Recent reviews by Marty Wallace

This game is one of my top 10 of all time. I have completed it dozens of times across different platforms (PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5, etc). The short campaign length and high replayability potential with the 4 different scenarios and multiple difficulty options make it perfect for picking up and doing a run through in a single afternoon sitting, which is great when you're someone that works full time with a family and don't want to commit to 50+ hours when you start a game up. The atmosphere is unmatched and the systems and gameplay are very fun. It also runs very well on the Steam Deck.

It's a good game worth picking up when it's on sale (I got it for under $9). It took me just under 15 hours to complete with 18/20 achievements.

I enjoyed the art style and variety of enemies a lot. The difficulty was just right for me (not trivial but not unforgiving either). The exploration is fun for the most part but could use some quality of life improvements to reduce the amount of time you're just running the full way back and forth between rooms and save points, especially if you want to unlock all the optional stuff such as the sword of light. The items are interesting and unique and the optional quests and unlocks felt worthwhile.

One thing for me that would have been a huge improvement is the different gear actually appearing on your character model.

I really wanted to enjoy Destiny. The gameplay is pretty fun and the co-op experience was put together well, at least relative to other multiplayer games I have played in the past.

Unfortunately, there were a few major issues for me.

1. I have not been more confused about the plot, world, characters or generally what the hell is going on in my 25+ years of playing video games. I understand that this game does not focus on the story but my god the execution they do have is an absolute dumpster fire. I had to spend a couple of hours researching online to realise that the storyline is basically buried behind quest markers I could never find and the game is designed to throw you into the far end so you can dive straight into playing cooperative content with your friends. I can appreciate this approach but the implementation is just terrible and leaves players that are completely fresh to the game/series watching cutscenes of characters they don't know doing things they don't understand or have ANY context for. As a result, the immersion factor was zero and it was impossible to feel like you were part of a world rather than just a dude shooting things to make your numbers bigger on the inventory screen.
2. I was hit with a BROCCOLI error every hour or so, which made the game basically unplayable for more than a few hours. I spent a lot of time online trying various combinations of settings, driver updates, windows updates, using windowed mode etc but no luck. I have a GTX 1080ti.
3. I became aware very quickly that the game was going to become incrementally moving my "power level" by a few points every time I did some content, for an infinite period of time. I understand that this is pretty typical for post-game content in an online game, but the fact that there was no story to get through before I ended up here meant the game just felt like a pure grind from the very beginning where you couldn't set any concrete, achievable goals (like finishing some quest line or unlocking some specific feature or something).
4. Whenever I queued for raid content, I would get paired with players significantly higher level than myself that wanted to blast through ASAP. Often I ended up spending the entire raid just chasing the other player trying to keep up rather than actually getting to shoot or do anything. Luckily the content I played only needs three players which is a pretty achievable amount of friends to recruit but it makes playing on your own a pretty awful experience.
5. Unless I missed or skipped something by mistake, almost none of the in-game systems are properly explained, leaving you to fend for yourself on wikis or Reddit for information on how to use certain functionality and features.

The good stuff:

1. The base game is free. Even if you enjoy the game just for a few dozen hours, that is very good value. The actual production quality of the game is very high (graphics, sound, combat mechanics, etc). It's just a very hollow experience, which may not matter to you.
2. As I mentioned, the gameplay itself (combat, exploration, etc) is good and fun. The variety of weapon types makes combat fun and interesting and clearing rooms of enemies feels enjoyable and rewarding. I could easily see myself investing another few dozen hours if there was an actual storyline to follow along with to make the progression feel more... existent.

I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone that's looking for anything more than a mindless FPS. It pairs well with a few bourbons on a Saturday afternoon with your friends or when you have an hour here or there with literally nothing better to do. For me, story progression and a properly fleshed out world and characters matter a lot, things which are definitely not present here.