DESTINY: From Alpha to Beta

I'm a casual gamer, but definitely pride myself on keeping up with the newest gaming news. While I might not always enjoy the newest and most highly rated games that IGN blesses, I love to keep on with the excitement so if I do dig what the developers are throwing down I don't waste anytime in picking up that controller. Naturally this makes me a big fan of E3 and Sony's Conference in particular. This year, this lead me to signing up for Bungie's alpha test for their new title DESTINY...which blew. me. away!

I don't need to write another review here that echos the consensus of so many fans, but in a nutshell I would describe DESTINY as a cleaner, smoother, prettier, Halo that compliments this next gen console culture. Specifically, the DESTINY Alpha as compared to the Beta was pretty similar. The biggest difference seems to be an expansion of the in-game storytelling in this latest release, including a couple new game modes. Also, the voice of your companion Ghost has been slightly altered in the wake of some criticism in the Alpha over this line. Now in the Beta, the wonderful Peter Dinklage is slightly more digitized sounding...which I got used to very quickly.

Knowing that the Alpha and Beta were fairly similar, including the annoying Level 8 character cap, the biggest difference in experience between the two involved my involvement in The Crucible (which is DESTINY's PVP multiplayer). I've never been a huge fan of CoD and PVP focused gameplay, but something about the connection I felt with my Guardian and immersiveness of the gameplay made me want to take my Warlock into the Crucible to prove something. Now I sound like a rep from Bungie...but it's true!

So enough of that. I plan to followup with a more comprehensive review after release in September, but until then if you haven't been fortunate enough to experience DESTINY firsthand (and you have a PS4 in North America) please grab one of the codes below and redeem here to be ready to jump in for the final leg of the beta test July 23 - 27

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If you successfully redeem a code, please be courteous and post below letting everyone know it's taken. People tend to forget that PSN has a cap on the number of codes you can attempt to redeem in a day...they'll lock your account for a 24hr period...trust me!

Also, I should have 2 Xbox 360 codes to give out once they're released later this week. Let me know below if you're interested in one.

UPDATE: Bungie just sent out access codes to the remaining systems re-opened the Beta early for everyone. Here's my last Xbox 360:

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Now, please watch the latest trailer for the Beta and get excited!