Review - Call of Duty: WW2

History has forever been a fascinating subject for me: even to this day, it still boggles my mind to think of just how many tales have been passed down through time, people both heroic and horrifying who we still recall hundreds to thousands of years later, and even the stories we know next to nothing about. World War 2 is still a very recent thing, in the grand lifespan of humanity, and its affects are still very well present in our lives today and will most likely stand the test of time beyond our years.

From die-hard fan to nervous parent, "Call of Duty" are three simple words that afflict many different emotions and responses. For me in particular, it's one of fondness. I have had highs and lows with the series, but I have always remained neutral on the new games before I can try them out myself. 

WW2 isn't the best the series has offered, but it certainly did very well at lest.

As a change of pace, I want to expose the similarities the game shares with its predecessors, as almost every gamer has played at least one game in this long-running series. Gameplay is incredibly similar to previous titles and can be picked up within a few minutes, if you're common to gaming. Controls feel weighty, especially with the difference of weaponry, but work very well with different play types. Campaign through zombies works well and I have yet to find any game-breaking glitches.

Speaking of, the campaign is well structured for its story and gameplay, but does bend the reality of the war here and there, which I was honestly a bit disappointed with. There are sections (even specific missions) that directly conflicted with historical moments of the war and seemed directly inspired by other pieces of war media (Considering D-Day, take one guess what movie they parody), but in the grand scheme of the story itself only helped it along, so I was quite conflicted with it. The campaign does very well to try and mix up how they present the story aside from your standard Run-And-Gun strategy of the past. Stealth missions are frequent in the main storyline, as well as an excellently crafted infiltration mission that has you correctly answering questions to bypass security. The plot overall was fairly predictable for the protagonist and the characters around him, but was held up by good and effective acting by the cast, especially in the final mission.

Sound effects are excellent when it comes to the weaponry in game. I wish there were more, with at least half a dozen in each class, but what is there is serviceable and feels excellent to use. Musical score is well done and brings back the good nostalgia from the old World War games of the past.
Although I prefer to not make them too high of a point, the graphics in the game are phenomenal, especially on the Xbox One X. Water effects look downright stunning and the level of detail put into character faces looks realistic. Characters based off their real life actors are uncanny alike. Visuals and backgrounds are also just as beautiful and should be commended.

I try to focus a lot of my time on the Campaign as I believe nothing beats a good story compared to the multiplayer of that game. But considering Call of Duty has built an empire of a series around it, I have to at least mention its highs and lows.

First off, the multiplayer maps present are somewhat disappointing, but at least work well. All favour the one extreme of gameplay types (Long range, short range, corridor). There are key spots where the other factors come into play, but the one trope tends to dominate their own map. Weapons in MP are also underwhelming as Rifles take center stage, especially with the help of the correct class. The game offers five different Divisions from the War with their own unlockable skills, but unless you choose to play Infantry or Mountain, chances are you will not exceed fairly well in the Multiplayer, as those two Divisions have unlocks much more useful in the current maps released.

Standard modes for Multiplayer make a return, with the exception of one new mode in the multiplayer that has the community buzzing: War.

War sees two teams of six fight against each other Ala Verdun style in trench warfare: players must defend or attack specific targets. If the targets are destroyed, the advancing team moves onto the next target while the enemy team retreats. If they fail, it's game over. Specific maps do seem to favour the Defense, especially with the Bridge mission, but otherwise the mode is fairly balanced and a great distraction from your standard KOTH or Team Deathmatch.

Finally, Nazi Zombies makes a return, and this time with a proper story. To spare you the details to let you discover this on your own, the story follows four people on a task to retrieve a specific object from the Nazis that they believe will be used against the allies when their train is attacked and derailed from beast they have never seen. The voice acting from the cast (featuring David Tennant, Udo Kier, Ving Rhames, etc) are incredibly well done and helps progress the story more-so than the zombies and plot at times! I have been quite zombie-d out for some time, but I can appreciate the amount of care that went into this mode.

To finish with the elephant in the room, microtransations have of course made an appearance in this game and have caused a small amount of controversy, but I'm happy to report that at least they aren't Pay-To-Win. Some of the choices behind it (Like 5 mins of Double XP) seem a little off but I have always kept a "To Each Their Own" mentality stance on the subject.
Overall, I at least enjoyed this return to form for the series. Perhaps its my love of history that holds this game up, maybe its how impressed I am at the campaign, but otherwise it has been quite some time since I've enjoyed a Call of Duty game two years in a row. While I hope more multiplayer maps are made free to the public at a later stage (Although I highly doubt it), what is here is well worth a trip or two in all the modes, and I hope this is a theme the people behind COD stick with. 

