TangledThornz
Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2018
- Messages
- 975
I got a copy of ANTHEM via the RTX 2060 promotion but I'm not allowed to play the demo as I didn't 'preorder' it. Dafuq!! They should allow me to play the demo. EA can lick my ballzak!
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BioWare's new IP: Anthem
- Thread starter TaintedSquirrel
- Start date
This happened in alpha. People couldn't connect due to server being hammered. I don't know why they didn't improve this which was the big issue from alpha. I hope it gets better.
and this is not even the open beta...this is a limited VIP beta which theoretically should be easier for the servers to handle...
Armenius
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2014
- Messages
- 42,102
The official Reddit and Twitter accounts acknowledged this was an issue and said improvements will be made throughout the day. If they're getting hammered to hard today I can't imagine they're prepared for tomorrow.
Everybody got 4 additional codes to hand out to people who didn't preorder or have EA Access, so take the number of preorders and multiply by 5 for the total potential number of players.
still a much lower number then what you would get for an open beta
was able to get in and play for a bit in Free Roam...but then I got a new error...
Blade-Runner
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2013
- Messages
- 4,360
I got in a few games earlier (Free-roam) but now I'm stuck in an infinite loading screen right after I enter my javelin suit and try to start an Expedition...
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when I actually got into the game it was pretty decent...the hub area sucks but once you get out in the open the game has potential...playing the demo makes me wish the game was single player...really nice environments and enemy designs...flying controls are a bit wonky but works fine with kb/m...the jetpack is probably the best part...hovering over the map and attacking from above...problem is that your fuel runs out fairly quick...graphics look fine as a whole but not the highest quality textures...foliage look a bit too plastic...excellent lighting
leezard
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2004
- Messages
- 4,949
I didnt preorder and am not part of origin access, i got into the vip demo from nvidia, got an email Thursday
Congratulations! You’ve earned a GeForce Reward!
I unlocked the 2nd javelin at Level 12...I chose Storm...everything seems a bit convoluted in that hub area...loading times also are bad...if BioWare can fix the performance issues then this has real potential...I like it better then my limited time with Destiny 2...Destiny seems geared more towards guns while Anthem is more about the abilities and flying mechanic...I also found out that you can increase your flight time by traveling over water or by doing a nosedive and then pulling up...
the way I get the game to load on PC is by starting up the game...waiting for the infinite load screen to appear and then ctrl + alt + del...shut the game down through Task Manager...start the game up again and it'll ask you if you want to continue with your previous Expedition...click 'yes' and it loads up every time...if you click 'no' you'll get that same infinite load screen
the more I play this the more I like it...they need to fix the server issues and other related bugs but outside of that the game is really a lot of fun...even going solo is fun...the Storm javelin seems over-powered by a lot...she can hover/fly forever, she moves super quick and her abilities are crazy powerful- fire, lightning and ice...and her 'Ultimate' ability is like a nuclear bomb which wipes out everything...she also has that wind shield which blocks enemy fire...with a team she's even more deadly as she can just stay hovered in the air practically the whole time raining bombs down...almost unstoppable
and the game looks pretty stunning on PC...you can see the flaws in close up textures and foliage but overall the game is a looker
and the game looks pretty stunning on PC...you can see the flaws in close up textures and foliage but overall the game is a looker
Comixbooks
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2008
- Messages
- 22,014
So would you guys buy this game at the end of the day?
Buddy and I had real bad experiences last night, game felt super clunky but it was getting better. I ended up trying a controller I previously only used for Witcher 3 and man, what a difference. This game seems to make sense on a controller.
Was pretty pissed off yesterday when I couldn't log in at 2pm est. Finally around 9 last night I logged in and played a few hours. Didn't have friends to play with, just random people. I did really enjoy it.
It's different, but vaguely similar to my favorite game of all time, Tribes. Only in the aspect of having a jet pack like feature, flying and shooting. Obviously the graphics are a big part of the game, and it does not disappoint. Absolutely beautiful.
Team elements are key. The lobby area is pretty easy to navigate. Other elements besides just pure FPS are nice honestly. Separates it from others. Performance was decent at Ultra levels and a 1070@3440x1440 ultra WS. Low 40's most of the time. Heavy gun play with rockets and lots of characters dropped it to unplayable for me. Waiting for the right 2080ti, in the mean time going to have to lower graphic settings or just suffer through.
Flying is a big part, and I feel like it would be better on console. With kb/mouse I had to drag the mouse very far to go straight up or down. Way too much. You can adjust the sensitivity for flying so I will try that But I detest shooting on a console. Going to try the demo on my PS4 and see if the flying is better and if it out weighs the lack of accuracy in shooting. Gaming TV is a 65" LG OLED too, so might help sway me to console.
