Tisha McClemens

Convinced yet, Guardian? Ready to come back to the fold instead of drinking your woes away locked in a dark dingy Tower bar? Sure, you might see Cayde-6 roll on through, but does he really have anything interesting to say yet? He’s just waiting for the action he has no idea is on the way. The Cabal have been a long time coming and what better way to kick off Destiny 2 then an all-out assault on the place Guardians call home? Get it while it’s hot Guardian, the Tower won’t be around for much longer and all that hard work you’ve put in over the years (or ignored), well either keep at it or kiss it good bye. See you in space, Guardian.Casual players are the single largest audience in gaming; there’s no getting around it. This is the audience that every major publisher wants to appeal to; the one group that every development studio hopes will latch onto their game. After all, capturing the attention of the casual or mainstream audience usually means massive success and wondrous profit. So it’s understandable that they, publishers especially, would have a vested interest in making their games more accessible and appealing to that audience. Making that appeal often means simplification. The simpler the game is, the more accessible it is, the more mainstream appeal it can have. While there’s nothing innately wrong with making one’s game more accessible to the wider gaming audience, doing so always comes at a cost. Just as a game cannot be both simple and complex, neither can it simultaneously serve its niche and successfully appeal to the mainstream audience. Therefore compromises must be made, usually ones that rob the game of what made it special in the first place.The story campaign has more missions and cinematics than you’ve ever seen in a Destiny game. The player experience has more variety, more types of activities, and more ways for you to enjoy the experience by yourself, or with other players. It is, in terms of the action you’ll enjoy, a more diverse experience than any Bungie game ever.There is one final note to touch on. Destiny 2 has made the same mistake as its predecessor. Introducing a new expansion has now locked out many Guardians from participating in some of the easier end-game content, and if those Guardians don’t pay up, too bad. It perfectly sums up the open arms of the Destiny franchise, while only having room to hold so many. Much like the Infinite Forest, Destiny 2 looks to be in a constant state of flux and can’t quite figure out the right simulation.The first piece of DLC for Destiny 2 dropped this week and Guardians have taken to The Curse of Osiris like Mercury takes to…OK, I don’t have a good example. What can be said for The Curse of Osiris is that it isn’t making waves and isn’t what Destiny 2 was missing to bring it back from the woes that it has been going through. Then again, isn’t Destiny always going through woes? If anything, Curse of Osiris is proving to be more of the same , while coming across as a bit watered down. I asked for three cubes bartender, not a glass full of ice with my whiskey. Caydee-6 would not be pleased, although he might not care either. For those Guardians that do care, though, it’s proving frustrating, and for anyone who might want to jump back in, Curse of Osiris doesn’t sell itself well.With 2018 in full swing, a solid first quarter down and plenty of games to keep anyone happy, Destiny 2 is likely not on the mind. Bungie has been straightening Destiny 2 out, though, and it finds itself on almost the exact same path that its predecessor took. This isn’t a bad path, but it leaves a a bland taste in the mouth. It’s medicine that can be swallowed with maybe some slight discomfort from past experiences. Destiny 2 will continue to course correct, and those improvements do help the game, but do they help it enough? That’s up for the player to decide, because making things work that should have been working all along isn’t a reason to come back.Dead Space 3’s compromises were a bit more subtle , but they still resulted in a not-so-minor departure for the series. Where the first two games were horror games first and shooters second, Dead Space 3 was the opposite. It traded careful resource management and situational weapons for resource crafting and all-purpose creations. Rather than a tense experience that required its players to think on the fly, players got an occasionally startling but overall leisurely romp through an undead ice planet. Once players acquired enough resources to craft a gun with both long and short range firing modes, any semblance of genuine scares and vulnerability went right out the airlock. Supposedly, Isaac isn’t even alone for most of the game thanks to his partner, Carver, appearing out of the ether during every other cutscene. Just like with Fallout 4 and Destiny 2, Dead Space 3 represented a shift in genre for the sake of more mainstream appeal. The semblance of the game its fans loved was still there, but that’s all it was: Arc Subclass Changes a semblance. The traits that made it unique, that attracted a fanbase in the first place, those were either severely watered down or cut out entirely in the name of attracting more casual players.