WW1, the Russian Revolution, Vietnam, maybe even take a page from Battlefield's book and follow the battles of the Allies. I look forward to the next battle.

Call of Duty: WW2 - 7/10

Review Delays

G'day all!

I'm just writing a quick note on here letting you know that reviews are still on the way! With the holidays right around the corner, work and a whole bunch of waves crashing around, I'm finding very little time to write reviews. However, I'm still working hard to get them done asap and share my thoughts on what to buy this holiday season. 

Keep an eye out on Twitter for any in the works, and any updates on streams.

And as always, have fun and game on!

Review - Assassin's Creed Origins

Writing for this series has continuously been a struggle, as it's well known that I'm a fan of this series, and with each review, I do my utmost to look at each addition to this series of games with clear, unadulterated eyes. Assassin's Creed Origins is the game fans have waited for since the series was put on standby two years ago after the release of Syndicate, and gamers have been anticipating its arrival for a while, especially since its setting was officially announced.
Origins takes place in the last few decades of the BC era, following a Medjay most commonly called Bayek of Siwa. After the death of his son at the hands of men known only as the Order of Ancients, Bayek swears revenge for his son and seeks these people out to put his son's soul to rest and discover why his son had to die.

The gameplay is one of the betters in the series, setting itself out with a new combat systems. Enemies no longer wait in turns to die and will attack you at random, or at once, which forces you into much more tactical means of fighting rather than the tried and true "Hidden-Blade-Pwnage" method. Players can use Overcharge abilities with a set of different weapon types (Two blades, spear, heavy weapons, swords of different types etc), each with their own ability to wear down enemy health. Quick and heavy attacks also play center stage alongside bows, which also range (no pun intended) with different stats to your liking. Gone is the ability to fight solely with the Hidden Blade, although it does make an appearance and helps immensely with hidden attacks. Enemies are all different levels and pose a much bigger threat if you travel beyond your region's max level. Fighting from horse/carriage back, flaming weaponry, poison/bleeding effects on weapons and shields, Ubisoft has gone all out in changing the combat in the series, even as far as to reinvent the ship fights! This is all I will say here, as I want you to explore it for yourself! I'll talk about the customisation at a later point.

The story is satisfactory, but does lack in somewhat as you progress. The first hour is just upright confusing (the use of jumpcuts in time and no explanation will confuse you - especially Bayek's reasoning), while the ending tends to have too many climaxes that experiencing so much action feels like the final boss, but isn't. By the time you get there (which is a repeated boss fight), and the final big moment that almost anyone who knows history would see coming, it's almost a let down. BUT the middle, and what will ultimately take up most of your time, is excellent in building the world and the story around you. There are parts here and there that seem rushed or could have been missed, but are still well worth it.
I should at this point mention the modern day story; you are Layla, a contracted Abstergo employee wannabee in hiding, using an Animus you have built yourself. We discover a lot about her background (including that the events of the AC Movie are now Canon to the series), but other than a few hints here and there, it seems what little remained of the original modern day story has been pushed aside. There are a few guesses we can make with its ending, but nothing concrete.

The sound effects are fantastic and the team behind them need to be commemorated, especially in coordination with the graphics. Water effects are one of the best I've seen in modern video games, and the fact that each dive into its depths shows something interesting or new is something that still leaves me wanting more and to go back. Ubisoft has included a Camera mode inside the game and for obvious reasons, as the game (especially on the new Xbox One X) looks incredible. Animations are fluid, mouth syncs are great in game and cutscene and each flows very well.
Musical score is very well done, suiting to the game well, although I do wish there were more moments while roaming that music would play, even Fallout style, just to kill the silence while in the desert. The Ezio Family strings of course hit the nostalgia nerve very well, but I'm glad it didn't play center stage here like it has in the past where it didn't suit.
Voice acting is well done and coordinated effectively. NPCs are a little off here and there, but this boils down mostly to the children in game (Same Voice Syndrome strikes most here) and can be excusable. Abubakar Salim as Bayek was a great choice who works well to develop a much needed torn character; one who is hell bent of saving his son's soul but also kind and gentle and loving, which is quite refreshing to see.