It's different, but vaguely similar to my favorite game of all time, Tribes. Only in the aspect of having a jet pack like feature, flying and shooting. Obviously the graphics are a big part of the game, and it does not disappoint. Absolutely beautiful.
Team elements are key. The lobby area is pretty easy to navigate. Other elements besides just pure FPS are nice honestly. Separates it from others. Performance was decent at Ultra levels and a 1070@3440x1440 ultra WS. Low 40's most of the time. Heavy gun play with rockets and lots of characters dropped it to unplayable for me. Waiting for the right 2080ti, in the mean time going to have to lower graphic settings or just suffer through.
Flying is a big part, and I feel like it would be better on console. With kb/mouse I had to drag the mouse very far to go straight up or down. Way too much. You can adjust the sensitivity for flying so I will try that But I detest shooting on a console. Going to try the demo on my PS4 and see if the flying is better and if it out weighs the lack of accuracy in shooting. Gaming TV is a 65" LG OLED too, so might help sway me to console.
4saken
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2004
- Messages
- 13,171
Yeah, even on PC this game works so much better with a controller.
Same GPU and resolution here and I agree. I put everything on low and it improved a bit but still looked pretty good. Playable. Playing it with a controller made me not notice the framerate issues much less and the movement felt considerably better.
Nebell
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2015
- Messages
- 2,382
I got stuck at the end of the second mission. That mech is impossible to kill solo. It does insane damage and summons a bunch of adds who swarm you, and when you die, it heals to full hp. I died a few times and I'm not bad at tactical shooter games. This is clearly a coop ONLY game, not a solo game.
What's with all these crappy first/third person Diablo clones? Just give me Diablo 4 FFS.
What's with all these crappy first/third person Diablo clones? Just give me Diablo 4 FFS.
Armenius
Extremely [H]
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- Jan 28, 2014
- Messages
- 42,102
It does indeed use a lot of CPU, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The game was fully utilizing all 8 threads on my 4770 at 75%. Game also runs a lot better than the alpha did. The alpha had a lot of stuttering, but the demo runs silky smooth with the Ultra preset at 4K on the rig in my signature.
I'm disappointed that for some reason there is no HDR in the demo when I swear it was there in the alpha.
Watching new videos this game does have me interested. Few questions please:
- Are there guilds or clans to join ?
- Is grouping up and chat easier and better than Destiny 2 ?
- Is there a group finder dungeon thing like WoW for quick way to get players to join up together ?
- Is this an MMO type world ? Like WoW with thousands of players ? Or more hollow and empty like Destiny 2
- Can you CoOp play together ? Unlike Destiny 2 which really doesn't have an easy way to find and invite a friend to your group
- Are there guilds or clans to join ?
- Is grouping up and chat easier and better than Destiny 2 ?
- Is there a group finder dungeon thing like WoW for quick way to get players to join up together ?
- Is this an MMO type world ? Like WoW with thousands of players ? Or more hollow and empty like Destiny 2
- Can you CoOp play together ? Unlike Destiny 2 which really doesn't have an easy way to find and invite a friend to your group
Nebell
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2015
- Messages
- 2,382
I bought a key on Kinguin for $1.
oh wow. so they will let you dl and install the demo but if you boot it up..sorry. you have to buy the game to play it THIS weekend. It will be open to all feb 22.....fuck sake. anything to get people to preorder.
Edit .Ty for the tip about the key. Already uninstalled though
Edit .Ty for the tip about the key. Already uninstalled though
So, I played Anthem last night. Throughout my post, you'll undoubtedly see many comparisons to Destiny and Mass Effect, which I feel is what Anthem is. Keep in mind, I've only played the demo so that's all I have to go on. Let's get started.
Story (What Story?)
First off, the game does nothing to try and hook you with its story. You have minimal introduction to the characters and you can only talk to two people initially, and a third later on. There is all this hype about the game being true to BioWare's history and having a strong story element to it. While I've played a couple of BioWare's older titles, I didn't get hooked on anything BioWare until I played Mass Effect 2. A friend recommended I begin the series with ME2, since ME1's game play isn't as good and he knew my attention span would probably not allow me to get hooked with ME1 and play through ME2. Mass Effect 2 grabbed me in the first ten minutes and as I moved through it, I became more and more interested in the story and specifically, what I missed in ME1. I went back and played that, although, I had to force myself through parts of it. Eventually, I finished it and came to appreciate the game despite its faults.
The reason I bring this up is as an example. Story can be something that hooks players and keeps them interested. Lets face it, without its story Mass Effect failed in terms of combat / gameplay. It was mediocre in most respects and the story bolstered it. Later installments had better gameplay, but at best still didn't compete with the best shooters at the time they were released.
