Destiny on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3: The Chatty perspective

A lot has been made about Destiny and its big launch this week. There's been some talk about this being a marquee title for the new generation of consoles. With that narrative dominating the media, it's easy to overlook that there are versions of Destiny for the previous generation of consoles, as well.

Members of the media have largely been running copies of the new console versions of Bungie's latest, but the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions should not be overlooked, given how massive their install base remains. With that said, Shacknews turns to our greatest resource for an opinion on these particular iterations of Destiny: the Chatty community.

Halen was among those that purchased Destiny on Xbox 360 and was pleased with what he got. "I was honestly surprised at how good it looked on an almost 10 year old platform," he posted. "The game felt very solid and polished, no stuttering or framerate issues, and things looked pretty detailed. I noticed some things like foliage and such that were obviously lower detailed, but it didn't impact my enjoyment of the game at all. I didn't have much of a frame of reference, as I haven't seen the game on the new generation of consoles, and I didn't watch or read much about it before trying it out (Degenerate talked me into trying it because he is the king of peer pressure). I think it's impressive that they made it look like a very good late-in-the-life-of-a-console game, much in the vein of Shadow of the Colossus, or God of War 2 on PS2."

Poster pokysharpy went the other way and picked up the PlayStation 3 version. "I think it's fine on PS3, he added. "Solid framerate, so far there are always people in the hub, so it isn't deserted. I watched some PS4/PS3 comparison vids and, aside from the lower resolution and some color saturation differences, I don't find anything hideous or game-breaking with it. Load times seem long, but from catching a little bit of livestreaming, they also seem very comparable to PS4's."

Chatty's omnova was the original poster to bring up the previous-gen experience for Bungie. While he's noticing some sub-par visuals, the gameplay experience is proving to match what's available on the next-gen consoles.

"With the exception of the incredibly pixelated shadows, the game runs about as well and looks about as good as Bungie's other games that generation," omnova said. "Some of the lighting and effects don't seem quite as nice as, say, Halo 3's, but in general the graphics are perfectly acceptable. As far as controls go, it feels just like Halo and doesn't really exhibit any symptoms of being a second-tier release in that department. I imagine the PS4/XB1 play a bit more smoothly, but that's to be expected.

"Downloading and installing a relatively large game on the PS3 was time consuming but that's universal to the platform. I did have to download and install a 170MB 'Compatibility Update' from the PSN store, which amusingly processed like a free 'purchase,' upon starting the game up for the first time, but it went smoothly enough. All in all, I think they did a good job with the port, and far better than they could have. If the game had came out five years ago, I don't think there would have been much to complain about on the technical front."

One thing that pokysharpy remained conscious of was the upgrade deal deal announced by Bungie shortly before Destiny's arrival. Those on the fence about the previous-gen versions of Destiny may also want to consider that if they were thinking of holding back.

For more on the overall Destiny experience, be sure to check out our latest Destiny Diaries.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?