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I'm not your boss anyway the episode
titled pretty much says it all destiny
is the law and order of video games
because while destiny may only rarely
achieve moments of greatness it is
always consistently good enough if
you're worn out after a long day destiny
requires very little brain power from
you but it isn't so brainless that you
feel embarrassed for playing it it
offers just enough variety within the
bounds of a tried and true theme that it
manages to not feel stale while still
remaining always comfortable and easy to
slide into and now a year after launch
there's so much content and sure a lot
of that content may feel like reruns but
if you're just having a lousy week and
you just really need to lose yourself in
something harmless you can binge on it
forever and I don't mean for any of that
to sound like a bad thing because it's
not well sure I wish destiny was better
there are so many places where you can
see the clear promise of brilliance that
the game completely misses but in the
end destiny is going to continue
succeeding for the very same reasons
that Law & Order has they're both
comfortable and they're always an easy
go-to option some days you don't want to
search for something new or you're just
too tired or too busy to invest a brain
power into finding something truly
exceptional to play but with destiny you
know exactly what you're getting and
while it may never truly inspire you
it'll rarely let you down the weird
thing about destiny is how it's a
continuously evolving expanding game but
all of that evolution doesn't feel like
an attempt to hone the game for
greatness so much as an effort to
achieve across the board goodness to
offer an ever-expanding number of ways
to play that are all a solid b-plus
granted it's taken Bungie quite a while
to get the game there I don't mind
paying the amount I have for this game
in the last year after all I would have
paid more
than that for a year of world of
warcraft and to their credit the destiny
team has added more in a year than Wow
an early does that said I do kind of
mind having paid such a large amount for
what really felt like a beta there are
clear design issues that should have
been caught years before the game ever
released that still haven't been fixed a
year after launch which is a bit absurd
for a game of this size and budget but
I'm getting off track the point I was
trying to make is that the revisions to
this game seem to be aiming at achieving
consistent goodness across a broad array
of marginally different activities
rather than trying to achieve greatness
in one or trying to create radical new
ways to play there is a reason for that
though and it's that destiny needs to
not only appeal to a broad audience but
it also has to suit whatever mood you're
in
it's PvP doesn't have to be as good as
Call of Duty or counter-strike and it's
PvE doesn't have to have the narrative
depth of a Bioshock but it does have to
be the shooter that you turn to when you
don't want to think about what to play
no matter what mood you're in because
you just really want a comfort game
right now
and it also needs to be the game that
you can share with all of your friends
sure your tf2 playing buddy might prefer
a slightly more honed PvP experience and
your Rainbow six friend may want a more
robust set of options for PvE but
they'll both forego that because
Destiny's the one game you can all enjoy
together
what's more it's a game that promises
that the time you put into it will be of
use for years to come Call of Duty may
reset your progress every annual release
and single-player games like doom are
just done at the end of the campaign but
all that time you spend just killing
some time and destiny comes with a
built-in sense of investment sure you
could have been doing other things but
at least those couple of hours you
killed grinding bounties are still going
to be with you two years from now so it
doesn't really feel totally like lost
time add this all up and it all points
right - what Bungie is trying to achieve
they aren't building the greatest game
ever they are setting out to provide the
comfort option for a medium and a genre
that doesn't have one and that's not a
bad goal now there are some elements of
humane design that I think that they
could be better about but there really
is some value to having a game that you
know is always there and is easy to hop
into and doesn't punish you too much if
you have to take a month off I mean for
me there have been plenty of times in my
life where I've only got a half hour to
play something but by the time I found
what I want to play there's no time left
destiny solves that what's more it
solves it in the most difficult context
is multiplayer there have been so many
times where I've tried to get a group of
friends to play something together
online and we'd spend more time debating
what game to play than actually getting
to play the game itself or we'll just
kind of bounce from game to game not
getting a fully satisfying experience in
any of them because we're not sticking
around long enough to focus and do that
rewarding hardcore dive as a group but
now in destiny so long as your group
doesn't actively dislike shooters you've
got something that you can all vague ly
agree on and enjoy and by tying PvE
rewards to PvP and PvP rewards to PvE
destiny also makes it easier for those
who only enjoy one or the other to
grudgingly go along with the group and
play whatever most people want to play
after all PvP may be your thing but if
you join your friends on that PvE raid
you'll not only get to help them out but
you might get that gun that you've been
wanting for your PvP games but as much
of a strength as Destiny's ease and
comfort are there might be a danger in
there too this game is really easy to
binge on and while it does support and
even shines in the endgame raid play for
many players this game is going to
foster a slightly more casual approach
where they quickly consume the easy
content and then put it down that means
Bungie is probably going to have to keep
creating content at the rate they have
been a large section of their players
are just going to tear through the core
content of an expansion in a weekend but
because of all of the design decisions
that discourage casual players from ever
joining the hardcore endgame like not
offering proper tools for finding a raid
group or making so many of the systems
so opaque Bungie is going to have to
perpetually turn out more episodes for
players to consume personally I think
we've needed a good comfort food game
and while I would love for destiny to be
more I'm okay with it being just that in
fact only after playing it recently did
I realize how glaring the absence of
such a long-term comfort food option is
in games I'll tell you this if this game
does not last the 10 years they promised
it won't be because they failed to
achieve greatness in any one of the
thousands of tiny variations on play
they're attempting to deliver it'll be
because they couldn't manage to give us
enough of it to consume see you next
week
Oh