Post Release Reviews of Anthem are Still Mixed

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
Staff member
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Messages
1,713
Anthem had a rather complicated release schedule, so complicated that EA had to publish a 4 by 5 chart just to let players figure out when they can play the game. But as of February 22nd, Anthem is out for pretty much everyone, and the gaming press has had a whole weekend and a few weekdays to digest Bioware's latest RPG. While a "day one" patch has addressed many of the issues earlier reviewers had with the game, it seems that other still aren't satisfied with with the title's core features. IGN's review, for example, says that "Only during two major plot developments during the approximately 15-hour storyline do the things being discussed here appear to have actual consequence beyond the gates of Fort Tarsis, pairing unique mission gameplay with story elements in a meaningful way - even though there are no meaningful decisions to be made that affect outside gameplay." This stands in stark contrasts to Bioware's previous titles, and seems to get in the way of the story aspects Bioware tried to insert into the multiplayer action. Combat is generally a positive point, as it was in Andromeda and Mass Effect 3, but overall I get the impression that the core combat loop feels grinder and less diverse than it did in previous games. The "repeating waves of enemies" The Guardian mentioned in their review are reminiscent of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode, but I've seen more than one journalist draw unfavorable comparisons to the WoW-like repetition of Star Wars: the Old Republic.

Anthem has been built to serve its audience long-term, so it is probable that the game will improve in the coming months. An exhaustive list of technical hitches are due to be fixed imminently, for instance. But even where it is strongest, Anthem rarely stretches beyond the derivative. The combat, while well-designed, is little more than Gears of War with jetpacks, and narratively it veers between inconsequential and downright irritating. This anthem is, sadly, a tedious and conservative dirge that we've all heard before.

After the commercial failure of Mass Effect: Andromeda, many view Anthem as one of Bioware's last chances to keep the themselves afloat, but the studio does seem committed to the long-term support of the game. Thanks to gamesindustry.biz for the helpful review roundup.
 
It's a Welding Torch what do you expect?

blue-lit-mig-welder-close-17363933.jpg
 
Is anyone else tired of giving developers money ahead of time so that they can create a meaningful experience LATER? Destiny, Destiny 2, The Division, and now Anthem all suffer from the same shit. "Invest in our game now and you'll be rewarded later." This sort of games-as-a-service model is getting old and is only fit as a "Early Access" title at most. While Destiny and Division did become really fun later in their lives... I am not prepared to invest in this sort of game model. Release a full and fun game and you'll get my money, but don't ask me to finance your pet projects.
 
Is anyone else tired of giving developers money ahead of time so that they can create a meaningful experience LATER? Destiny, Destiny 2, The Division, and now Anthem all suffer from the same shit. "Invest in our game now and you'll be rewarded later." This sort of games-as-a-service model is getting old and is only fit as a "Early Access" title at most. While Destiny and Division did become really fun later in their lives... I am not prepared to invest in this sort of game model. Release a full and fun game and you'll get my money, but don't ask me to finance your pet projects.
This is one of the main reasons i don't pre-order games anymore. In extreme rare cases i pre-order but 95% of the time i wait either until i see what its like after launch or after it hits the sales. To many games have serious flaws from the start.
 
Well I see their point, the combat mechanics alone keep me coming back to it, it is just fun and it doesn't feel repetitive, I mean it is but the random quest location points give it enough variance to the terrain and such that it keeps it interesting. The real game starts once you can start playing it on DM modes. That's when it gets interesting, so yeah there isn't a lot there at this point but the guys and I are liking it to kill a few hours after we get the kids to bed.
 
I'm torn on this one. On one hand, I enjoy good combat mechanics, and don't need a great story to enjoy a game. On the other, I need a core gameplay loop that will keep me coming back. Warframe was a game I dumped 300 hours into without even realizing it, and it's basically the same missions again and again, but each and every gun and frame feels entirely different from the last one, keeping the game feeling fairly fresh, even with recycled map tiles and basic enemy archetypes.