Similarly, I have never played Destiny 1 because it was only on consoles. I don't typically do shooters on consoles. However, the prologue of Destiny 2 had me interested in the game immediately. The story made me forget the grind as I leveled through the game's content. When I reached the end of the base game, which I picked up while it was free, I immediately bought Forsaken which gave me access to the other two DLC's. Again, their stories are what kept me going. Admittedly, Destiny is somewhat bad about introducing you to the deeper elements of the lore, but still has enough to get its hooks in you. It still communicates the major plot points to you via dialog and cut scenes. Mass Effect on the other hand is great about introducing you to its lore and story elements regardless of their depth. Naturally, I figured BioWare would nail this with Anthem.
I was wrong. Both Mass Effect 1 & 2 were very good about introducing new players to its universe and characters. Mass Effect 3 wasn't, but it let you know some story shit was happening in the demo. Anthem, in contrast is very bad at this. At least, the demo is. You start at level 10, which doesn't really give you much of the experience in that it doesn't introduce you to anything. You handle one NPC's missions, and that's it. One of which is a fetch quest, although its plot related. It does have you returning to an area you already completed. I don't think game demos should do this. In any case, after two or three hours of game play, I have no idea what the fuck is going on. In that sense, the demo doesn't work. Is this a symptom of poor story telling over the larger game? I don't know, but it is something I'm concerned about.
Gameplay
When it comes to game play, there are a few things to talk about. One is the general experience of navigating the player's base of operations and interacting with NPC's. Another is the combat system. On the former, the game could be better. The town you walk around in runs very poorly and you have one movement speed: Slow as fuck. Interacting with NPC's is a bit of a mess. With Mass Effect, you simply hit your "use key" while they were highlighted and select your dialog options as they appear. With Anthem, the game takes a couple steps back from its predecessors. First off, the default use key is "F". WTF? Spacebar, and "E" are basically the gold standards for this but BioWare has a habit (a bad one) of reinventing the wheel with its control schemes. As a side note, they should knock that shit off and stick with what works. When you press F, you have to hold it and there is no progress indicator that the entry is being recognized. You won't get the prompt until you take your finger off "F". Then it goes into the dialog which requires you to hold the key down for several seconds to confirm which of the two choices you are making in response to whatever the NPC said. This is tedious, but at least the conversations are relatively quick. Mass Effect Andromeda had deeper conversations but thanks to its less than interesting characters, I couldn't wait to get through the dialog. The lack of choice here means investigation of the NPCs, the lore, and the environment isn't really going to happen.
Next is combat. Combat is an offset over the shoulder 3rd person system like the Mass Effect series. This was no doubt done in order to allow you to see your Iron Man...er Javelin suit. This is also one way that the game differentiates itself from Destiny, and given their many similarities was probably necessary. The combat has some potential, but there are some major problems. Most notably, is that every single enemy, no matter how weak is a bullet sponge. I played long enough to upgrade some weapons and I tried different weapons out such as shotguns and sniper rifles, light machine guns, etc. Every weapon took forever to kill enemy combatants. Your basic foot soldier took 3 head shots from the sniper rifle to put down. I shot this crab thing which took 9 shots (which involves three reloads) from the sniper rifle to achieve a kill. The shotgun could put down a few things in a couple shots but seemed to average three or four and the one I tried at least was super slow to cycle. Unfortunately, NONE of the weapons feel satisfying to use. The audio for the guns isn't great and there isn't a real visual impact on the enemies (more on this later) and the lack of damage made nothing I used satisfying or fun.
In addition to the bullet sponge problem, your movement and the speed of combat in general is slow as hell. Granted, I like fast shooters like Halo, Destiny, Unreal Tournament, and Quake III. So, anything that's not fast like those games will disappoint me to an extent. I do enjoy Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda's combat well enough, but even compared to those games Anthem feels like your fighting under water. I am glad that the over the shoulder view isn't as close in as it was in Mass Effect 3, but the Javelin does take up screen space I'd rather it didn't in combat. This is a minor issue however. The speed unfortunately, isn't something I could get past. Every battle feels like its being done in slow motion. Another problem with the combat is that it's too flashy. I mean that literally. There are flashes, electrical effects, shield effects and so much other shit going on that it gets tough to see what's going on even when your only fighting five enemies. I can engage 10-20 enemies in destiny with super's, explosions and other shit going on and still be able to see what's going on with everything. The visuals in Anthem's combat are simply too busy and it gets in its own way.
There are other issues too, if you are in a boss fight in a respawn restricted zone (which basically works identically to Destiny 2 but worse), team mates or other Javelins in the area can repair your suit even though you have a message saying your Javelin is irrepairable. (Wut BioWare?) The revive takes way too long and in a boss fight, it's almost impossible to repair another player's Javelin. The worst part is, if you go down, your team mates (which auto-matchmaking forced on me) have to revive you or you could end up stuck in a disabled Javelin until the encounter is over. This assumes your team mates do not die and can complete the fight without you. This happened to me and I was stuck for 7 or 8 minutes watching a screen that said my mech was irrepairable and that I was respawning, whcih didn't happen. Several times my teammates tried to revive/repair my Javelin but due to the time it took to do so, I ended up with a yellow "repairing" screen which never completed. I was stuck like that with no option to do anything. It wasn't fun.
