Spending a couple of hours with the new Sparrow in Destiny last night, pulling tricks and barrel rolls off of every hill I came across, I was reminded why that particular game keeps pulling me back in for more: It's just damn fun to play.
Months after Destiny's launch and only weeks before its first major DLC update drops, I find myself still coming back to Bungie's new shooter from time to time. This is odd, since I tend to have a pretty strict “no FPS'” policy these days. Not the genre's fault, I just don't typically get as much enjoyment out of shooters as I used to.
Again, not blaming the games themselves. Usually they are very tight, well built experiences that cram a lot of excitement into that handful of campaign hours. But when the standard shooter's multiplayer isn't doing much to keep me hooked these days, I find myself sinking a few days into these types of games and then moving on.
So way, after all these weeks, am I still playing Destiny? I admit that the game has its issues, which have been well documented and don't really need repeating. But considering the fact that its single player campaign doesn't really deliver huge thrills and chills, it seems odd that I would keep coming back to play those same missions over and over again.
I suppose the answer could be as simple as the addictive reward loop that was baked into the game. I'm a sucker for that type of hamster wheel, and Destiny does a decent job of giving me new reasons to keep coming back for more. There's also all of those MMO-like random events that, while not shaking things up too much, give me even more excuses to dive back in. And so, from time to time, I find myself running out on patrols, joining randos for Strikes or tackling campaign missions for the dozenth time simply because it's all building toward something. It might be a new gun, a higher level or a shiny new piece of armor. Whatever the carrot on the end of the stick, it's done a good job of making me chase it.
There's also the fact that Destiny doesn't limit the player to your basic shooter fare. I'm constantly dropping into the sprawling maps with no goal whatsoever. I'm not trying to fulfill bounties or earn rewards; I'm just running around aimlessly, shooting aliens and zipping about on my Sparrow. It's a nice way to unwind, I suppose, with absolutely zero pressure placed on achieving, well, anything.
That's why I'm digging the new Sparrow so much. Basically, this bad boy operates a lot like the regular modes of transportation in the game, only now you can tap either L1 or R1 to shift the bike from side to side. It's a nice little maneuver for navigating tight corridors.
The biggest change, though, is the free-flying trick system. Once you're airborne, a simple tap on the D-pad will trigger one of several tricks that, admittedly, seem utterly ridiculous in Destiny's typically somber settings. Even better is the fact that the brake button now causes the Sparrow (Or EV-30 Tumbler, as it's called) to go into free spin mode. Simply tap the button and roll the left stick to spin the machine any direction you like. It takes a while to get the hang of and you'll likely crash gloriously half of the time, but it sure is fun when you get it to land just right, rewarding the player with an extra boost of speed.
I took my Tumbler to Mars, figuring that it's rolling hills would be the most appropriate setting to take the new machine for a spin. While I had a lot of fun, I now know exactly what one of these upcoming expansions needs to contain: A new Tumbler-focused map.
I'm talking a crazy, interconnected series of courses specifically designed for driving around. No enemies, few structures to crash into and loads of massive hills to pull some insane stunts off of. Just like I enjoy running around aimlessly in the game's primary maps, I could see myself losing even more hours to mindlessly gliding my sparrow around, enjoying its new functionality without annoying baddies to ruin the fun.
And, you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie delivers. With the Tumbler, they've shown that they're willing to have fun with Destiny, making me more excited for the game's future than I already was. I've said from the beginning that this game was a fine skeleton just begging for more meat to be bolted onto its bones and, while the Tumbler is an unexpected turn, it's exactly the type of content I've been talking about. It isn't huge and it isn't revolutionary, but it gives me yet another fun reason to keep diving back in for more.
