Post Release Reviews of Anthem are Still Mixed

I think my main issue with Anthem is that it doesn't really seem like a Bioware game. It's not what I want from them and not what they're good at making (similar to why Andromeda turned out the way it did since it wasn't the main Bioware studio making it). So, EA will probably kill Bioware soon and that will be that.

Yeah they should stick to RPGs and fantasy type settings. Leave the Mecha stuff to Japan when you do Mecha you have to do it right maybe Destiny has captured it the best with armor sets. I don't think anyone has done Mecha good really except for Firefall and maybe Halo.
 
Improved loot would be good. Some flashiness too, I want to see someone and be like "lucky bastard!" when I see then using a certain weapon or maybe even armor skin etc.
 
That's actually a terrible mentality to have. Just because something worked on a previous title does not automatically validate it for the future. If we base everything off history you start getting into a drain spiral where everything becomes sameness. This doesn't even touch that they are not even the same game. For all we know there is a technical limitation where each client has to load its own world all at once to accomplish their vision.

Anthem has its issues sure.. but if you listen to all the crap the youtube generation seems to spew all games should be UE4, launch with 10 years worth of content, be bigger than the last title in every possible way while keeping every single feature they liked(and none they didn't), and worst of all they really seem to want everything "new" every single time. If ONE aspect of the game looks remotely like another title it's suddenly a cheap money grabbing copycat. There is no middle ground. Just nuclear war level hate or fanboi love affairs.

Seriously wtf ever happened to mediocre games that were just fun for stupid reasons? Did we forget 90% of the 90-2000s game catalogue that fell squarely in this category?

I'm not paying 60 dollars for mediocre games when other companies are releasing games that now beat AAA in quality and features. I play Anthem. I'm level 30 and max gear score on 3 classes. (I play because I have friends that play it)

The game is garbage due to the insane number of missing features, badly implemented features, audio server lag, audio loss events, spawn rubberbanding, mission progress lockout, lack of end game, gear gating, lack of ingame market items, (hell, the two vendors sell the SAME STUFF, and are 10ft away from each other), the children models have adult sized heads and faces, some class mechanics are very poorly thought out, loot is poorly thought out, there's NO ingame information on what certain modifiers do, the plot is massively bad and full of holes, bad audio editing for certain missions, no personal living space as promised, terrible quick match matching, bad loot farming of boss missions, three minute load times on console, bad console menu designs, and I still have more to go.

So I don't agree with you about your "remember the old days" attitude. The game is shit plain and simple. It shouldn't have been released in the current state. Give it another six months and we might have a game that has all the items finally worked. The game was just not made in a quality way. It is Diablo + Warframe + Destiny without actually being better than any of them in the areas that they are similar. There are no "technical" limitations when you look at those other games compared to Anthem. It's lazy programming, or programming that they never fixed and now are hanging them with future code.

Now, I would be remiss to not agree with you to a degree. You are somewhat accurate, but your target being anthem as the example is wrong. It's obvious you haven't played the game because you would have experienced all the issues I have elaborated and had a frustrating experience because of it. That or you only play console games and this doesn't bother you. The game IS a console port through and through. If all you play is console, then you may enjoy the game. If you play PC, you already know of all the other games that do these things RIGHT that there's no excuse why a AAA game is being outclassed by smaller developers.
 
I'm not paying 60 dollars for mediocre games when other companies are releasing games that now beat AAA in quality and features. I play Anthem. I'm level 30 and max gear score on 3 classes. (I play because I have friends that play it)

The game is garbage due to the insane number of missing features, badly implemented features, audio server lag, audio loss events, spawn rubberbanding, mission progress lockout, lack of end game, gear gating, lack of ingame market items, (hell, the two vendors sell the SAME STUFF, and are 10ft away from each other), the children models have adult sized heads and faces, some class mechanics are very poorly thought out, loot is poorly thought out, there's NO ingame information on what certain modifiers do, the plot is massively bad and full of holes, bad audio editing for certain missions, no personal living space as promised, terrible quick match matching, bad loot farming of boss missions, three minute load times on console, bad console menu designs, and I still have more to go.