Someone else said this was basically a coop only game above and they are correct. You can't really play alone and the game does force other players on you. This can really be a bad thing when they suck ass. At the end of every mission you get a completion screen which reminds me of ME3 multiplayer where it gives everyone the same participation accolades, points and XP (this is like three minutes of bullshit) no matter who did the most work. When I killed two out of three of the soldier boss guys and two of three Titans, I got just as much XP as everyone else. When I got killed relatively fast in the walker fight, I got just as much XP as the guys who did 80% of the work. Basically, everyone is treated equally in this game no matter what. You can skip these screens if you want to, but they shouldn't take so long to deal with.
Others have mentioned the flight controls so I will too. In short, they are terrible. The Mass Effect Andromeda Iron Man mod has better flight controls and that game wasn't designed with flight controls in the open game world to begin with. This game was and that's frightening. They are not sensitive enough at times and overly sensitive at others. You can't fly too far either unless your over water for some reason. You can see the "cooled" buff indicating this. Your run speed is bad unless you hit your jump jets while walking which somehow makes you run faster? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Set a treadmill to run faster than you can or go down a super steep hill on a bike. You won't feel like your in control at best and at worst you'd fall over. It doesn't make sense for the mech's weight to be the limiting factor in your walk speed but I guess that's what they went with. The same pistons that power your walking allow you to survive multi-story drops but they are too weak for running....whatever. Just go with it I guess. Flying in this game sucks. Its imprecise and a large part of traversing your environment which isn't a lot of fun. It should add to the game play but doesn't do this very well.
Other Notes:
Inventory management is a mess but it works well enough. It's bad, but not Mass Effect 1 on PC bad. Character customization, or at least Javelin customization is very good. You can do a lot with the color schemes to make it your own. Material choices are provided as well. Customization of the armor itself is limited to the arms, legs, chest and helmet just like Mass Effect. Its overly simplistic, but it works. You also get multiple Javelins throughout the game to change things up as well. Oh, like Andromeda, many of the menus suck and aren't easy to work with. You hold weird keyboard keys to make choices in menus. Your "F" key will get a serious workout playing Anthem.
Recommendations for BioWare (Gameplay Changes)
I'm probably going to get some flak from this, but bear with me. First off, I'm not one of those guys who sees SJW shit everywhere. I don't catch even half the signs of this so many Youtubers and even forum members here see in TV and other games. All I can tell you is what I know of this game's story, BioWare's history with other games and how the SJW influence at BioWare has made its way into Anthem. I'll start by saying it isn't the end of the world and frankly not a huge deal by itself but I do think it negatively impacts the game. With stronger gameplay, it wouldn't be as big a factor. However, the game play needs a lot of work. In games, I want violence, I want story, I want hot women and guys (especially player characters) should look like action stars of the 1980's. I don't want politics or social commentary in my games either unless those politics are intrinsic to the story. Mass Effect has its own politics which are part of the game. However, you aren't mired in bullshit meant to take shots at political ideology of our real world. When you play BioWare games, you expect to see hot women, romances, good stories, cinemetics, set pieces, etc. The characters are over the top and larger than life. That's what makes them memorable. The NPC's are often characters that make you want to stay up all night to kill them (Saren) or in the case of Garrus, have a beer with him if he really existed.
So get ready, Anthem isn't the BioWare experience you've come to expect over the last decade or more. Its nothing like any game it has produced to date.
To understand what Anthem is missing, you have to look at BioWare's history regarding its stories and characters in earlier games. BioWare's stories are not wholly original. When you distill things down far enough, Mass Effect is another man vs. machine story. It explores what it is to be human in a way that matches the best science fiction traditions. At least in the first game anyway. While BioWare doesn't win points for originality, I think they do win in terms of presentation and atmosphere. But what makes their games endearing to fans are the character interactions and character relationships. This is where BioWare has faltered recently as it failed to do what its other titles did with Mass Effect Andromeda. If anything, what I've seen of Anthem is even worse. Your dialog choices are extremely limited and thus far more superficial than usual. Voice acting is on par with Andromeda, rather than ME3. That's not helpful either. Some people have bitched about BioWare having overly sexualized characters, but again its escapism and fantasy. I think that's fine and even a good thing so long as its not overly one sided.
When it comes to atmosphere, the game honestly feels like the Orville vs. Star Trek. Its clearly derivative and makes no apologies for it. This is really evident in the town you start off in as it does resemble parts of the Last City in Destiny. The NPC's even largely dress the same. The combat is largely only different because BioWare didn't implement it very well. If it was less laggy, smoother and less bullet spongy, you'd basically have a more true to form Destiny 2 clone.