I'm also in the same boat zamardii is in. I'm tired of launch-half-a-game then hope it gets better afterwards. Not to mention, this is EA we're talking about. If Anthem doesn't reach their "6 million sales in 6 weeks" mark, there's a solid chance Bioware will join Visceral and Bioware Montreal, leaving Anthem in whatever state it happened to be in at the time, permanently. Then we're stuck with Destiny at launch, but never getting better.
 
ANTHEM's action is great but the RPG portion of it kills me. I can't stand any of the characters, including my own, in the game except for the main villain. Most of the male characters sound like low testosterone Google employees who never shot a gun in their life.
 
I got it free as a bundle with my RTX card. It's ok, never played an open world game before, so it's interesting for the time being.
 
Complete train wreck with no end game at all. I don't want stuff 2-3 months from now, it should have been included with the game. I've got no reason left to play, i'm not grinding for low odd shitty legendary's at this point when I've got a MasterWork Javelin in 9 days playing 2-3 hours a day average.
 
The loading time is MUCH better though. Dunno about endgame yet but I do have fun feeling like iron man lol.
 
The game is rather crap. I have a component that literally says "increases damage by 0". Apparently they thought the component was too good so they just removed the buff it gave. We are gear locked due to no mastercraft for support abilities. map rubberbanding is still massively a pain. load times are still terrible considering how many different loading situations exist. Overall, it looks nice, but it's a HFFA thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mkk
like this
The loading time is MUCH better though. Dunno about endgame yet but I do have fun feeling like iron man lol.

Should we be praising ANY game for improving loading times at this point?! It is 2019 and loading times have been a thing for 25 years. Honestly...
 
Should we be praising ANY game for improving loading times at this point?! It is 2019 and loading times have been a thing for 25 years. Honestly...

Not sure why you wouldn't be happy that loading times get improved. Yes they shouldn't have been bad but still.
 
Here's the problem with games like Anthem.... you get the game.. (buy or free.) install it. Try it. Realize it's a shitty reskinned marvel game. Try to return it... oh wait you can't. And you can't resell it or give it away. you are well and truly screwed. That money you spent is long gone.
 
Other than it being a different game, has 6 years of updating behind it, and a 3rd of the size, what does that have to do with anything?

Everything. If I design a game, I'm going to design it off of the successes of other games. They even contacted the dev to ask them what worked for them. Anthem is lazy ass programming that's been ongoing even before Andromeda was developed. I'm not going to cheer a company that reduced load times when they have WAY too many load screens already. They finally did what they were supposed to.
 
Last edited:
Everything. If I design a game, I'm going to design it off of the successes of other games. They even contacted the dev to ask them what worked for them. Anthem is lazy ass programming that's been ongoing even before Andromeda was developed. I'm not going to cheer a company that has WAY too many load screens when they reduce the load times. They finally did what they were supposed to.
^
^
THis

No excuses should ever be made for a game that has a precedence of past successful games. That, and lessons learned by its peers to KNOW what NOT to do.

When you praise someone / something for fixing its failings, you are just being an apologist.
 
Everything. If I design a game, I'm going to design it off of the successes of other games. They even contacted the dev to ask them what worked for them. Anthem is lazy ass programming that's been ongoing even before Andromeda was developed. I'm not going to cheer a company that has WAY too many load screens when they reduce the load times. They finally did what they were supposed to.

Agreed.

i didn't enjoy warframe when it came out, haven't tried it lately so I can't really compare what it is now so I dont know. My closest reference point was destiny and other than there is too much pointless walking in 'town' it seemed pretty similar.

I guess my only issue I personally had was a long load time, and a few days later it was fixed so I guess I don't see the need to throw it in the trash over that.

Life is how you react to things.
 
Bioware has had a LOT of time to develop Anthem, dev started in 2012. They had the benefit of seeing borderlands, the division 1 and destiny 1 and 2 launch before anthem was anywhere near launch. They got to see what worked and what didn't. and they still released a game that was less than any of the predecessors.

What it seems like to me is they built the game and all of the future content as a complete game, then stripped out a lot of it to release a paired down version, then they will provide the content they took out as the DLC.