So I don't agree with you about your "remember the old days" attitude. The game is shit plain and simple. It shouldn't have been released in the current state. Give it another six months and we might have a game that has all the items finally worked. The game was just not made in a quality way. It is Diablo + Warframe + Destiny without actually being better than any of them in the areas that they are similar. There are no "technical" limitations when you look at those other games compared to Anthem. It's lazy programming, or programming that they never fixed and now are hanging them with future code.

Now, I would be remiss to not agree with you to a degree. You are somewhat accurate, but your target being anthem as the example is wrong. It's obvious you haven't played the game because you would have experienced all the issues I have elaborated and had a frustrating experience because of it. That or you only play console games and this doesn't bother you. The game IS a console port through and through. If all you play is console, then you may enjoy the game. If you play PC, you already know of all the other games that do these things RIGHT that there's no excuse why a AAA game is being outclassed by smaller developers.

All the issues you have faced on console also exist on PC. Totally agree that it's a console port, it's best played with a game controller on PC. Works flawlessly. I couldn't even imagine playing it on KB/M it's not geared that way. Too many damn buttons/functions to work fluidly on KB/M. Add to your list of above issues that sometimes missions hard lock on their conclusion after the rewards screens on PC and you get nothing for the hours + you just spent grinding endlessly. Still seeing instances of invisible attackers.... you know, taking fire from actual opponents that visually disappear as well as units that don't exist in the first place. Draw distances and sniping have largely been fixed, amazingly, the issue is that if you can snipe anything on the map, good chance everything else on that map will fire at you.

For a game that took, what? 7 years to develop, that cost Bioware/EA an utterly failed Mass Effect experience because they paid almost zero attention to that game... EA doesn't give a shit anymore. Andromeda made all it's development money back in pre-orders alone. Anthem.... Which I swore I would never buy, I did. For an AAA title I would expect to get more than 50 hours out of it before starting to burn out. Jesus... I had close to a thousand hours in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer with groups of people over the years. A really decent 400-500+ hours in Andromeda's Multiplayer... I'm pretty much worn out after barely 50 in this game.
 
Lack of Character is name of the game you take the character out of someone replace it with Michael Bey explosions you don't have anything left no effect none on the consumer.
 
The game just feels like a late stage beta. There are so many pathways in Fort tarsis that go nowhere, indicating content was cut/dlc walled and their loot system seems like it was contrived and executed in that short period between their tech betas and release.


Why does it take like 2 minutes just to get through the post-mission recap? I don't care to navigate through 5 screens just to see what loot dropped and how much exp I got.

Another loot complaint, it almost feels like they only took a cursory glance at how loot is done in wow or Diablo and tried to replicate it without actually playing either of those games. The stats are dumb and anything unique isn't even seen till the end game so you go through their grind loop to just get really tiny incremental upgrades, in short their loot is boring as Fuck. The only thing they got right was the color coding.

It is pretty though and I genuinely like the mocap and performances even if the writing is hit or miss.

I don't know if EA is going to give bioware the time to fix this. Their history has shown that they are pretty ruthless with killing studios and games.
 
I'm not paying 60 dollars for mediocre games when other companies are releasing games that now beat AAA in quality and features. I play Anthem. I'm level 30 and max gear score on 3 classes. (I play because I have friends that play it)

The game is garbage due to the insane number of missing features, badly implemented features, audio server lag, audio loss events, spawn rubberbanding, mission progress lockout, lack of end game, gear gating, lack of ingame market items, (hell, the two vendors sell the SAME STUFF, and are 10ft away from each other), the children models have adult sized heads and faces, some class mechanics are very poorly thought out, loot is poorly thought out, there's NO ingame information on what certain modifiers do, the plot is massively bad and full of holes, bad audio editing for certain missions, no personal living space as promised, terrible quick match matching, bad loot farming of boss missions, three minute load times on console, bad console menu designs, and I still have more to go.

So I don't agree with you about your "remember the old days" attitude. The game is shit plain and simple. It shouldn't have been released in the current state. Give it another six months and we might have a game that has all the items finally worked. The game was just not made in a quality way. It is Diablo + Warframe + Destiny without actually being better than any of them in the areas that they are similar. There are no "technical" limitations when you look at those other games compared to Anthem. It's lazy programming, or programming that they never fixed and now are hanging them with future code.