I also want to mention that massive amount of customisation present in the game; from garments to weapons, there is a huge selection of choice to make, and upgrading your equipment allows you to keep your favourite weapons throughout the series of the game, which is rarely seen these days. To address the elephant in the room, yes there are microtransations in the game and the Time Savers do help a fair bit, but honestly it's much empty a few garrisons out of men, loot and all their weapons to get money than it is to use RWC to buy the currency in game (especially the crystals you'll need to upgrade your gear). It's moments like these as to why I mention customisation in a review, as its these moments that really help immerse a player into the game: I was obsessed with upgrading one particular sword because Bayek was attached to it. I hunted down Level 40 killers, I did plenty of side missions, all the while using this sword to upgrade it as far as I could. These are the things that keep players engaged long after the story is finished. The main story is roughly 20-30 hours long, with heaps of things to explore along the way (I haven't had a bad Side Mission yet), with plenty more to explore as you level Bayek slowly but surely.

With open world games, there are plentiful of bugs and issues, and I found quite a lot. I had two crashes, where the game paused for so long I was pushed back to the main menu. The game also froze quite a lot, and traveling across the map cause everything to pause while it loaded. Plenty of floating rocks, unloaded textures and glitches in NPCs are out there in the world, and I did experience one frozen side mission where a NPC failed to load where he needed to be at mission's end (Blood In The Water side mission). These did take me out of the experience and thus needed to be mentioned here.

Chariot racing, War Elephant attacks, Gladiator missions, the mass amount of side missions littered over the map, tracing the stars, finding the hidden tombs, exploring the Pyramids of Giza, traversing across the deserts (while I had the Prince of Egypt soundtrack blaring), Assassin's Creed Origins gives the series a new RPG-eske breath of fresh air into the series and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in it. At around 50 hours have I finally decided to take a break, as my side missions are starting to run thin. From mild to hardcore fan, I do recommend this series without a doubt. 
It does have its bugs and faults: the main story begins to drag by the time you begin to focus your energy on the final Order members, and obvious heartbreaking moments lose their punch when you've known the character for less than two cutscenes, but nevertheless, I enjoyed this game without a doubt and definitely are looking forward to replaying from the beginning soon.

RPG fans rejoice, and welcome to the Brotherhood.

Assassin's Creed Origins - 8/10

Review: South Park The Fractured But Whole

South Park The Stick of Truth was praised for many things, and I personally gave it a favouritable score even despite it being heavily censored in Australia. Stick of Truth was so good that I even contacted the Classification Board about it, something I never thought I'd do for any game, let alone South Park. That was how much I enjoyed the game. (Full review of SOT here)

So since the announcement of Fractured But Whole, I have kept a keen, albeit guarded, outlook on the series. I kept my expectations low so that when the game would eventually come out, I would have a fresh perspective, to which I'm happy to say I had during my time playing.
Fractured But Whole isn't perfect, but it still has enough to improve from its predecessor. 

The storyline begins immediately from the previous game. You play as King Douchebag AKA New Kid, fighting to protect the Stick of Truth when suddenly, Cartman changes the game as something only the Coon and Friends could solve has appeared; cats have started disappearing from South Park, and Scrambles has a $100 reward. To start their Superhero franchise, the boys set off to find Scrambles for the reward (and gathering followers on Coonstergram), as trouble begins to loom over the horizon.
The story, admittedly, isn't as strong as the Stick of Truth. Fractured But Whole spends so much time focusing on Scrambles, only to abandon the plotline as soon as the second begins. Don't get me wrong, the beginning and middle are still incredible, but its ending leaves more to be desired than what we got. A special mention to the writing as it is phenomenal in the game. The jokes and puns are what you'd expect from a South Park episode and does well to once more immerse you in its world. I was particularly captivated with the Tweek/Craig storyline, and any parts discovering more of the New Kid (Although I was sad being unable to choose "Australian" after all the crying Koalas I got last time - I would have even forgiven terrible Australian accents after choosing that).
While having plenty of side missions, a large portion and the most time consuming are primarily fetch quests: collecting Yaoi fanart of Tweek and Craig, distributing mugshots, finding cats, etc. Speaking of, the main missions now include boss fights against key people/characters, and unlocking your Buddy, who aids to unlock different areas (Human Kite flys with your farts, Captain Diabetes destroys obstacles, etc).

