Editor’s Choice: Beck’s Top 10 Games of 2014

Speaking of space-magic, more lore has been filled in with the arrival of new ghost. Yes, not everyone wants to crawl to the internet to discovery the intricate workings of just what makes Destiny tick, but for lore-nerds like me, this is a dream come true. I will gladly take more lore, because for those who don’t know, Destiny has some crazy cool sci-fi/fantasy lore. When is space-magic a bad thing? It’s not. Any tad bit more of lore to leak out will be greedily consumed until the next one arrives. It might seem like a small thing, but all those NPCs aren’t just spotting nonsense, they are referencing things. It’s the same reason every item has a cryptic description. In fact, this might be the best Dungeon weapons time to get to know Destiny. Might as well see how it all came to be while waiting for Destiny 2, right? So, go read that lore. It’s crazy and out-there in the best of ways. Just know it’s heavy on the space-magic — a wizard did come from the moon, after all. If that doesn’t sum it up, I don’t know what does.

Destiny 2 is headed in the right direction. Perhaps it’s too little too late or maybe it could pull a healthy player base back in. For now, Destiny 2 is trying its best and is showing signs of quality of life for its future. Today it’s no surprise when buying a new game to be hit immediately by a patch, because what game makes it out of the door ever without having to go through a few updates and patches once it’s out the gate? Usually a major update will hit games freshly released within the first month followed by the steady stream of content and improvements. All of this is commonplace in the video game world and yet we as the audience still find time to get mad that games aren’t the perfect embodiment of what was envisioned. Developers do have a responsibility to be open with their audience and it does become a let down when certain things promised are nowhere to be seen or the game is more broken than let on. So let the saga of Destiny as it continues through the ages be a lesson, one that we are seeing more and more frequently – Anthem is on the horizon, after all. But it’s our responsibility as players and developers to keep the dialogue going to get the best experience possible from all sides. Good luck out there, Guardian.

The strike displayed just how big of a leap the sequel is over its predecessor. The Inverted Spire is an exciting mission from beginning to end, showing off the design philosophy that will hopefully permeate the entire game. The maps were far more open, allowing us to approach the battles in certain ways. At one point, we had to cross a huge battlefield with Vex and Cabal battling in the craters. While there will be a lot of returning enemies, there will also be plenty of new ones. For example, the Cabal have War Beasts, doglike creatures that aren’t afraid to get in close and maul unsuspecting Guardians. Even the returning enemies have some neat new abilities. The Cabal Phalanx now has the ability to put down a bigger shield for a small amount of time, meaning you’ll have to jump over and walk around if you want to get them.

When Destiny first launched in 2014, it received a mixed reception. There was a consensus among fans and critics that there just wasn’t enough content. With Destiny 2 being a full-blown sequel, how are you approaching content so that it doesn’t end up like its predecessor?

The campaign mission was the «Homecoming» mission from the gameplay reveal. It’s the first mission of Destiny 2 and kicks things into action with a giant explosion. The Cabal’s Red Legion has launched a strike on the Last City in an attempt to steal the Traveler. Homecoming is the perfect opening mission for Destiny 2, illustrating just how much is changing between the new game and the old. There are epic moments, like helping Zavalla hold back waves of Cabal infantry, interactions with NPCs and actual set piece moments taking place.

Finally, we were able to sneak in a match of Countdown, a new multiplayer mode in Destiny 2. The mode is essentially Search & Destroy. One team is tasked with planting a bomb, and the other is tasked with defusing it. If an entire team is eliminated, however, the round ends. The first team to win six rounds is the victor. It’s a neat mode for those who like these types of multiplayer modes. For those who don’t like it, modes like Clash will return. Unlike Destiny, however, all multiplayer modes will only support eight players, down from twelve.

The battlefield then led to the dig site, which shows just how cinematic Bungie intends all missions to be. Giant drills are circling around, and getting smacked by one of them automatically kills a Guardian. You have to navigate across a Cliffside while trying not to get hit by them, and dealing with the Cabal. With so many moving parts, The Inverted Spire is easily more cinematic than anything in the vanilla version of Destiny.

Loot boxes make money. This is still the unfortunately reality of things despite the absolutely massive backlash that hit the likes of EA and Activision six months ago. Despite everything; despite the massive outcry and governmental investigations into this slimey practice, gamers are still buying loot boxes frequently enough to make them worth all the trouble they cause. They’re still in Overwatch, PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds is still developing theirs and now Bungie has unveiled yet another type of loot box to Destiny 2 as their response to the massive outcry against their baffling insistence on walling-off much of the game’s gear behind RNG loot boxes. The developer has even gone on-record to acknowledge fans’ dislike of the loot boxes and promised to explore ways to improve Eververse for players. Yet here they are with another loot box; they either don’t have any idea what the issue is or they think they’re going to make a lot of money from it. With Destiny 2 in such a sorry state, they’ll need to make that money fast.