Destiny 2

Whey, here’s a review I never thought I would write. It’s taken me two years (just over a year since the DLC game out) but I finally managed to finish Destiny 2, and I tell you what, it’s a hollow experience from start to finish which is a real shame for the following reasons.

Firstly, I’ll start by saying that I never even planned to play this game after finishing the first one. Getting that overblown co-op experience done was enough relief to last me a lifetime. However, a friend of mine asked me to play with him and some others so liking the sound of a ready-made two thirds of a raid team, I looked at the achievement list and got into it. The problem still persists from the last game though where not everyone will stick with it for the time it takes to get to end game content and real life gets in the way and therefore not everyone can play at the same time. When it becomes a ballache organising to play a game, it stops being fun.

Bungie have gone to a lot of effort to create a world with lore and backstory and a lot of this feels wasted as the single player campaign is short lived and the missions are often repetitive. It just feels like there is something missing throughout a lot of it.

In terms of gameplay, it’s a good, reliable and fair shooter but again it’s really bland. On top of this when the game came out, getting to higher levels was a daily repetitive grind and guess what, that’s not fun either.

The other thing that’s galled me through the whole thing was the constant claims of completely changing the game and to make this worse, the public seemed to lap it up as well.  A news article would come out stating the game had been overhauled and felt fresher and this was coupled with people saying things like, ‘you should start playing again, it’s a whole new game.’ Guess what, it’s not. It’s still not now, two years and two large DLCs after release. I just don’t get it. It’s either blind fandom or people just appreciate minute changes to gun balancing a hell of a lot more than they should.

I’m never going to play Fortnite but I can mention this here. What on earth is the concept of seasons?? When I finished the game, it was coming towards the end of season 8… what does this even mean? Why is it relevant? It shouldn’t be, it makes no sense it terms of non-competitive computer games.

Achievements – 1,240 Points – 23 Achievements

Considering the length of time and bullshit it takes to get through it, it’s a very short list. With some of the game changes that have happened since its release, some of these have been made easier. For example, there are 3 achievements for unlocking sub classes with the three different character types. After I spent actual time unlocking these achievements, the latest update made them unlock instantly by starting new characters. This was annoying but not as annoying as one of the other ones.

There was an achievement for playing Trials of the Nine, a competitive game type that’s only available for a few days a week over the weekend. After trying this for ages with loads of different people, I eventually won it when the opponents disconnected but what’s really galling is that they discontinued the game type and never replaced it. Instead they made the achievement unlockable by just talking to some character that shows up at the weekends.

The rest of the non-DLC is just standard faire for playing the game with the exception of doing a Nightfall strike which you need to build a team for because apparently, they are too hard for standard matchmaking – which is total BS.

Then there are the achievements for doing the raid, first on normal then on Prestige. The second one is more bullshit because you used to be able to unlock the Prestige by doing a Prestige nightfall however, they blocked this behind the DLC when it came out and then changed the criteria so it was just the raid, meaning I had to find a team to do the same raid twice. Again, it’s the same rubbish as the last game, an overly complex series of stuff that you have to get 5 other competent people to do with you. And everyone is an ass who won’t play with you unless you have x or y weapon and ‘must be good.’ Honestly, the player base is the worst thing about this game.

Downloadable Content

Then came the Forsaken DLC and with it another 10 achievements. 4 of these are easy and come with just playing the game. A fifth requires you to complete a collection of equipment which is also easy but grindy as it requires repeating a load of the same stuff.

There’s another raid which is harder and more complex with more obnoxious dickheads with stupid criteria for playing with them. There’s another one for doing a new Nightfall and for collecting exotic weapons and armour pieces – 10 of them to be precise.

The main work of this one though, is to get the Triumph Seal and there are many ways to get this one. All of them take time and some of them involve a lot of luck such as Destinations, Gambit and Crucible.

After initially deciding to try for the Destinations Seal, I got fed up with having to rely on others to do the same shit over and over again. After a bit of research, it transpired that the easiest one to get solo is the Lore Seal. Most of this involved walking around the world collecting stuff but there are a few that required groups. There are some collectibles in 3-man dungeons and in the raid so I had to do the new raid twice… again.

The biggest time sync though was having to play the Blind Well over and over again every week for 11 specific weeks to complete another Lore group. This was supposed to be the end of it but I couldn’t bring myself to play the obscene amounts of gambit required to the final piece of lore and unlock the final achievement. 330 hours later.

Destiny 2 was a long completion but in all honesty, I would say 50% of it was fun. It’s just finding people to play with who aren’t obnoxious dickheads that’s the biggest problem with it and all of the scheduling required to actually have fun, which defeats the point of fun in the first place.