Gameplay wise is fantastic; instead of being turnbased, each confrontation is contained in small bockbased combat (very much like standard JRPGs), characters needing to overcome barriers, and areas to damage enemies. Missions can also do the opposite where hurting only the boss is key, or keeping enemies contained to specific zones, or even simply fleeing from the battle. This does well to help break up the combat sections, especially once the City Ninja start tracking you down.
Sound effects are more or less the same, minus the new Superhero abilities, which is where they shine. Musical score also experiences the same sort of issue, but does well to help incorporate in the areas that need it for nostalgia.
Customisation is by far the biggest improvement over the previous game. Players can choose their gender (although not until unlocking your Superhero powers), religion, race, even your own weakness. And the mass amount of clothing options is easily more than the previous game. Players can choose their abilities from a set of classes (Unlocking more as you progress), and their clothing as they progress. Power bonuses all depend on what you find/create, from 9 Balls to god damn Fidget Spinners, each improves you/your team and your stats. Crafting new artifacts/health boosts, mixing your abilities from different classes, taking selfies with everyone you can find in the game, there's so much to do to make your character how you want them to be.

Voice acting is brilliant, and really helps to show what affect having the creators of your game's basis can have overall. NPCs do often have Same Voice Syndrome, but this can be mostly ignored if you don't fart on every NPC like I do.
Graphics have been inproved, especially colouring and lighting in cutscenes, while retaining that familiar SP look and retaining the previous game's style. I didn't experience any game breaking bugs, but glitches did occur here and there, mostly resulting in a duplicating glitch of characters (Ms Cartman being the worst offender) or essentially freezing combat due to two conflicting parties joining in (Cops assaulting the New Kid after starting a fight with Crab People, for example).

Personally speaking, I do still think Stick of Truth is a better game, if only in story alone, but Fractured But Whole simply has so much more meat on its bones than its predecessor. Toilet mini-games, visiting the Canadian Wall, turning back time with your farts, everything clicks so well in this game that despite the flaws, it improves on so many areas from Stick of Truth. It may kill Trey and Matt, but I firmly believe one more, one final game, may finally perfect this series of games involving the New Kid with the powerful farts. Developers, take notes.

Fractured But Whole - 7/10

Changes - Update Post

G'day there everyone!

I know these posts aren't generally what you come here for, especially considering we're now deep into AAA Title releases, but I felt as if this is a necessary addition to highlight some changes to this page and how I review games.

First and foremost: scoring. I have always scored games out of 10, with the occasional .5 thrown in, but was abandoned after I felt it cheapened the scoring of a game. But as I focus more and more on smaller additions in games and what makes them tick, I feel as if my scoring doesn't accurately portray those little pieces that make a game what it is.
So considering the response for review scores, in the upcoming year there may be a few changes to how games will be scored. I'll leave 2017 with the standard and add something new for 2018.

Looking around, I've also added another search bar near the Archive for quicker access to reviews, and have updated the Upcoming Reviews with titles you can expect to be covered within the next few weeks and months. There's also a Subscription button, as I have been informed by a few that they didn't know how/where to do this.

With all said and done, please stick around for upcoming reviews! Shadow Of War will be my first in the upcoming reviews, but I will also be doing a review/Unboxing of an Xbox One X next month!

This update post is already too long, so TLDR: Vote in the poll, new ways to see my old stuff/subscribe to this page, expect lots of reviews in the next few weeks.

Recording videos is also a priority, but I'm working on something special, so keep an eye out for that! I'm hoping to get it done (At least the first!) before the new year. It's almost 2018! My god, we're in the future.

Otherwise, as always, have fun and game on!

Review: Dishonored -Death of the Outsider-

Dishonored has been a series that I have loved since the beginning. The setting and tone mesmerised me, with a dark setting to undetone such a in depth game. My history with reviewing the series has been just as dark; the Definitive Edition, DLCs and the like all scoring low. I specifically didn't review Dishonored 2 for this, and other, reasons. To make up for this, I thought it best to try Death of the Outsider, to see if Arkane and Bethesda could muster a standalone DLC.

