Destiny 2 with Salute Emote (Exclusive to Amazon) (PS4)

I thought i would write exactly what i thought, with 100% Honesty, because this game was hyped up so much, the trailers were good, very good in fact.The intro of the game is fantastic. Absolutely Awesome Intro to a game. I'm not going to ruin the story, but the music paired with the situation, is just incredible, one of the best intro's to any game I've ever played. I must admit, when you get to the "Central Hub" for all the players, i was also impressed with how many people were playing it on day 1!The pace after the intro drops Dramatically, and then it gores back to the same old travelling around doing missions etc. But it's not as grindy as destiny 1. In destiny it was "go to point A, kill Some mobs, go to point B, do the same blah blah" In Destiny 2 you are actually working towards an end goal, restoring power on Saturns Moon, Titan being a prime example. Your objective isn't pointless like the first game. Go to this point, kill this boss, end of mission. Here's a helm for your hard work.The graphics also impressed me. I am a PC gamer through and through, but decided to buy this on console sorely for the community and population (Don't ask). Anyway, everything looks good visibly, and although i'm utter S*** with a controller, it's still relativity smooth.The PVP is also very good, Very similar to the first game. You can quickplay or you can play competitive, if you have £40 to drop on a new controller after you rage and throw it at a wall. Sadly I haven;'t done a strike yet, but I've heard they'e awesome!Now you may have seen i Gave it 4 stars, why not 5? One simple answer. The PVP matchmaking takes FOREVER to find a game. Now this may just be because it as day one, but it literally took me 15 minutes to find and get into a game. I'm sure this will change when the game has been out for slightly longer, and when it does i'll change it to 5 stars. Everything the first game should have been. No Problems as of yet, but will update when/if things change.EDIT:Thank you for all the helpful votes, and taking the time to read through my Review. :)So i thought i would update my review, and there a few things i need to mention.CLANS: The In game Clan System doesn't work at the moment, the only way to manage it currently is on the bungie address, or to download the app. I also find it's hard to communicate within the clan, as not everyone owns the app and that's a bit of a pain. I know there is an in game feature currently in Beta, that will allow players to find others, so you can participate in The weekly Nightfall, and hopefully in the future the raid, but we'll see how that works out.End Game Content: So i'm Light level 261, (Same as ilvl in wow basically, max is 300 i believe) and i got there by grinding the crucible, and strikes, which kinda felt like a chore by the time i got there. Collect Rep coins to get Legendary Engrams from the crucible guy takes maybe 5/6 games of PVP which isn't actually that much, But the RNG seems quite fair, so most of the time you'll get some decent stuff. I find that you're more likely to get exotics/Legendary's from doing strikes, but that could just be luck. I know this is only week one, they are going to be adding content every week, Xur is making a return with those juicy exotic Engrams on week two.Micro transactions: This is possibly the Most disappointing in game addition, but i myself haven't actually bought anything, and i don't plan too. Before i start bi*ching about it, i want to mention that realistically, people do use the service, so automatically, they know they will actually make money from putting in the game. Honestly, people who moan about microtransactions are the people who mostly fall for the trap of spending hundreds of pounds/dollars/euro's etc in the game. putting it bluntly, if you want games to stop containing microtransactions, then stop buying in game currency with IRL money and then they'll stop putting them in the game, Period.

