For what it's worth, I think the 6's and 6.5's are perfectly legitimate and deserved. 1. Speaking for myself, I really wanted to like Destiny, because I wanted an excuse to finally go next-gen. I know I'll end up with a PS4 eventually, but there just hadn't been any games out for next-gen systems that I felt I had to have. But after playing the Destiny beta on my PS3, I was thoroughly underwhelmed, and reluctantly had to conclude that Destiny just wasn't my game at all. So while a lot of people bought into the hype and got the game, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is enjoying it. I've seen a lot of comments from people who pre-ordered the game and are quite disapointed. 2. We should also remember that a 6/10 rating doesn't mean the game is terrible. Giant Bomb uses a five-star scale, and rated it a 3/5. Thing is, when a movie critic gives a movie 3/5 stars, people understand that it's probably still a perfectly enjoyable movie -- but maybe one that doesn't have universal appeal. It's only when we put all reviews on 10- or 100-point scales that a 6/10 begins to sound offensively low, because we tend to associate those numbers with school marks. With how inflated those are these days, we tend to regard anything below an 8/10 as a failure... which just isn't the case with these critic scores. 3. And really, if you look past the bare score and actually read what these critics have to say rather than simply blanch at the score, I don't think you'll find the criticisms out of line. Destiny is a game with solid shooting mechanics and pretty graphics, but the worlds feel sterile, there's a general lack of content (not nearly as "massive" as your typical MMO), the missions are repetitive, and the loot system is really half-baked when compared to games like Borderlands and Diablo -- not because of the infrequency of drops, but because even "legendary" equipment doesn't really change the game much at all. So what I ultimately see, and what a lot of critics have seen, is a generic sci-fi shooter with good shooting mechanics that is half-baked in almost every other aspect. If you're enjoying the game, that's great. I wish I could enjoy it with you. But critics and gamers in general aren't complaining just to complain. It's just that the game genuinely does nothing at all for me, and a lot of people feel the same way.
I haven't played games much at all the last several years (work, having a son, school) so it has been great for every aspect of gaming has been improved in my eyes.
I stopped reading after I read the part where you don't have the game. You not liking it is fine, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion. With that said you saying that the reviews are legitimate and deserved is funny; because you haven't played the full game so you have no idea. Also for every poor critic score or person who doesn't like the game I've spoken to or seen another 10 that are in love with it. Hell even reviewers who are putting out scores now can't say they've played the whole game because raids don't even open until tomorrow.
It just occurred to me, but this game is very similar to Phantasy Star Online. but with large scale world to explore vs corridor dungeons.. I don't think many people played it. I played it on the Dreamcast back in the days.
PSO was awesome. Also as a side note to the post I made above: This is from the co-founder of Ready at Dawn (currently working on The Order: 1886). <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>for the life of me I cannot understand how anyone could rate <a href="https://twitter.com/DestinyTheGame">@DestinyTheGame</a> a 6, I think anything under 8 for such a game is ludicrous.</p>— Andrea Pessino (@AndreaPessino) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndreaPessino/status/510623272296529920">September 13, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/shinobi602">@shinobi602</a> not suggesting it has no faults or that a critic has to love it, but come on... 6? It deserves more just on scope+art </p>— Andrea Pessino (@AndreaPessino) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndreaPessino/status/510626785248419840">September 13, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I was not too high on the beta or alpha but I am having a lot of fun with the actual game. There is a lot more too it than I thought there would be. My only complaint is the lack of online versus modes and 6v6 being the biggest one. I still have some to unlock though.
I realize I haven't played the full release, but I wasn't speaking as a reviewer. My point one was quite separate from the other two points -- I was just saying that I wanted to like it, but couldn't. As to reviewers "not playing the full game" because there are no raids yet... this is pure BS. They can only review what is there, and people want reviews in a reasonable amount of time so that they can use them as a buying guide. What else could they have done? You sound too much like an apologist for a game that was over-hyped. I'll ask again -- do the points made in those more negative reviews actually sound unfair?
It's no less valid of a point than any of the drivel they posted. Have you ever played a mmo before? The whole point is the end game content. A game that gets a 6.5 score is a bad game no matter how you'd like to spin that. When was the last time you bought anything rated 6.5/10? I imagine you don't do that with any frequency. A 6.5 is a D, no matter how much you may dislike it giving a game that is as high quality as Destiny that score is just click bait.