Where the SJW shit comes in is the fact that this game (like Andromeda for the most part) has no sexualized characters what so ever. (Andromeda essentially had two and only two. Only one of which dressed provocatively in any way.) Everyone is basically "realistic" and kind of bland and ultimately forgettable. At least, what you can see of them. Evidently, romances aren't part of the experience with Anthem and that's fine. Destiny doesn't have them either, but they've gone so far here as to basically dress women like tow truck drivers or they wear a Burka or Hijab or both. This is why BioWare invited Anna Sarkisian for her "stamp of approval." The game probably doesn't disappoint her. The main reason I bring this up isn't to cry about SJW influences in the traditional sense, but to say that this isn't the BioWare we know and love. Its not the true BioWare story telling experience or role playing experience you are used to seeing. This is a very generic and largely uninspired experience from the character / RPG perspective. Like I said, Destiny doesn't have romances or hot women either, but Bungie doesn't have a history of that outside of Cortana. Its OK for Anthem to be like that, but it isn't BioWare's style. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are known for their relationships, romances and to a degree, their sex scenes. Hell, Star Wars: The Old Republic does relationships well although there aren't really sex scenes given its target market being so broad.
I think BioWare has missed another opportunity to do what it does best. This isn't some "Wokefest", don't get me wrong. However, I think that SJW mentality has fundamentally changed how BioWare operates and I don't think it will ever return to its more recent successes in light of what I'm seeing here. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but if Anthem works, I think you'll see more "Games as a Service" and the traditional single player RPG experience BioWare was so good at will be gone for good. At this point, I'll echo what others have said. I think CDProjekt Red is our only hope for good adult oriented single player RPG's going forward.
As an RPG, I'm not seeing anything worth playing. As a shooter, Anthem largely fails at that too. I see potential here, but right now the game is a slow, glitchy slog fest with dull combat and a bland RPG experience. Granted, I've only played the demo. So perhaps the full game has more to offer, but I have to make purchase decisions based on what I've seen thus far and frankly, I'm not seeing a $60 game here. I wanted this to be a Destiny killer. I wanted this game to be good enough that we'd all throw money at it and keep BioWare alive. At this point, I'm almost certain EA will put BioWare out to pasture with all the other studios its consumed over the years.
Anthem isn't terrible, but I don't think it will be the mega hit that EA/BioWare were hoping for.
Story (What Story?)
First off, the game does nothing to try and hook you with its story. You have minimal introduction to the characters and you can only talk to two people initially, and a third later on. There is all this hype about the game being true to BioWare's history and having a strong story element to it. While I've played a couple of BioWare's older titles, I didn't get hooked on anything BioWare until I played Mass Effect 2. A friend recommended I begin the series with ME2, since ME1's game play isn't as good and he knew my attention span would probably not allow me to get hooked with ME1 and play through ME2. Mass Effect 2 grabbed me in the first ten minutes and as I moved through it, I became more and more interested in the story and specifically, what I missed in ME1. I went back and played that, although, I had to force myself through parts of it. Eventually, I finished it and came to appreciate the game despite its faults.
The reason I bring this up is as an example. Story can be something that hooks players and keeps them interested. Lets face it, without its story Mass Effect failed in terms of combat / gameplay. It was mediocre in most respects and the story bolstered it. Later installments had better gameplay, but at best still didn't compete with the best shooters at the time they were released.
Similarly, I have never played Destiny 1 because it was only on consoles. I don't typically do shooters on consoles. However, the prologue of Destiny 2 had me interested in the game immediately. The story made me forget the grind as I leveled through the game's content. When I reached the end of the base game, which I picked up while it was free, I immediately bought Forsaken which gave me access to the other two DLC's. Again, their stories are what kept me going. Admittedly, Destiny is somewhat bad about introducing you to the deeper elements of the lore, but still has enough to get its hooks in you. It still communicates the major plot points to you via dialog and cut scenes. Mass Effect on the other hand is great about introducing you to its lore and story elements regardless of their depth. Naturally, I figured BioWare would nail this with Anthem.
I was wrong. Both Mass Effect 1 & 2 were very good about introducing new players to its universe and characters. Mass Effect 3 wasn't, but it let you know some story shit was happening in the demo. Anthem, in contrast is very bad at this. At least, the demo is. You start at level 10, which doesn't really give you much of the experience in that it doesn't introduce you to anything. You handle one NPC's missions, and that's it. One of which is a fetch quest, although its plot related. It does have you returning to an area you already completed. I don't think game demos should do this. In any case, after two or three hours of game play, I have no idea what the fuck is going on. In that sense, the demo doesn't work. Is this a symptom of poor story telling over the larger game? I don't know, but it is something I'm concerned about.
