still a very nice-looking game, in a cartoony sort of way. I especially like how moody the villain starting area is. I think I heard something about the Homecoming team tweaking the graphics, so that might have something to do with it.

The combat is also better than I expected. I’d heard a lot of people say it was very slow and old school, but it’s actually not that bad. It’s very much “whack-a-mole with cooldowns,” as I tend to call these things, but there’s very little downtime in my rotations, and the lack of auto-attack is welcome. It’s a long way from great, but it’s tolerable.

On the downside, so far there doesn’t seem to be much of a story, and you all know how important that is to me. If anything kills my interest in CoH, it will likely be that.

So it’s early days, but at least for now, I see more City of Heroes in my future. If nothing else we’ll probably be doing more streams over at MOP. Surprisingly I had almost no nerves at all. I guess being surrounded by familiar people (and not reading Twitch chat) helps.

My steampunk blaster in City of HeroesTechnically, this wasn’t my first time being on a livestream. I was on a number of Moiren’s TSW streams back in the day. I just wasn’t on voice chat then.

Speaking of Moiren, she’s been trying to hit world first level 200 in Twitch Sings. Now, I’ll admit I don’t really follow Twitch Sings, so I don’t really know what that means, but I’ve never known her to be unrealistic in her goals, so I don’t think she’d be trying if there wasn’t a decent chance she’d succeed. Maybe head on over to her channel to cheer her on as she pushes on to 200.