I’m not really that big into shooters, especially on consoles. I enjoy them well enough, but I wouldn’t place them in my top three favorite genres.

So when Destiny was announced, I was certainly intrigued, but at the same time, pretty skeptical. I pre-ordered the game mostly because it felt like it was going to be too big of a game to miss, but I staid firmly on the fence about both whether it could live up to the promises, and how interested I’d actually be in it.

After having played in the alpha over the weekend, I can firmly say I’m a believer. I’m on board.

The alpha was fairly small, but felt incredibly polished. The graphics were stunning… the detail on some of the armor and weapons made me excited to go out and see what sorts of gear I could acquire, and the environments repeatedly caused me to stop and stare at my surroundings.

Gameplay was pretty standard stuff… I can only speak to the Warlock I played, but the special abilities added a nice little something extra to the typical running and gunning. It’s still a shooter on a console, so all the typical gripes about analog sticks vs mouse/keyboard still apply, but it was on the better end of the spectrum at least.

Destiny will live and die by its social qualities, and in that regard I had limited experience. Mostly with random pugs and little to no communication, but it was enough to show me how entertaining the game could be if I was running missions with people I was also chatting with.

All said, with this one shot alpha Destiny has moved from a “yeah, I’ll probably play it” to “I can’t wait to play it” on my list. I’m looking forward to the beta next month which will hopefully give us more room to play in, and more of an opportunity to group up with people on our friends lists. I don’t know if I would say yet that Destiny by itself is a reason to buy a next-gen console, but it’s pretty damn close.