Gameplay
When it comes to game play, there are a few things to talk about. One is the general experience of navigating the player's base of operations and interacting with NPC's. Another is the combat system. On the former, the game could be better. The town you walk around in runs very poorly and you have one movement speed: Slow as fuck. Interacting with NPC's is a bit of a mess. With Mass Effect, you simply hit your "use key" while they were highlighted and select your dialog options as they appear. With Anthem, the game takes a couple steps back from its predecessors. First off, the default use key is "F". WTF? Spacebar, and "E" are basically the gold standards for this but BioWare has a habit (a bad one) of reinventing the wheel with its control schemes. As a side note, they should knock that shit off and stick with what works. When you press F, you have to hold it and there is no progress indicator that the entry is being recognized. You won't get the prompt until you take your finger off "F". Then it goes into the dialog which requires you to hold the key down for several seconds to confirm which of the two choices you are making in response to whatever the NPC said. This is tedious, but at least the conversations are relatively quick. Mass Effect Andromeda had deeper conversations but thanks to its less than interesting characters, I couldn't wait to get through the dialog. The lack of choice here means investigation of the NPCs, the lore, and the environment isn't really going to happen.
Next is combat. Combat is an offset over the shoulder 3rd person system like the Mass Effect series. This was no doubt done in order to allow you to see your Iron Man...er Javelin suit. This is also one way that the game differentiates itself from Destiny, and given their many similarities was probably necessary. The combat has some potential, but there are some major problems. Most notably, is that every single enemy, no matter how weak is a bullet sponge. I played long enough to upgrade some weapons and I tried different weapons out such as shotguns and sniper rifles, light machine guns, etc. Every weapon took forever to kill enemy combatants. Your basic foot soldier took 3 head shots from the sniper rifle to put down. I shot this crab thing which took 9 shots (which involves three reloads) from the sniper rifle to achieve a kill. The shotgun could put down a few things in a couple shots but seemed to average three or four and the one I tried at least was super slow to cycle. Unfortunately, NONE of the weapons feel satisfying to use. The audio for the guns isn't great and there isn't a real visual impact on the enemies (more on this later) and the lack of damage made nothing I used satisfying or fun.
In addition to the bullet sponge problem, your movement and the speed of combat in general is slow as hell. Granted, I like fast shooters like Halo, Destiny, Unreal Tournament, and Quake III. So, anything that's not fast like those games will disappoint me to an extent. I do enjoy Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda's combat well enough, but even compared to those games Anthem feels like your fighting under water. I am glad that the over the shoulder view isn't as close in as it was in Mass Effect 3, but the Javelin does take up screen space I'd rather it didn't in combat. This is a minor issue however. The speed unfortunately, isn't something I could get past. Every battle feels like its being done in slow motion. Another problem with the combat is that it's too flashy. I mean that literally. There are flashes, electrical effects, shield effects and so much other shit going on that it gets tough to see what's going on even when your only fighting five enemies. I can engage 10-20 enemies in destiny with super's, explosions and other shit going on and still be able to see what's going on with everything. The visuals in Anthem's combat are simply too busy and it gets in its own way.
There are other issues too, if you are in a boss fight in a respawn restricted zone (which basically works identically to Destiny 2 but worse), team mates or other Javelins in the area can repair your suit even though you have a message saying your Javelin is irrepairable. (Wut BioWare?) The revive takes way too long and in a boss fight, it's almost impossible to repair another player's Javelin. The worst part is, if you go down, your team mates (which auto-matchmaking forced on me) have to revive you or you could end up stuck in a disabled Javelin until the encounter is over. This assumes your team mates do not die and can complete the fight without you. This happened to me and I was stuck for 7 or 8 minutes watching a screen that said my mech was irrepairable and that I was respawning, whcih didn't happen. Several times my teammates tried to revive/repair my Javelin but due to the time it took to do so, I ended up with a yellow "repairing" screen which never completed. I was stuck like that with no option to do anything. It wasn't fun.
Someone else said this was basically a coop only game above and they are correct. You can't really play alone and the game does force other players on you. This can really be a bad thing when they suck ass. At the end of every mission you get a completion screen which reminds me of ME3 multiplayer where it gives everyone the same participation accolades, points and XP (this is like three minutes of bullshit) no matter who did the most work. When I killed two out of three of the soldier boss guys and two of three Titans, I got just as much XP as everyone else. When I got killed relatively fast in the walker fight, I got just as much XP as the guys who did 80% of the work. Basically, everyone is treated equally in this game no matter what. You can skip these screens if you want to, but they shouldn't take so long to deal with.
