The Top 10 Games of Christmas 2014

09. Destiny

ESRB Rating: T (for Teens)

Price: Xbox 360 & PS3 $49.99 / X1 & PS4 $59.99

Developed by Bungie and published internationally by Activision (and by Sony in Japan), the game has been created for all of the current consoles - which means there are versions for Xbox 360, Xbox 1, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

Destiny has been widely flogged as the online first-person shooter video game whose focus is that of a romp through a dystopian and mythic science fiction setting. It is that, but it is also more than that...

It is a class-based traditional action-adventure shooter that shares elements of the MMO and the classic single-player environment but is not, strictly speaking, limited by the usual limitations of both. That turns out to be a very important distinction once the player is good and hooked - and the player gets good and hooked right away.

Our first exposure to Destiny happened over successive E3 presentations, and with each new year more of the character of the game became apparent.

The game is set in the 28th century, during an era that we can only decribe as a post-apocalyptic dystopian future in which life is very very cheap.

The era follows what was otherwise a prosperous period of space exploration during uncommonly peaceful times on old Earth. Due to exceptional advances in technology, what must have been pure self-enlightenment on the part of the other half of the world and a reigning in of the killer instinct for the more commercial free-trade and capitalistic powers, a new and seemingly enduring Golden Age set in.

Of course you cannot have good without bad - and the bad was coming in full force as the Earth began to experience the impact of the consequences of its outward expansion. Oh, it is not what you think - you see instead of humanity finding and going to war with some unknown alien species, what actually happened was that the human colonies simply began to go dark.

No accurate explanation arrived, just the silence of sn event that acme to be known as 'the Collapse'

The earth and its humans went from a celebrated Golden Age in which humaity largely ruled all that it surveyed to the rapid decline and very near extinction of mankind!

Among those that survived the silence and the local disaster that was the earth were special people -and a force that is known as 'the Traveler.'

This white and spherical celestial body called the Traveler was present for centuries, and while its actions in shaping the destiny of mankind as it enabled it to first reach for the stars, and later on, when it was threatened by the consequence sof that over-reach, to evolve special powers that resulted in the creation of a unique band called the Guardians.

As the Traveler hovers above the last safe and populated human city on the planet, the Guardians work to ensure that that city does not fall, protecting it from some known but mostly unknown enemies who hae arrived from elsewhere.

Thanks to the Traveler these gifted humans have evolved unknown powers - call it magid, mankind does - though it also calls it 'The Light.' Without those powers - without The Light - humanity would have gone extinct - there is little doubt about that!

Where does that leave us? Why it leaves us on the cusp of a major reality-altering event in which you must do your part to save the world. Oh, and the human race.. That is some pretty powerful stuff there!

What Destiny offers across all console platforms is a fusion of magic and technology, a very solid story, and an immense challenge to be the hero - to work out the solution - to solve the puzzles - and to once and for all defeat an enemy more frightening in its silence than it is when ir roars!

Destiny makes our list because when the game gets out of its own way - and it does it more often than not - it is certainly one of the most entertaining titles to arrive in a very long time. It is certainly a worthy play and a game to be excited by should it happen to be revealed under the Christmas Tree when wrapping paper is torn!