I keep trying it, but between the random disconnects, the excessive load times (even when running on an SSD) the lack of content, the story (if you can call it that), the weapons being essentially all the same model, the repetitive missions it makes it harder to want to load it up. Yes flying is cool, the game world looks amazing until you realize its just the same thing over and over again.

Anthem is a looter shooter and the loot is uninspiring. Part of the draw to these games is chasing cool loot. I've spent hours upon hours grinding for a specific weapon in destiny 2 not because its best in game but because it looks freaking cool. If every auto rifle or pulse rifle looked like the same model with a different paint job I wouldnt bother with hunting them down, but thats what they did in Anthem.
 
Everything. If I design a game, I'm going to design it off of the successes of other games. They even contacted the dev to ask them what worked for them. Anthem is lazy ass programming that's been ongoing even before Andromeda was developed. I'm not going to cheer a company that reduced load times when they have WAY too many load screens already. They finally did what they were supposed to.
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?
 
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?

Have you actually played Anthem? The youtubers are 100% right on this one.
 
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?

IMG_20140403_155215-1024x576.jpg
 
eh anthem has kept me engaged and coming back for more since the 22nd the issues arnt that huge of a deal breaker annoyance maybe but life it to short to worry about those thing
 
eh anthem has kept me engaged and coming back for more since the 22nd the issues arnt that huge of a deal breaker annoyance maybe but life it to short to worry about those thing
So absolutely no endgame is a annoyance?
 
Have you actually played Anthem? The youtubers are 100% right on this one.
It depends on your POV. If the marketing is not wank I spent 60 bucks on a title I can play casually to blow off steam with friends.
Anthem is actually a pretty good casual title. It's a terrible hardcore title I'll admit.. but I don't think that was its intended audience.
 
It depends on your POV. If the marketing is not wank I spent 60 bucks on a title I can play casually to blow off steam with friends.
Anthem is actually a pretty good casual title. It's a terrible hardcore title I'll admit.. but I don't think that was its intended audience.

I don't think its either honestly. Its got a serious bs grind attached to it now, with no real rewards.
 
Really, the levels in the game only gated access to certain armor slots which was stupid. It never felt like my pilot actually got any damn better, I just had to keep fighting to level so I could add more crap to my armor. The Crafting system is sub optimal in the sense that it's a total crapshoot to get anything meaningful in the game. Once you hit Epic gear, and the fact that you can't even make the damn gear unless you do a bunch of endlessly grinding missions in order to unlock the ability to craft anything with any level of meaning... IDK. I have been running Tier One Grand Master runs for 2-3 days now and it's pretty bad. Some people never even got any good items... Literally something is broken there. I have gotten the same damn grenades and rockets over and over again for the entire time in Grand Master.

The trick might be in picking up items with a "Luck" bonus for getting more... However, the end game is all about grinding away endlessly on the same damn mission over and over and over again for the chance to get a Masterwork or Legendary item. A lot of them barely make a difference. Jesus, I just picked up a pistol that's better than damn near any other gun I found in the game as long as I'm hovering, delivering over 2000 points per shot. However, it only took me 16 Dungeon runs to get it... At Grand Master 1 the "raids" might take an hour. Which is counter to the whole statement that the missions were supposed to be completed in a leisurely 30 min (it's possible if you have people with Legendary stuff on your team). I had the misfortune of attempting a Grand Master Tier 2 last night. AI doesn't get smarter, they just add more of them and they become bullet sponges to the point that you constantly run out of all your ammo with not enough dropping so you're only triggering powers and using close combat physical attacks and running for your life. I'm sitting around power level 440 or something and I can't even imagine how long it will take me to get to 475 where you're supposed to be for GM2 runs. The GM2 run I did was all heavy hitters and they were all damn good, but the reward was stupid... I got 4 items of masterwork quality that were 2 of one thing and 2 of another... You can scrap them but I don't know when the hell I will ever be able to build Masterwork items, I have enough parts to make 3-5 of them at this point. If I could...