Others have mentioned the flight controls so I will too. In short, they are terrible. The Mass Effect Andromeda Iron Man mod has better flight controls and that game wasn't designed with flight controls in the open game world to begin with. This game was and that's frightening. They are not sensitive enough at times and overly sensitive at others. You can't fly too far either unless your over water for some reason. You can see the "cooled" buff indicating this. Your run speed is bad unless you hit your jump jets while walking which somehow makes you run faster? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Set a treadmill to run faster than you can or go down a super steep hill on a bike. You won't feel like your in control at best and at worst you'd fall over. It doesn't make sense for the mech's weight to be the limiting factor in your walk speed but I guess that's what they went with. The same pistons that power your walking allow you to survive multi-story drops but they are too weak for running....whatever. Just go with it I guess. Flying in this game sucks. Its imprecise and a large part of traversing your environment which isn't a lot of fun. It should add to the game play but doesn't do this very well.
Other Notes:
Inventory management is a mess but it works well enough. It's bad, but not Mass Effect 1 on PC bad. Character customization, or at least Javelin customization is very good. You can do a lot with the color schemes to make it your own. Material choices are provided as well. Customization of the armor itself is limited to the arms, legs, chest and helmet just like Mass Effect. Its overly simplistic, but it works. You also get multiple Javelins throughout the game to change things up as well. Oh, like Andromeda, many of the menus suck and aren't easy to work with. You hold weird keyboard keys to make choices in menus. Your "F" key will get a serious workout playing Anthem.
Recommendations for BioWare (Gameplay Changes)
- The basic game play is fine, at least conceptually. That said, I do not like the automated matchmaking and forcing of group content on the player. I don't think this will go over well either, especially when some early and standard missions require grouping up for completion. I think this is a mistake of the design. I would like this revamped but this is a big ask from the devs as it seems like a core design element of the game.
- The combat needs tremendous work. I'd go point by point here, but I think I covered it well enough above. I'll just reiterate some of the larger points here. In short I think they need to buff the fuck out of the weapons to remove the bullet sponge feel and work to make the guns feel more satisfying. Right now, none of them do and that's a huge problem. Again, the combat needs to be sped up overall. Movement speeds, time to kill on the weapons, etc.
- For fuck's sake, having to sit there with a warning that says your Javelin can't be repaired (when this is obviously not true) for upwards of ten minutes while your match made random players (who could be window lickers) finish the fight is a stupid, stupid fucking game mechanic / design decision. This should have never made it through QA testing.
- Reduce the flashy visual effects. Visual effects flashes from guarding a cache or even the regular combat are out of control. The shit is a visual overload and not in a good way. I'm sure they thought it was cool looking, but this is the equivalent of painting an 80's Caddy florescent pink and putting neon lights all over it. Its still an ugly, boxy pile of shit. Making it flashy doesn't change that. In this case, it takes away from the game's otherwise excellent visuals.
I'm probably going to get some flak from this, but bear with me. First off, I'm not one of those guys who sees SJW shit everywhere. I don't catch even half the signs of this so many Youtubers and even forum members here see in TV and other games. All I can tell you is what I know of this game's story, BioWare's history with other games and how the SJW influence at BioWare has made its way into Anthem. I'll start by saying it isn't the end of the world and frankly not a huge deal by itself but I do think it negatively impacts the game. With stronger gameplay, it wouldn't be as big a factor. However, the game play needs a lot of work. In games, I want violence, I want story, I want hot women and guys (especially player characters) should look like action stars of the 1980's. I don't want politics or social commentary in my games either unless those politics are intrinsic to the story. Mass Effect has its own politics which are part of the game. However, you aren't mired in bullshit meant to take shots at political ideology of our real world. When you play BioWare games, you expect to see hot women, romances, good stories, cinemetics, set pieces, etc. The characters are over the top and larger than life. That's what makes them memorable. The NPC's are often characters that make you want to stay up all night to kill them (Saren) or in the case of Garrus, have a beer with him if he really existed.
So get ready, Anthem isn't the BioWare experience you've come to expect over the last decade or more. Its nothing like any game it has produced to date.
To understand what Anthem is missing, you have to look at BioWare's history regarding its stories and characters in earlier games. BioWare's stories are not wholly original. When you distill things down far enough, Mass Effect is another man vs. machine story. It explores what it is to be human in a way that matches the best science fiction traditions. At least in the first game anyway. While BioWare doesn't win points for originality, I think they do win in terms of presentation and atmosphere. But what makes their games endearing to fans are the character interactions and character relationships. This is where BioWare has faltered recently as it failed to do what its other titles did with Mass Effect Andromeda. If anything, what I've seen of Anthem is even worse. Your dialog choices are extremely limited and thus far more superficial than usual. Voice acting is on par with Andromeda, rather than ME3. That's not helpful either. Some people have bitched about BioWare having overly sexualized characters, but again its escapism and fantasy. I think that's fine and even a good thing so long as its not overly one sided.