The storyline is fairly basic; playing as Meagan Foster (AKA Billie Lurk), you return to Karnaca some months after the events of Dishonored 2. Setting out into the city, she hopes to find her old friend Daud, former Assassin and trainee to Billie (the protagonist to D1's DLC) in order to see him one final time. It's here that Daud gives Billie one final job: kill the Outsider. 
To be frank, while the story does feature heavily on obtaining the necessary components to hunt down the Outsider, the story itself falls somewhat flat. Billie up and runs at the idea, despite saying otherwise in cutscenes, despite not having anything truly against him, yet continues to hunt down all things necessary to enter the void. You must uncover the ancient knife that slit his throat, enter the void at the place of his ritual and find him there, taking place across the city and beyond. Some of the levels are rehashed and rebranded (With sections cut off to avoid level overload) while others are introduced with new gangs and characters in the mix. A special mention to the level design, as the newer levels felt organic and fitted well with the series. 

Sound effects were fairly well done and add a lot of unique sounds (particularly to Billie's new set of abilities - more on that later) and with the musical score, set the tone of the game. Overall it does almost seem like a "New Sunrise" sort of moment, but it is effective nonetheless.
Voice acting was definitely the high part of this game, with each original voice actor for their role returning. Some parts were a little off, with dying characters having no effect in their voices, but otherwise did not detract from the game. 
Lastly, graphics was well set off and added a lot of vibrancy to the game, something we haven't seen in the series for a while. Lots of reds and greens helped the game along in ways I haven't seen take place before. Backdrops were downright beautiful.
Gameplay is fairly typical and taken directly from Dishonored 2, but what gave the game its own voice was Billies abilities: Billie is given a new eye and arm that are directly connected to the Void. While she isn't branded with the Void abilities, her arm and eye give her new abilities. Displace allows her to place a shadowy figured at any place and teleport to it as long as its in sight (Blink but slower). Foresight stops time and allows Billie to see all around her and mark specific people or objects in the world. Semblance (by far the best new addition) allows Billie to look and sound like any unconscious person she attaches a mask to. New weaponry is also available, such as Voltanic Gun, Hook Mine and so on. 

So, what does this all mean overall? To be fully honest, even hours after finishing the game and putting my notes to written form, I'm still unsure how best to put the game. I purposefully stealthed the game because, as previous experience tells, standalone releases of branded games are generally short. Stealthing gave me little over 4 hours of gameplay. If I did a high chaos run, it would be less, and admittedly, there's no point. While Dishonored 2 had Emily and Corvo to have a runthrough of both, here all it takes is one quick save, reload and sit through it all again to unlock both achievements. The replayability is next to nil, even for people addicted to the lore, as there is very little. Your decisions in Dishonored 2 aren't directly mentioned, your actions in Karnaca are completely avoided, and regardless of choice in the end, nothing truly changes. Three difference stills, a bit of dialogue and the game is over.
I had my issues with Dishonored's DLC, but its setting, pacing and tone perfectly matched what was going on in the game. It didn't reuse maps, it didn't release on its own, and they released at a quarter of the price with at least a few more hours of gameplay length. With Death of the Outsider, there's not much keeping me here, unless the die-hard achievement grinders wish to bump their score.

And I guess that's what's holding me back; this game is techincally good, but it lacks in a lot of areas. It shines in the voice acting, it shines in level design and graphics, but the story, the pacing, even the price itself, hold it down. It holds so much more potential, but I only wish it was a little longer, for stealth and hostile players alike.
Perhaps wait for a price drop, or a collection bundle of the entire series.

Death of the Outsider - 6/10

Review: Destiny 2

As I look down onto my Ghost sitting on my desk, I'm reminded of three years ago, with the original release of Destiny; made by the now infamous Bungie, Destiny had been in development since Halo 3: ODST days, and a new IP from the creators of Halo took the world by storm. I was one of these people. I played the Beta, I preordered the Ghost Edition (long live Dinklebot), I stood in line for six hours for the midlight release.
And admittedly, I enjoyed the game. I wasted plenty of hours slogging through the Raids, Strikes and repetitive gameplay to get that sweet, sweet, RNG loot. By the time the DLC came around, I was Destiny-ied out and barely played them, skipping the last all together.

Destiny 2 has been excitedly waited for for some time now, with many younger fans eager to try out the new addition to the series. In truth, I was less excited this time around, but I was curious to see what three years of perfecting Destiny had done to the series.
Now here I sit, writing this review and I've barely mentioned the game. How would you feel if I ended this review now? If over such a long stretch of time I set up this written piece, simply to end it without answering the lingering questions from before and now?
This is what Destiny 2 is.