The story was incredibly short gated by some stupid challenge quests "Kill this amount of guys, use these powers "X" amount of times, heal "X" friends, etc" It would have been over with and done in 10 hours or less otherwise. Then the end game mission crashed on completion and I got nothing from it. I had to grind my gear up manually afterward to even remain competitive. After something like 50+ hours in, it's a good time suck but it's getting frustrating and boring as shit running the same damn missions over and over again. Yeah, the contracts are there and so is free play but I think I've already flown over the entire map and discovered most of the random stuff and soloed a ton of the dungeons myself already.

I am wearing out, can't craft Epic gear (save for a pair of guns and some grenades at this point) and it doesn't matter because it's no longer good enough to progress forward with. Would have been nice if you found the shit necessary early (which I did) and could have used it at lower levels. Epic Gear seems to max out at tier 36, my Rares at 34 (for crafting) and Epic loot drops are utterly worthless as I'm all loaded up. Only Legendaries matter and I keep getting repeat shit. I have 2 legendary items equipped, 1 masterwork weapon & 1 Epic (with a luck bonus and I never use it otherwise) equipped, a masterwork rocket and keep getting the same damn stuff over and over again and converting it to salvage. With no ability to use the salvage... it's all about the grind. The store sucks, nothing worth buying in there other than emotes or paint or new clothes. Haven't spent more than what coin I get from the game but this game is ultimately a hollow title that has been in development forever and it still makes me sick that it feels damn near like Andromeda minus the ability to take cover and you can fly. Even the flight mechanic seems to have been partially ported from Andromeda (the hovering and jumping). They should have just released a damn Mass Effect game. At least all the guns in that game had a feel and purpose, these guns are all the same until you get to Masterwork/Legendary items. Even then they're based off the same lame ass guns they are upgrades of. Not even sure what the hell the purpose of having an Assault Rifle is when the Light Machine Guns are essentially better versions of the Assault rifles with more ammo... The Shotguns are utterly worthless... They are, perhaps, the worst possible gun you can use in the game. What's actually sad is that in one year Andromeda released from a broken mess to a mocked facial animation ridicule ordeal... But it had a better story (I know, that's pretty sad) and more game story time. Not that your decisions meant anything, but they at least seemed like it.

Bioware is dead, EA is all there is and I'm guessing that the odds of seeing another Mass Effect/Dragon Age game might very well disappear if this beautiful (it is graphically so) piece of broken shit is any indication. I encounter bugs constantly, every time I play.
 
Last edited:
I find the comparison to SWTOR by The One reviewer laughable.

SWTOR had a major overhaul and now the entire game can be played by just playing the stories. It's not really all that repetitive anymore.

Trust me, it's far from great, but at the same time at least they eventually figure some things out. I don't know if I have any such faith for anthem.
 
It has tons of flaws, but the gameplay keeps me coming back. I did a grandmaster 2 run of a legendary contract, last night. The hardest fight I've had in the game, so far. Probably revived my teammates 10-15 times, putting it all on the line for a few of them. Took out a Luminary with hordes of enforcers, scouts, etc. I think that one battle lasted over an hour. Very fun, like a single part of a destiny raid.

What was the reward for that entire mission? A single masterwork item. And a bunch of trash. Loot has been nerfed so badly, I may never run grandmaster 2 again until I hear it's been changed. Better to easily generate tons of loot in GM1 and hope for a legendary there.
 
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.
 
It has tons of flaws, but the gameplay keeps me coming back. I did a grandmaster 2 run of a legendary contract, last night. The hardest fight I've had in the game, so far. Probably revived my teammates 10-15 times, putting it all on the line for a few of them. Took out a Luminary with hordes of enforcers, scouts, etc. I think that one battle lasted over an hour. Very fun, like a single part of a destiny raid.

What was the reward for that entire mission? A single masterwork item. And a bunch of trash. Loot has been nerfed so badly, I may never run grandmaster 2 again until I hear it's been changed. Better to easily generate tons of loot in GM1 and hope for a legendary there.

Thats one reason I've given up on the grind. They've nerfed the loot so bad in a loot shooter there's just no point in it.
 
Back
Top