Now, I would be remiss to not agree with you to a degree. You are somewhat accurate, but your target being anthem as the example is wrong. It's obvious you haven't played the game because you would have experienced all the issues I have elaborated and had a frustrating experience because of it. That or you only play console games and this doesn't bother you. The game IS a console port through and through. If all you play is console, then you may enjoy the game. If you play PC, you already know of all the other games that do these things RIGHT that there's no excuse why a AAA game is being outclassed by smaller developers.
Actually, since the day zero release, the only bugs I or my friends have hit have been the 4445, One bugged world event in freeplay, and the odd stuck NPC AI that won't shoot back. I understand people are having problems but they aren't remotely as widespread or bad as you claim.
All the people I play with are within 1000km of me and we all play using the PC version. I suspect the only major difference is we absolutely do not use the public matchmaking functions. My personal load times have so far never exceeded 50 seconds. One person I play with has never exceeded 30 seconds but her computer got blessed by every possible silicon god on the way to her door.

I don't even agree on the "unpromised features" part. The game was intended to be episodic. Wait until March before you blow your wad on this one. If their planned timeline falls apart THEN I will agree with features being missing. So far they have given everything they promised. Could they have given more? Hell yes, day one is a bit sparse. Even the "Vendors" thing. They don't sell the same thing. You can just access both stores from one menu. The characters are immersion fluff. It's working exactly as it was designed. Is it a good design? Time will tell.

As far as 50-hour burnout.. Well if that's the case in any game it's usually PEBCAK in some form or fashion. That's not a derogatory comment just the fact that it's normal to burn out when your expectations were so high to begin with. I've seen people burn out of MMOs in a week due to "nothing to do" syndrome because what they wanted to do wasn't the focus of the title or the way it was done wasn't interesting. Maybe the reality of this game is just too far apart from what your inner hype wanted it to be. Sucks but it happens.
It's not a great game. Its got problems. It's also not the spawn of satan and the bringer of bugs either. It's a mediocre ironman squad shooter with pretty graphics that MAY have some cool story over the next year.


-------------------
Legendary Gamer
If you think anthem has to many buttons never play a flight sim or X series game. Anthem is a lightweight in the buttons category. One bloody hand is enough for most of it.
 
Actually, since the day zero release, the only bugs I or my friends have hit have been the 4445, One bugged world event in freeplay, and the odd stuck NPC AI that won't shoot back. I understand people are having problems but they aren't remotely as widespread or bad as you claim.
All the people I play with are within 1000km of me and we all play using the PC version. I suspect the only major difference is we absolutely do not use the public matchmaking functions. My personal load times have so far never exceeded 50 seconds. One person I play with has never exceeded 30 seconds but her computer got blessed by every possible silicon god on the way to her door.

I don't even agree on the "unpromised features" part. The game was intended to be episodic. Wait until March before you blow your wad on this one. If their planned timeline falls apart THEN I will agree with features being missing. So far they have given everything they promised. Could they have given more? Hell yes, day one is a bit sparse. Even the "Vendors" thing. They don't sell the same thing. You can just access both stores from one menu. The characters are immersion fluff. It's working exactly as it was designed. Is it a good design? Time will tell.

As far as 50-hour burnout.. Well if that's the case in any game it's usually PEBCAK in some form or fashion. That's not a derogatory comment just the fact that it's normal to burn out when your expectations were so high to begin with. I've seen people burn out of MMOs in a week due to "nothing to do" syndrome because what they wanted to do wasn't the focus of the title or the way it was done wasn't interesting. Maybe the reality of this game is just too far apart from what your inner hype wanted it to be. Sucks but it happens.
It's not a great game. Its got problems. It's also not the spawn of satan and the bringer of bugs either. It's a mediocre ironman squad shooter with pretty graphics that MAY have some cool story over the next year.


-------------------
Legendary Gamer
If you think anthem has to many buttons never play a flight sim or X series game. Anthem is a lightweight in the buttons category. One bloody hand is enough for most of it.

There is literally nothing to do in the endgame in this game currently. And looking at the road map...its going to be months for any new real content.
 
There is literally nothing to do in the endgame in this game currently. And looking at the road map...its going to be months for any new real content.
Define end game. Raids? Got to max level and want more grind? Like I said I don't think that's this games intended audience. Why do I think that? Because every single casual title has wrecked every hardcore one in total profit /edit in the microtransaction category.
 
