When you look at where gaming has been ~ where it first gained its notoriety and public appeal ~ Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. are often the first titles you think of because they pushed the envelope for their time. When you point to the future of gaming, Destiny is the title in that spotlight. But that spotlight can get hot, and sometimes, it can reveal cracks in the armor.

Developed by Bungie, the creators of Halo, Destiny is the first major-event release for the new generation of gaming consoles. It is a first-person shooter, in which you play as a Guardian, protecting the last city on Earth from a force of evil that has taken almost everything away from humans, including all of the planets they had successfully colonized in their solar system. It’s your job as a Guardian to try and reclaim what has been lost and, as the game suggests, “become legend.”

It’s a tall order, but you’re given a fighting chance, thanks to your choice of different types of Guardians to play as and online co-op features. There are three subclasses of Guardians: Titan, Warlock and Hunter. Each type of Guardian has its own individual strengths and skills that speak to its unique characteristics. If you’re a sharpshooter, you might prefer to enlist as a Hunter, for example. There’s a single-player campaign mode, as well as online co-op, and you can assemble your own Fireteam with two other people. The gameplay is immersive, with intense and precise shooting capabilities that will please any fan of first-person shooters, and the worlds you venture to come to life with pristine, next-gen graphics.

But that all-in approach to next-gen gaming is where some of the blemishes of Destiny lie. Destiny is totally dependent on online capability, not just for co-op but, annoyingly, for the single-player campaign, as well. You have to have an Internet connection to experience Destiny and a good one at that. Because being online is the backbone of the game, it also becomes its Achilles heel. You can be storming through battle, but you run the risk of suddenly getting kicked off and losing everything you’ve accomplished if your Internet connection gets disrupted. That online dependency may also be to blame for the brevity of Destiny. It is not a very long game, and much of this is due to its reliance on future expansions, which is a drawback for the paying consumer and becoming all too popular with today’s games.

Bungie’s effort with Destiny is like the humans in the game who got burned for taking a chance and leaving the safe confines of Earth to venture out into the beyond. You to have to take a chance to become legend, and in doing so, you run the risk of having some miscues. While there are parts of Destiny that fall victim to the nuances and trappings of the time, it has bravely forged a new frontier for the future of gaming, one that’s light years away from an eating yellow ball.

For more, visit destinythegame.com.

By Jason Savio