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1. Massive, possibly; massively-multiplayer, no
Destiny isn't an MMO. MMO is short for MMOG, which stands for massively-multiplayer online game. But drop into any instance in any world in Destiny, and you'll see no more than a dozen players – usually significantly fewer. That works perfectly for the game's spare and dangerous environments, but massively-multiplayer this ain't.
2. Mind the cap
You can't review it based on a couple of day's play. For me, the game only really gets going when you hit level 20, ditch the notion that the story matters a jot, and get on with hunting down the rare treasure you'll need to reach the true level cap of 30. And by rare, I mean that in the everyday sense, not the in-game sense. You'll need better than "rare" armor, legendary or exotic, that being the case.
3. The story doesn't matter
The story is meaningless – in more ways than one. It's been used as a stick to beat Destiny about its exotically-helmeted head with, but this is a video game. What did you expect? The plots and scripts of mainstream video games are almost universally abysmal.
4. The comparison no one's making
Strike mission bosses do take forever to defeat ... and that's the point. Doing so takes teamwork, patience and care (if not strategy, though that helps). And I'll venture an opinion when I say that that's brilliant. Destiny's been compared to many an MMO and many a shooter, but the most useful comparison of all is when it comes to the Strike missions, think of Monster Hunter Tri.
5. What kind of day has it been?
Ultimately, my favorite thing about Destiny is that, no matter what sort of session you're in the mood for, or how much time you have available, there's always something to do. Last night I had a tired hour to spare, so popped down to Old Russia to gather some spinmetal, then nipped to Venus to harvest spirit bloom – both essential to upgrade various bits of my recently-acquired legendary armor. On my rounds I joined in with a few public events – impromptu battles with tricky NPCs in the game world which all players are free to chip in with. Miracle of miracles I received a rare engram which yielded a legendary weapon. And ding!
Destiny isn't an MMO. MMO is short for MMOG, which stands for massively-multiplayer online game. But drop into any instance in any world in Destiny, and you'll see no more than a dozen players – usually significantly fewer. That works perfectly for the game's spare and dangerous environments, but massively-multiplayer this ain't.
2. Mind the cap
You can't review it based on a couple of day's play. For me, the game only really gets going when you hit level 20, ditch the notion that the story matters a jot, and get on with hunting down the rare treasure you'll need to reach the true level cap of 30. And by rare, I mean that in the everyday sense, not the in-game sense. You'll need better than "rare" armor, legendary or exotic, that being the case.
3. The story doesn't matter
The story is meaningless – in more ways than one. It's been used as a stick to beat Destiny about its exotically-helmeted head with, but this is a video game. What did you expect? The plots and scripts of mainstream video games are almost universally abysmal.
4. The comparison no one's making
Strike mission bosses do take forever to defeat ... and that's the point. Doing so takes teamwork, patience and care (if not strategy, though that helps). And I'll venture an opinion when I say that that's brilliant. Destiny's been compared to many an MMO and many a shooter, but the most useful comparison of all is when it comes to the Strike missions, think of Monster Hunter Tri.
5. What kind of day has it been?
Ultimately, my favorite thing about Destiny is that, no matter what sort of session you're in the mood for, or how much time you have available, there's always something to do. Last night I had a tired hour to spare, so popped down to Old Russia to gather some spinmetal, then nipped to Venus to harvest spirit bloom – both essential to upgrade various bits of my recently-acquired legendary armor. On my rounds I joined in with a few public events – impromptu battles with tricky NPCs in the game world which all players are free to chip in with. Miracle of miracles I received a rare engram which yielded a legendary weapon. And ding!