King's Field: The Ancient City is one of my very favorite games ever made (top five, easily). As you can see from the link, it has a 60 on metacritic. Numbers aren't everything. (And again, you say "a 6.5 is a D"... Um, no it isn't. Again, as I took pains to explain previously, these numbers don't necessarily equate to school marks! A 3/5-star movie is not a D, even though on a 100-point scale it's a 60! A lot of critics use 5-point scales specifically to get away from this mentality.) I'm really not here to get in a knock-down, drag-out about what numerical score Destiny deserves, because (1) I don't own it and don't really care about it, and (2) numerical scores are dumb anyway. A number never tells the whole story. Yet ironically, that's all most people ever seem to look at or want. It's what a critic actually says about the game that matters. So I'm rather supremely unimpressed by people who criticize scores who haven't even bothered to read the critics' reasons for those scores. And yes, your point is less valid than the "drivel" these critics have written. Again, they can only review what is there. You can't just rate a game higher because the developer says more content is coming. Critics don't review hypotheticals! And while I'm fully aware that MMOs are all about end-game, from all the reviews I've read, there just isn't much there right now. And you're surprised scores are low? Maybe scores would have been higher if raids were there to play. But they weren't! The point is this: don't start questioning the critics' motives. That's why I responded in the first place at all. It's insulting and counterproductive... no less a stupid thing to do than accuse critics of rating a game too highly because publishers paid them off. What you're doing is seeing a low score, and immediately assuming that the critic is stupid, and/or has an ulterior motive for his/her review. And what I'm trying to tell you is that they don't have ulterior motives, they're just giving their own honest opinions and assessments. Not everybody likes what you like, and not everybody agrees with your opinion. Don't accuse someone of being dishonest and having ulterior motives just because you happen to disagree with them.
I'm not going to read these walls of text you're posting. You can't be serious with this hyperanalytical diatribe. Not everyone likes what I like, but guess what...there's millions of people who are paying $60+ to play what I like. If you don't like that I disagree with people's review scores you're just going to have to continue being salty about it.
OK, I guess you can just continue to call critics who disagree with you dishonest attention-seekers, as long as you realize that when you do so, you're the one who looks like a biased idiot, not them. They're giving reasons for what they say, and your only response is to attack without listening. Pardon me for pointing out that ad hominem attacks don't make for good arguments, or even for civilized conversation. I hope you'll grow up and learn to be less rude in the future. Peace.
Part of the problem is that Bungie tied itself down with this whole "10 year plan". They're not going to tell the whole story now in the first game, and it's going to feel kind of incomplete simply because they have to leave themselves somewhere to go. Now though there are any number of ways the plot can go, including a total mind screw way I would love to see happen, but the current game is going to suffer because the plot is undeveloped.
Yeah, you know, I actually read this interesting article the other day about Destiny's reviews that speaks to the whole "ten-year plan" thing. Here's the crux of it (any bolding is my own): In short, as seclusion keeps protesting, there is lots of other content coming, and that new content and other patched-in changes might greatly affect the score that the game deserves. It's a problem. A lot of people hated Diablo 3 when it was first released, but now two years later, it's a completely new game, and everyone seems to love it. On the one hand, day one and week one reviews aren't going to go away, because many people use them as buyer's guides -- that's really their greatest utility. But critics can only review the game they have, not hypotheticals. On the other hand, as the author notes, some sites (like Polygon) do go back and re-review games if they change significantly, but unsurprisingly, it's hard to be consistent about that. Gaming sites have only so many staff, and they can't spend all of their time re-reviewing old games. If they re-reviewed every game every time they merited re-reviews, they'd never get to new stuff. It seems to me like an unsolvable problem. I guess everyone can just do what Giant Bomb does and basically drop reviews altogether (minus a few really high-profile games) -- just lots of long "quick look" gameplay videos without assigning scores, and just letting the gameplay speak for itself. Of course, then there's a whole other conversation about companies milking consumers for all they're worth by releasing a game for $60 and then making us pay half-again the price of the game to get DLC that probably should have just been in the game to begin with. Le sigh...
The game isn't universally loved and in that sense it has not met the massive expectations that were placed on it leading up to its release, however lots of people are happy and are more than satisfied with it. I find the divide in opinions on a game this massive in scale quite interesting. To each his own I say. I personally don't care for the game and was very disappointed by it. My brother in law on the other hand, who plays pretty much all the same games that I like to play, loves Destiny and has been playing it like a mad man. He enjoys it and keeps trying to sell me on how wonderful it is, but my experience hasn't been the same. I'm good at it, but I just don't enjoy it. I find it repetitive, time consuming, and I don't feel challenged enough by it. It isn't fun or exciting to me, but if you were to ask him, he would tell you the exact opposite. He is constantly texting me about what he unlocked or an event or what he did. Sunday, I swear he must have played for 12 hours straight whereas I can't play it for an hour without getting bored.
There's truly no accounting for taste. I have an identical twin brother, and unsurprisingly we like most of the same games. But every now and again, he'll like a game and I just can't get into it for the life of me, and vice versa. Sometimes there's just no telling why a game will grab one person and not another.
Pre-emptive defense for the coming massacre of "The Order" at the hand of reviewers as it is exposed as just another "cinematic" crap from Hollywood rejects and David Cage fanbois?
People from our IT team cant stop talking about this game and I keep hearing words like "OMG", "X hours straight", "Holy ****", "legendary gun" and etc. It feels like they are playing this game a little too much. In fact one of them is sick at home today. Gotta sleep well at night or its gonna be a long flu season people.
Continued at the link. http://doubleplusgoodgames.com/apologize-open-letter-bungie-gamers-enjoying-destiny/
