In between all the turkeys and tinsel and family get-togethers, it is hard for a girl to find the time to pick up a controller. But hey, who doesn’t love the holidays and the joy this time of year brings. And fear not, lads and lassies, a true gamer will always make the time to push that button no matter how hectic one’s schedule may become.

Of course, I picked up the DLC that dropped December 9th for Destiny ~ The Dark Below. This addition to the game definitely raises the bar and offers some new objectives for players that may have been feeling like things were getting a little stale. Especially those of us who have been spinning it since drop date. The addition of Eris and her missions give us some deeper perspective on the very vague storyline. The bounties she hands out make me think though that she may be a jilted lover of Crota and is having Guardians exact her revenge on him and the Hive. She definitely has it out for them specifically.

Along with the new missions that Eris provides, players will find new and more powerful weaponry and armor from vendors on tower. These items will be needed because the Blades of Crota have invaded and they are much more formidable enemies than previously seen in the game.

I am enjoying the DLC for the most part and only have two negative things to say about it:

1. The new portion of the game feels like it should have been part of the original $60 game. Story wise, I feel no real connection to any of the game characters, not even the one I play. Bungie basically shipped us the game and said play it with no explanation or a very vague one, as to how or why we got here and how things became they way they are.  I am told that you can learn more about the backgrounds of the races and enemies in the game by going online and reading the grimoire cards collected during gameplay. But truly, I barely can find time to play, much less spend hours on bungie.net reading what I could be learning through storyline. I feel that the best games touch a nerve and create a emotional bond with the gamer. Destiny lacks this. Too, the stronger items now available seem as though they should have been in play from the start. I understand that the main objective of development houses is to keep their game in your console for as long as possible and DLC helps to achieve that. I find sandbagging unacceptable though.I have absolutely no proof that is what happened here. This is just an opinion. Maybe it’s just me but I do wonder if The Dark Below was ever part of the original storyboard.

2. I ran into a major problem doing a daily story which just happened to be a DLC mission. At some point during this , a very nice legendary fusion rifle, which was given to me by Eris, called Murmur and does both Arc and Solar damage, disappeared from my backpack. No, I did not break it down. It just vanished. Looking at the forums, I am not the only unfortunate soul this has happened to. Also during this same session, Eris presented me with a Vanguard Mentor Missive and instructed me to take it to Xander 99-40, the Bounty Tracker. This missive does not work. Xander has an exclamation mark over his head, indicating we need to talk, but when I try to nothing happens, the missive does not pop up and Xander stays silent. I do hope that Bungie will address and fix these issues quickly.

Other than that I enjoy the game and so do my friends. I hope that we continue to.

In the past week I have also tried Game of Thrones, available on the dashboard. It is an arcade game and plays as such but could be enjoyable for fans of the television series. I like it so far myself even though the first episode seemed a little short the storyline is breath-taking.

Until next time…….Peace