First and foremost, the biggest positive about the game: the gameplay. Just like the update to the original Destiny, the game plays exactly the same way, right down to controls. Newcomers to FPS may struggle, but any person who has played any other will only falter for the first thirty minutes, as the introduction mission does take about an hour to complete and well establishes itself in what you need to do in order to survive.
To give credit where its due, throughout the game you will be given sections (albeit brief) where the gameplay will rely on your driving skills, navigation, parkour skills, etc. These do help tie together the run and gun gameplay style of the game and help pad the time for otherwise shorter missions.
Musical score is great, but also a little lacking. During the fall of the Tower, and the impending parts later on in the story, we hear a flourish that reminds me a lot of the aforementioned  Halo 3: ODST, and personally speaking, I loved this score. It was beautiful, heart-wrenching and added a lot of character and depth to the story overall. But it lacked that spark that the original Destiny was able to capture: So much of the fighting had these flourishing scores that sparked inspiration. Destiny 2 captures that desperation of the cause well, but fails to deliver the opposite.
Lastly I have to mention the last overly positive aspect, that being graphics. Cutscenes look undeniably beautiful and are much too short for my personal liking. In-game scenes look fairly well, with colours improved somewhat, but that is where the line is drawn. Textures in many parts of the map (especially Io and Jupiter) are clearly unrendered and have been missed, especially tree limbs. Lighting has taken a step back, and black areas without torchlight-via-Ghost are more present than before, leaving players to stumble around black areas with a faded blue screen covering their work. 
Other than this, there hasn't been much improvement that I can notice beyond what we've seen since The Taken King DLC.

This brings me to the nagging bits that have remained behind with me after completion and starting off, I want to mention the Storyline. Before I say anything else I will say this first; the story here is exceedingly better than Destiny 1.0's original story, by far. BUT that does not give it a free pass.
In short, the story of Destiny 2 follows your previous Guardian (if you played any) and starts by showing your actions (the original game and the DLC). As sudden as it begins, the Tower falls, the City and the Traveler follows and you, not cut off from your Light are thrown from a ship and left to die.
Struggling, you escape the city to a zone outside the City's limits and are saved by what little humanity remains outside the borders. From here, you set off to the Traveler's Shard: a piece of the Traveler lost centuries ago in this zone and hope to rekindle your Light to become the beacon you were once more.
The game does well to explain why you must restart your progress all over again and does so easily. While being with the other players does detract from this, the game sets up well that you are truly the only one with the Light left. But therein lies the issue; because the focus is purely on their current predicament, nothing from the previous game is seen, and barely mentioned.
Destiny's 1.0 story and the hidden mystery of The Stranger? Not mentioned.
Mara Sov, The Awoken, and The Reef? Nothing.
The Iron Lords? Nothing.
Eris Morn's set up at the end of the Taken King? Absolutely no payoff.
The House of Wolves and Eris are mentioned a fair amount in the game to be fair, but absolutely nothing comes out of them other than name drops or what appears to be inspirational dialogue for the player. There are a mass amount of extra side missions for you to complete on each world, but these are simply optional. I definitely recommend them as some of them can be more interesting than the main story.
I also have to quickly mention that anyone hoping for more planets will be a little disappointed. Players can travel around Earth in the EDZ, Titan, Io (A new planet made by the Traveler eons ago) and Nessus. The maps on each are massive and with plenty of hidey holes to explore, but it is a clear drop of places to visit in the long run. No returning to The Reef, no returning to the Cosmodrome, or any other of the previously available locations. Everything is brand new.