Isn't normal "end game content" just more of the same but more bullet sponge and gear gates to get in? I guess I don't know what people who max level the night of a game release are actually wanting to do. Is a forever expanding difficulty what is desired with loot to follow it? It is always a dance and grind.
 
Isn't normal "end game content" just more of the same but more bullet sponge and gear gates to get in? I guess I don't know what people who max level the night of a game release are actually wanting to do. Is a forever expanding difficulty what is desired with loot to follow it? It is always a dance and grind.

Think diablo 3 and its seasons. People want to grind new gear and make builds around said new gear. My one friend who plays Anthem is trying to make a build around a particular pistol. So the endgame for him is more items that he can create builds around. That means far more loot, some new strongholds, etc.
 
Remember when playing the game was the game, and end game was just the end?
 
Actually, since the day zero release, the only bugs I or my friends have hit have been the 4445, One bugged world event in freeplay, and the odd stuck NPC AI that won't shoot back. I understand people are having problems but they aren't remotely as widespread or bad as you claim.
All the people I play with are within 1000km of me and we all play using the PC version. I suspect the only major difference is we absolutely do not use the public matchmaking functions. My personal load times have so far never exceeded 50 seconds. One person I play with has never exceeded 30 seconds but her computer got blessed by every possible silicon god on the way to her door.

I don't even agree on the "unpromised features" part. The game was intended to be episodic. Wait until March before you blow your wad on this one. If their planned timeline falls apart THEN I will agree with features being missing. So far they have given everything they promised. Could they have given more? Hell yes, day one is a bit sparse. Even the "Vendors" thing. They don't sell the same thing. You can just access both stores from one menu. The characters are immersion fluff. It's working exactly as it was designed. Is it a good design? Time will tell.

As far as 50-hour burnout.. Well if that's the case in any game it's usually PEBCAK in some form or fashion. That's not a derogatory comment just the fact that it's normal to burn out when your expectations were so high to begin with. I've seen people burn out of MMOs in a week due to "nothing to do" syndrome because what they wanted to do wasn't the focus of the title or the way it was done wasn't interesting. Maybe the reality of this game is just too far apart from what your inner hype wanted it to be. Sucks but it happens.
It's not a great game. Its got problems. It's also not the spawn of satan and the bringer of bugs either. It's a mediocre ironman squad shooter with pretty graphics that MAY have some cool story over the next year.


-------------------
Legendary Gamer
If you think anthem has to many buttons never play a flight sim or X series game. Anthem is a lightweight in the buttons category. One bloody hand is enough for most of it.

Its true that both vendors just selling a different tab, if you think that's immersion, you really have to play better games. (Like any other game) My group encounters bugs every time we play. Hell, last night I had no sound for the entire daily run set we did. We had a spawn rubberbanding event that forced us to remake the event. The leader had to leave the map and come back in just to see the mission again. So, if you are claiming you really haven't seen any bugs outside of 4445, then you are either lying or you just don't understand the definition of a bug. I have yet to have a single session, either by myself or with my friends, that is bug free. (That's a four man group) So, I disagree with your point that they aren't as widespread, because I have my own firsthand experience that says something VERY different than your's. On another note, I'm glad you think children running around with adult heads and faces are "immersion fluff" and that there's debate on whether or not it's "good design". Seriously, I really can't understand your viewpoint at all because it simply doesn't make sense or you don't actually go around looking at things or trying new stuff. I mean, we even encounter bugs with the component and weapon combos that we are trying out. I have a component that seriously says it does 0 bonus damage. At one point, we were trying out different bonus effects just to see what worked and what didn't work.

So, just like you, I can't agree with your statements because they aren't indicative of someone who actually plays the game a lot. Either that, or you are FAR more forgiving for bad code and UI decisions than I am.
 