It is great

The first Destiny was flawed, but the potential for something great was there, it had excellent gun play, great visuals, music, art and playing co-op was extremely fun. Everything else about it in many ways was pretty flawed though from the complete lack of meangingful story missions, lore and clans hidden behind apps and a myriad of other issues. The good news overall is that Destiny 2 is definitely a better game than the first in a lot of ways with some of those issues addressed. On the flip side however in some cases they have been replaced with other issues, it feels like a case of one step forward, two steps back.Destiny 2 certainly has a story this time round, and a cohesive one. A group of Cabal known as the Red Legion have attacked the Tower taking both the city from the Guardians and capturing the traveler cutting the light off from the Guardians leaving them all but defeated. Their leader Dominus Ghaul wants to use the Traveler for his own ends and have the light for himself. The story starts off excellent, quite cinematic and somewhat emotional for the first two or three missions, exactly what I wanted, levels crafted just for the campaign with other characters taking part in it. Soon after it all fell to pieces into the same open world fetch quest stuff from the first game. That is one of my problems with it is I feel the campaign should be seperate from the open world grinding loop that Destiny revolves around otherwise it will never create any meaningful impact at all. Not only that but because several missions are just shoehorned into these open world maps nothing ever really feels epic or right on these levels because literally nothing appears to have been designed for them. The cutscenes interspersed between are of good quality with Cayde 6 played by Nathan Fillion really standing out for being both interesting and funny though the scenes between Ghaul and another Cabal are well done too though it's not quite clear who he is, why they are doing it?, revenge? against who? why? Then the entire game ends on a cliff hanger to fuel the sale of DLC I assume but the whole plot is kind of underwhelming and poorly explained, though at least they made the effort this time.I would have really loved for there to be an encyclopedia for all the characters and lore Destiny has so far introduced. They did something similar in ther first game by collecting cards you could only view on their website which was stupid and the developer Bungie's solution to this with people complaining was to simply remove it all together. The fact is Destiny 2 mentions people and enemies from the downloadable content of the first game and plenty of lore and backstory in one off meaningless sentences from scanning objects or as part of the story but there is no way to see what they are on about half of the time. Are they trying to be mysterious by keeping it vague? Or do they not really know what they are doing? I have yet to figure it out.Story, lore and dialogue aside Destiny 2 does fare better. Gameplay wise it's a first person shooter where you constantly fight enemies in mini missions, to get better guns and equipment in a semi RPG fashion. This can be played either solo, co-op or working with random people you meet on the open world maps. It's pretty awful solo so joining one of the many clans or playing with friends is the way to go to get the most out of it. The game handles fantastically, weapons feel great to use from assault rifles to handguns and swords and combat in general feels very satisfying. There is nothing quite so good as fighting an incredibly hard boss or enemy group and working together with your friends or clan to take them down. When Destiny 2 works it really shines.Each player can create their own character from one of three races, human, Awoken (purple human), Exo (cyborg human) none of which have any real background or bearing on the story but I digress. From there you can choose which class to play as, Titan, Warlock, or Hunter, and each class has three subclasses based on elements they can unlock to use/jump between as you will. Of all of this only three of the subclasses, one for each class is new to Destiny 2 with everything else from the first game or downloadable content, even the character creator seems barely changed, I couldn't see any difference at all and just went with importing my characters from Destiny 1. The three new subclasses are all really good though, the Warlocks Dawnblade fires fire swords, The Titan's subclass turns them into Captain America and the Hunter's Arcstrider turns them into a lightning powered Darth Maul pole wielder. The new classes are fun and powerful and the way both they level up as well as how you upgrade their gear has been modified making it a lot simpler and streamlined if less varied, especially the highest equipment class, the exotics.My biggest gripe with the game is how recycled everything feels. The enemies are identical, there is nothing really new, a couple that wield melee weapons from a couple of races and that is about it. The bosses all feel the same, most of them are literally the same, Spider tank? seen it. Giant Hydra? seen it. Giant Vex? seen it. There is literally no originality at all, even the Taken, a new enemy brought in for the Taken Downloadable content from the first game some players may not have seen....are just shadow covered enemies of every race put together with a slightly different atttack, so uninspiring. The missions around the four shared world maps are all just go here and shoot stuff over and over and while they have added in adventure missions along with the patrols they are as forgettable as the main story missions because both the objectives and dialogue for the most part are so boring, and meaningless. Each planet has a character you interact with that gives voice overs for the missions there but they never stand out, never do anything but trade you gear, the only one of any note is Failsafe who at least had personality if nothing else and was a brief sparkle in an otherwise forgettable end game loop of doing these missions over and over for better gear.Speaking of gear you don't get a Sparrow bike until nearly the very end of the game unless you spend real money on a microtransaction random drop item and get one. I can't work out if this is intentional for you to spend money? Or if it's an attempt to pad out the game as the open world maps are really large and designed for using a Sparrow bike to get from point A to B.Presentation wise I must admit overall Destiny 2 looks and sounds great. The visuals and art design of the planets are quite a sight at times with a nice pastel colour scheme and gorgeous sky boxes to look at. Some of the textures aren't always the best but the art design, size of most of the maps, and smooth frame rate more than make up for it in my opinion. The music is also superb, one track in particular Journey, is a real stand out and one I shall add to my ipod for sure. The voice acting is also mostly great with a couple of stand out performances. Only one of the voice actors did I not only not like but hated, sounded like a saturday morning cartoon villian, and that's Asher.To sum up, I'm torn about Destiny 2 as I was the first. I have played the game for a lot of hours and had good fun but I feel it was mainly because the game does have some great firefights and everything is fun co-op with friends. Destiny 2 has made improvements but nowhere near enough, it feels like a recycled half effort to patch the issues of the first game rather than take it as a foundation and make something amazing. The story should have been seperate with unique missions, there should be an encyclopedia to keep track of the characters and lore, the enemies should have felt fresh with unique boss encounters etc etc but for all that I will happily play it if my friends are online and want to, probably for many more hours.I guess if you are a fan of the first Destiny and have friends to play it with it is certainly worth it, I have had my money's worth. If you didn't like the first game or are expecting to play this for the narrative and cinematic aspects then look somewhere else.+ Visuals and art are very good, fantastic skylines.+ Great music and solid voice acting.+ New subclasses are excellent.+ Playing co-op with friends is fun.+ Gunplay and controls are fantastic.+ Has a story that makes sense!....- ......but is extremely dull with few real set pieces or flare after the first couple of missions.- An in game encyclopedia for the lore and characters wouldn't go amiss, too much of everything is vague.- Most of the game feels recycled, identical enemies from Destiny 1, same character creator, only three new subclasses.- Patrols and adventure missions are just uninspiring both in design and dialogue.- Lack of Sparrow until end game seems like an attempt to pad the play time out of the campaign?- can't play it offline.