New FPS sequel excites fans, lacks character connection

Destiny 2. The last city on Earth has fallen and you, a Guardian, protector of that city, have failed. Crippled and defeated, you must find a way to overcome humanity’s invaders and reclaim the city.  

This is your mission in the sequel to the hit game Destiny, released by Bungie in 2014. This much-anticipated continuation cuts to the action quickly after a short opening cinematic.

I appreciated that the game did not have any obnoxious long tutorials that I had to sit through to just play the game. While this may seem daunting to new players they need not fear as the controls are simple and easy to pick up.

The campaign starts with the fall of the city and an introduction to the main antagonist of the game, Gaul, the commander of the Red Legion which is an army of hostile aliens called the Cabal. After the fall of the city, you limp away from the city.

The game actually does a decent job of evoking some emotion of loss, something I did not really expect. This was due in no small part to the track which affected the tone of the game greatly.

However, after this initial part of desolation, the plot picks up quickly when you regain your powers. While this is good for gameplay I personally felt that it took away from the loss that you were supposed to feel from the City’s fall.

Overall I would say that this game is a great successor to the original game. It kept many of the components that made it popular and strengthened some of its weaknesses. While not perfect, I felt that it is still a great game. I personally recommend this game to anyone who played the first Destiny or anyone who likes the FPS genre in general. –Matthew Sue

Another downfall of the campaign was that it was hard to develop a close connection to the main character, as there is almost no character development. This is mostly due to the fact that your character never talks. I found that this made it harder for me to get involved in the story.

The game attempts to compensate for this by having a diverse supporting cast made up of the Vanguard, your leaders and mentors throughout this series. Chief among this cast would be Cayde 6 (Nathon Fillon) who serves as the main comic relief throughout the story. This is probably the highlight of the campaign as far as the story goes.

While the campaign contributed a lot to the campaign, one of the biggest parts of the game is multiplayer. There are several modes of social play in the game. There is standard PvP (player vs player) which has kill based objectives. In this game mode, two teams are pitted against each other.

Another game type is strikes. These are cooperative missions that are based on completing a series of objectives. This method encourages teamwork but is loose enough to allow solo play if your teammates are incompetent.

One of the highlights of this game, however, are the raids. This game mode is played with a group of six players, known as a fireteam. This mode is like a longer version of Strikes in that it is objective focused.

Overall I would say that this game is a great successor to the original game. It kept many of the components that made it popular and strengthened some of its weaknesses. While not perfect, I felt that it is still a great game. I personally recommend this game to anyone who played the first Destiny or anyone who likes the FPS (first person shooter) genre in general.