Last edited:
Its true that both vendors just selling a different tab, if you think that's immersion, you really have to play better games. (Like any other game) My group encounters bugs every time we play. Hell, last night I had no sound for the entire daily run set we did. We had a spawn rubberbanding event that forced us to remake the event. The leader had to leave the map and come back in just to see the mission again. So, if you are claiming you really haven't seen any bugs outside of 4445, then you are either lying or you just don't understand the definition of a bug. I have yet to have a single session, either by myself or with my friends, that is bug free. (That's a four man group) So, I disagree with your point that they aren't as widespread, because I have my own firsthand experience that says something VERY different than your's. On another note, I'm glad you think children running around with adult heads and faces are "immersion fluff" and that there's debate on whether or not it's "good design". Seriously, I really can't understand your viewpoint at all because it simply doesn't make sense or you don't actually go around looking at things or trying new stuff. I mean, we even encounter bugs with the component and weapon combos that we are trying out. I have a component that seriously says it does 0 bonus damage. At one point, we were trying out different bonus effects just to see what worked and what didn't work.

So, just like you, I can't agree with your statements because they aren't indicative of someone who actually plays the game a lot. Either that, or you are FAR more forgiving for bad code and UI decisions than I am.
No, I just define things with more objectivism. No problem with being subjective because at the end of the day you want what you want. I'm not going to knock a person for their opinion under any circumstances.
To give you an example.. Immersion. You define it as your immersion in what you see and want to see in a scene. I define it as "Do they have two stores? Then they need two vendors SOMEWHERE." It could be a poor implementation of it but if it ticks those boxes I have to agree they provided proper immersion. A book can be well written and still be terribly designed. Same ideology here.

As far as you believing we have bug free experiences or not well I can't help you. I can relay what we have seen and I can relay statistics. I have seen very few bugs since day zero. My friends have seen very few bugs since day zero. Statistically looking at game launches going back decades the number of "actual" bugs experienced by the rank and file players is under 5% provided there isn't a showstopper bug somewhere. You might be having massive issues and that truly does suck. That doesn't mean the majority is and statistics usually back this up. One person's experiences in millions are not statistically relevant. Heck, even in MMOs an entire GUILDS experiences are not statistically relevant when some of them have millions of monthly users. Many people who play those games perceive them to be "a few hundred thousand at best" though because of naturally limited perspectives.
All games will always have bugs. Those bugs are never as widespread or as bad as people think. Often its a UI error that people lose their crap over that actually had no effect on the game at all.

Children heads on adult bodies? Hah. Remember games back when they artificially contorted the human body into unnatural shapes just because animation tech wasn't remotely good enough yet to do better? Tomb Raider remembers. A game saving a few bucks on the art budget to reuse a head on a kids body? That's a good trade if they gave more content or polish. Again time will tell if they provide on this or not. They have a timeline. We can see in March how real that timeline is.

At the end of the day if anyone spent 60 bucks on the game with more than 60 hours you still got more value per hour than any other form of entertainment outside of sex.
 
No, I just define things with more objectivism. No problem with being subjective because at the end of the day you want what you want. I'm not going to knock a person for their opinion under any circumstances.
To give you an example.. Immersion. You define it as your immersion in what you see and want to see in a scene. I define it as "Do they have two stores? Then they need two vendors SOMEWHERE." It could be a poor implementation of it but if it ticks those boxes I have to agree they provided proper immersion. A book can be well written and still be terribly designed. Same ideology here.

As far as you believing we have bug free experiences or not well I can't help you. I can relay what we have seen and I can relay statistics. I have seen very few bugs since day zero. My friends have seen very few bugs since day zero. Statistically looking at game launches going back decades the number of "actual" bugs experienced by the rank and file players is under 5% provided there isn't a showstopper bug somewhere. You might be having massive issues and that truly does suck. That doesn't mean the majority is and statistics usually back this up. One person's experiences in millions are not statistically relevant. Heck, even in MMOs an entire GUILDS experiences are not statistically relevant when some of them have millions of monthly users. Many people who play those games perceive them to be "a few hundred thousand at best" though because of naturally limited perspectives.
All games will always have bugs. Those bugs are never as widespread or as bad as people think. Often its a UI error that people lose their crap over that actually had no effect on the game at all.

Children heads on adult bodies? Hah. Remember games back when they artificially contorted the human body into unnatural shapes just because animation tech wasn't remotely good enough yet to do better? Tomb Raider remembers. A game saving a few bucks on the art budget to reuse a head on a kids body? That's a good trade if they gave more content or polish. Again time will tell if they provide on this or not. They have a timeline. We can see in March how real that timeline is.

At the end of the day if anyone spent 60 bucks on the game with more than 60 hours you still got more value per hour than any other form of entertainment outside of sex.