This is where the issues of the story comes into it. Our entire focus all throughout the game is to free the Traveler, stop the destruction of our sun and kill the Cabal Red Legion Leader, Dominus Ghaul.
Ghaul, like the Red Legion, are set up as these ultra-baddies, the toughest of the tough, a group of Cabal that have never known defeat. But that's where the issue is: we are TOLD they've never known defeat. Yet past the initial loss of the Traveler, they're defeated over and over again by our protagonist, and Ghaul (The final boss fight of the storyline) is by far the easiest boss fight in the game. The Vex AND the Taken (Which both make a return) were much harder than the final boss fight of the entire game!
We are TOLD Ghaul has never known defeat, we are TOLD he's a badarse Cabal who has destroyed worlds, but we are never SHOWN. We see a cracked Mercury being mined for resources, we see his plans to destroy the sun, but otherwise nothing is shown. Why not show him undermine us? Kill our base? Destroy Mars or any of the other planets?
And throughout the game we only see him in cutscenes. We never talk face to face, he doesn't reach out and communicate with you, he never reacts to discover you're still alive, he simply says "I won't let you escape again", despite the fact he let us go. 
*Spoilers for the ending*
And by the time you fight him, you're given a chance at unlimited Light to use your abilities against him. I understand why they're there for him, but why not let us take away his Light from him?
And even after you kill him, he emerges as a giant, Light driven being, proclaiming himself a god, before being killed by the Traveler.
We don't release the Traveler from its cage, we don't affect the electronics around it, we're just told "The Light always finds a way" for an excuse. Imagine if we could have fought him in this massive form. Sure it would be similar to The Taken King Raid, but this would have been forgivable if he was shown as invincible. Imagine Halo Reach Epilogue-like ending: Ghaul is attacking you in this form, massive waves of Cabal are flooding out attacking you, you have no possible way to survive but you fight on, desperately trying to stay alive to free the Traveler. Your Ghost realises there's a way, but we won't like it. He sacrifices himself to free the Traveler and in turn he kills Ghaul.
The Traveler's free, the Cabal retreat, and the Light returns to the galaxy, to everyone and everything but you. But a single call from your Ghost reaches you and you set off from the City to find your Ghost.
Bam. Game over, perfect set up for Destiny 3 or DLC.
But no, we get an all-is-well, the City rebuilt, not a single casualty (despite the cast complaining of it the entire game through) and one small hint at ships in dark space.
*end of spoilers*

The voice acting is fine, the main cast help hold up the game fairly well (including everyone's favourite Fillion, Nathan), and help break the monogamy against the backdrop. The Guardian's few voice lines from before have been completely dropped for mutage, which honestly I'm not too big a fan of, but whatever helps in development. 
Customisation is back in force, but if you're familiar with the previous game, than Destiny 2 shouldn't be too hard. I quickly ran into duplicates on weaponry and clothing (even on names - if I get Project Snow one more time...) which was a shame. Players can also choose the colours for their own pieces of clothing, but they only last so long and are a usage type of thing. Run out of your favourite colour scheme and you're donezo. This isn't even mentioning the smaller issues such as Sparrows and ships customisation not unlocking until you've finished the game, Strikes and Patrols not unlocking until the end as well (I still haven't found how to unlock Raids, although Nightfall makes a return so fingers crossed).
Lastly, I want to mention the microtransations. I've always been a firm believer in never mentioning them as an issue in the games I review as they are optional and totally by choice, but because Destiny has such a massive youth following, I'm putting this here as a warning to parents.
To buy Engrams in the game, you need a currency known as Silver. So far in my travels and my research, it is unavailable to find anywhere outside purchasing some from the in-game screens. Considering that Destiny 2's largest Silver purchase is a third of the cost of the game more than other FPS microtransations (in this case, Overwatch) and offers less chance and no duplicate refund back, is a concern. Parents, I do advise you to watch out in case your children ask for this.

At the end of my ranting, I haven't mentioned the Crucible or any bugs, so I'll have to sum it up here in short: it's your classic FPS. King of the Hill, Team Deathmatch and so on in new maps. Bugs were present in the game, but to their credit, a lot less than I expected with a new release. Some NPCs did glitch in the floor, enemies sometimes transported randomly and killed me (even in the singleplayer moments), but nothing gamebreaking so far. 
What else can I say about Destiny 2 at this point? Honestly, I'm simply just...disappointed. My excitement from Destiny 1 got the better of me, but this time around I went in with low expectations and still ended up disappointed. Other than the few new enemies in game, it's the same mobs, with the same tactics, with the same bosses, with the same weaknesses, with none of the lore that attracted me to the series in the first place. The Darkness wasn't even mentioned this time around as far as I could find. 

In my mind, Destiny 2 is held up by its solid gameplay, voice acting and mechanics, but so much of it lets me down in a way that unless Destiny 3, or its DLC, truly brings about massive change to the series and how its told other than "Here's a mob of enemies, kill them to advance the story", I think I'm done with this series. I don't want to be so harsh against this game, I truly don't. I highly respect Bungie and their team for creating a world that managed to entice me, and my history with gaming is tied closely to theirs, but if I don't voice my disappointments, how can I call myself a reviewer?

A lot of bang, but not enough to stave off the ebbing of disenchantment.

Destiny 2: 5/10