When it comes to atmosphere, the game honestly feels like the Orville vs. Star Trek. Its clearly derivative and makes no apologies for it. This is really evident in the town you start off in as it does resemble parts of the Last City in Destiny. The NPC's even largely dress the same. The combat is largely only different because BioWare didn't implement it very well. If it was less laggy, smoother and less bullet spongy, you'd basically have a more true to form Destiny 2 clone.
Where the SJW shit comes in is the fact that this game (like Andromeda for the most part) has no sexualized characters what so ever. (Andromeda essentially had two and only two. Only one of which dressed provocatively in any way.) Everyone is basically "realistic" and kind of bland and ultimately forgettable. At least, what you can see of them. Evidently, romances aren't part of the experience with Anthem and that's fine. Destiny doesn't have them either, but they've gone so far here as to basically dress women like tow truck drivers or they wear a Burka or Hijab or both. This is why BioWare invited Anna Sarkisian for her "stamp of approval." The game probably doesn't disappoint her. The main reason I bring this up isn't to cry about SJW influences in the traditional sense, but to say that this isn't the BioWare we know and love. Its not the true BioWare story telling experience or role playing experience you are used to seeing. This is a very generic and largely uninspired experience from the character / RPG perspective. Like I said, Destiny doesn't have romances or hot women either, but Bungie doesn't have a history of that outside of Cortana. Its OK for Anthem to be like that, but it isn't BioWare's style. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are known for their relationships, romances and to a degree, their sex scenes. Hell, Star Wars: The Old Republic does relationships well although there aren't really sex scenes given its target market being so broad.
I think BioWare has missed another opportunity to do what it does best. This isn't some "Wokefest", don't get me wrong. However, I think that SJW mentality has fundamentally changed how BioWare operates and I don't think it will ever return to its more recent successes in light of what I'm seeing here. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but if Anthem works, I think you'll see more "Games as a Service" and the traditional single player RPG experience BioWare was so good at will be gone for good. At this point, I'll echo what others have said. I think CDProjekt Red is our only hope for good adult oriented single player RPG's going forward.
As an RPG, I'm not seeing anything worth playing. As a shooter, Anthem largely fails at that too. I see potential here, but right now the game is a slow, glitchy slog fest with dull combat and a bland RPG experience. Granted, I've only played the demo. So perhaps the full game has more to offer, but I have to make purchase decisions based on what I've seen thus far and frankly, I'm not seeing a $60 game here. I wanted this to be a Destiny killer. I wanted this game to be good enough that we'd all throw money at it and keep BioWare alive. At this point, I'm almost certain EA will put BioWare out to pasture with all the other studios its consumed over the years.
Anthem isn't terrible, but I don't think it will be the mega hit that EA/BioWare were hoping for.
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I tend to feel like "realistic" character design is just a way to deflect criticism for bad character design. I have met very few people that look as bland, boring, and utterly forgettable as the characters from media with "realistic" depictions of their characters.
Keep in mind that the flight controls in this demo are apparently not the same as in the current build of the game. Supposedly, it is much more intuitive. I assume this means that the control will center itself when you stop moving your mouse. That's the major issue with it at the moment: if you move your mouse in a direction, you will continue moving in that direction even if you stop moving the mouse. I plugged in a controller for the heck of it, and it is way smoother because your control returns to center when no input is being made.
If the flight controls are different in the retail build then it is really, really, stupid of them to use the old control model here. The demo is an older build of the game, but releasing under a month from launch people are going to take everything gameplay related as being representative of the final build of the game.
I find the flight controls to be fine using kb/m...as I always say with every game where people complain about kb/m- make sure to remap the keys to your liking...I think it just takes some getting used to...all you really need to use are the jump and accelerate keys...everything else as far as flight feels automatic...you do lose control when you're low on fuel but that has nothing to do with the controls itself...I find kb/m fine even with a game like Dark Souls on PC so maybe it's just me
I'm usually a solo gamer but this game is actually fun with randoms as well as friends...although it doesn't seem like a lot of skill is required...just spam your abilities and fire your gun...the cooldown times on the abilities are so fast...only the Ultimate ability takes a bit of time to recharge
What does key mapping have to do with it controlling like ass? Turning feels both too sensitive and not sensitive enough at random points. There are times when making big sweeping moves with the mouse would lead to the character barely turning and others when trying to make smaller moves seemed to send the character off in a completely different direction. There is no consistency to the feel of flight, it seems to lack any real level of control.
I agree that making turns (especially 360 degree turns) does suck but I don't know if that's a product of the controls...I think that's just the nature of the game...there's like 10 or so Mouse sensitivity options in the settings relating to overall movement and flight sensitivity...I changed them all to 100% and now it feels much better...the defaults felt too stiff...the game is probably meant to be played with a controller but that never stopped me before
It has HDR. I had to set the game to fullscreen in order to get it to work.