Unfortunately I don't agree with your line of thinking. It's incorrectly dismissive, watered down, and apologetic. We will just have to agree to disagree because we are on polar opposite sides of the concepts. The fact that you believe adult heads on children bodies simply to save some bucks is ok is utterly insane given that games cost north of 50million dollars already. That lack of animation didn't provide any polish or content because the game is lacking both in major ways. That's just lazy reasoning to save a point. If you believe that March will define the game, then the game should have been released in March and not a public beta release beforehand. No one I know thinks of the game the way you do. That's ten people ranging from PC to Console users. Sorry, just not buying it.
 
Legendary Gamer
If you think anthem has to many buttons never play a flight sim or X series game. Anthem is a lightweight in the buttons category. One bloody hand is enough for most of it.[/QUOTE]

I'm no spring chicken that still loves video games, switching to the heresy of an Xbox One controller has seemingly saved me from having my hands placed into surgery for carpal tunnel playing this game. On the upside it allows me to lean back and sit a couple more feet away from the 55" TV that's on my desk so I don't go immediately blind ;) lol. The flight sims aren't for me. I don't need that level of complexity though I once sought it with the entire flight stick and throttle ordeal in my younger years. For me, the controls with KB/M (or trackball as I have) are a PITA. The controller is likely the only reason I'm still grinding missions periodically.
 
The PC and Xbox controller combo is pretty good. GTA V and Mad Max aren't new games now but consoles obviously won't touch 100 or 120 FPS and G-sync. Still good to use a controller unless it's using a sniper rifle.
 
Unfortunately I don't agree with your line of thinking. It's incorrectly dismissive, watered down, and apologetic. We will just have to agree to disagree because we are on polar opposite sides of the concepts. The fact that you believe adult heads on children bodies simply to save some bucks is ok is utterly insane given that games cost north of 50million dollars already. That lack of animation didn't provide any polish or content because the game is lacking both in major ways. That's just lazy reasoning to save a point. If you believe that March will define the game, then the game should have been released in March and not a public beta release beforehand. No one I know thinks of the game the way you do. That's ten people ranging from PC to Console users. Sorry, just not buying it.
X and Y people my friend. Sometimes perceptions just never align and this is one of those cases. No data will change your opinion beyond getting the product you expect. I can promise you though that it's astronomically rare to have a game "be full of game breaking bugs". What you personally experience is always a losing argument when you apply it beyond yourself. It's fine to dislike the title or feel it should have gone different directions. It's wrong to assume everyone is in your boat with you though.

I've gotten my $1/hr out of it and still think its mediocre at best. I will wait until March to see if their grand idea of dolling out content over time enhances the experience or harms it. Gearbox thought borderlands was a surefire way to lose money and it turned out to be one of their flagship titles. Weirder crap has happened.
 
I got this for "free" and I installed it on my PC but haven't launched it yet. Might as well wait for patches to come and I guess I'll keep grinding Destiny 2 even though I'm fairly sick of it. I only have a couple close friends any more and trying to herd up any more just to make a game more enjoyable due to friendly banter just seems counter productive.

I guess I've denied it long enough.... EA truly does destroy everything it touches.
 
Is anyone else tired of giving developers money ahead of time so that they can create a meaningful experience LATER?
Tired? I never did that to begin with. A game is either good or bad, games as a service is a stupid idea. You'd not need "games as a service" to bait people to come back, if the game was good to begin with. We'd just keep playing if it was good.
 
The PC and Xbox controller combo is pretty good. GTA V and Mad Max aren't new games now but consoles obviously won't touch 100 or 120 FPS and G-sync. Still good to use a controller unless it's using a sniper rifle.
Well, since using a sniper rifle is almost no different than using a pistol.... The ranges leave something to be desired in Anthem, I can deal with it. Sure it doesn't offer the level of granular , pinpoint, accuracy we know and love with a mouse but it's not massively relevant in this button mashing festival. Jesus... Just try going into any Grand Master 2 session... Bullet sponginess on all enemies is an understatement. The Tyrant Mine stronghold took us over 2 hours to complete. You can empty an entire sniper rifle's worth of ammo into weak points of most enemies and they stand there laughing at you .. lol
 
Back
Top