Unfinished: Anthem (01/24/2019)

This game just seems soulless to me. It's a very EA 2019 sorta game. It's just way too like Destiny and the world looks pretty but also quite dull.

I don't know this game is just doing nothing for me at all.

i wonder if any mass effect / dragon age fan will like this

@hassun: agreed

i've been inspired by mass alex to replay the entire ME series and i blew through everything until andromeda. It has a lot of issues- the story is weird, there are weird save points (i've had to go back to earlier saves a couple of times because the difficulty is just out of control) deciding to return to the ME 1 idea of endless driving to do stupid fetch quests is kind of boggling in light of ME2 and 3 wisely abandoning that and the whole vault system is bad and unfun.

but that said, the hover, jump and just general movement/combat abilities in that game are incredibly fun and this looks like it builds on it in a lot of ways. if it can provide that moment to moment action in a way that matches i think i'd be on board- even if some of the story and window dressing isn't up to old school ME standards

Man, at 26 minutes in when Brad stars meleeing, the enemy just kinda stands there and doesn't react. Overall this unfortunately looks super bland, but that stood out as extra boring. Like, the bad guy didn't even care to be there.

Looks like a game that would be exciting 4-5 years ago.

Yep. Just looks like a boring Destiny clone.

Good bye Bioware :'(

Bummer. Bioware's older games are some of my all time favorites (ME trilogy, DA:O, KotOR etc) but this looks incredibly dull and soulless... I was disappointed by Inquisition and Andromeda and this Destiny clone looks to continue the downward trend.

this looks like the end of bioware...

Moving away from writing probably suits their poor skill at it, IMO.

Speaking of which, all I want to know is: did they ditch the terribly written and often sketchy romance plots for every NPC in sight?

Go back to ME1 and tell me Liara and Tali aren't both way too 'little sister' for a healthy romance plot. In Dragon Age you get to explore the sensitive side of your genocidal boyfriend.

I know this, and their love of skintight suits, sell and are their trademark...

But I'm tired of thinking "gross" every time I hear 'Bioware'.

It's so weird to me that Bioware made a Destiny clone without the one thing they're exceptionally good at: a compelling story. If they had made Destiny, but with a Mass Effect level story, it would have set the world on fire.

@jeffgoldblum: After watching Mass Alex and remember how good the original Mass Effect was, it struck me that BioWare arguably hasn't actually written a good story in years:

• Dragon Age 2 could never settle on who its villain was.
• Mass Effect 3 was . . . well, yeah.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition never met a fantasy cliche it wouldn't say yes to.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda felt like it was written by a bunch of Freshman Comp students who really, really like Joss Whedon.
• From what (admittedly little) I've seen, Anthem's story just looks like Destiny with different proper nouns: Light --> Anthem of Creation, Guardian --> Freelancer, The Last City --> Fort Tarsis, The Fallen --> The Scar.

Honestly the last BioWare game I can remember where I really felt compelled by the story and characters was Dragon Age Origins and that was what, almost 10 years ago now?

@mathey: completely agree. I don’t know why studios like Bethesda and BioWare are basically producing games that remove the part that fans loved about their old work. I never went to Mass Effect or Fallout for the combat.

played about two hours on pc.

I hope it's because of the older build but holy shit this game is badly optimized. I hope it's better at launch.

Gameplay is kind of bland so far, it's allready so repetitive. Fly there, shoot some stuff and interact with an object or hear some dialogue. Go back to fort tarsis and rinse repeat.

Fort tarsis itself couldn't be more boring, it's so devoid of any life. You just have the sense the npc's are put there as props, they just stand there. Also i hope they increase the movement speed while there, it's such a slog to navigate that place. It should be alot snappier to get around.

The javelins themselves are ok i guess, the combat seems a copy paste from ME:A, wich is fine. The ai seems pretty basic and dumb tough, they just soak up your bullets and then fall over and die. The shooting is fine but nothing more. Flying around like iron man looks pretty cool, but combat doesn't seem to take advantage of the mobility of your character.

To me it just feels like a poor man's attempt at a destiny clone. It feels very devoid of any kind of soul or it's own identity. D2 has it's issues, but the core gameplay is so satisfying and fun. Anthem just feels bland in every way to me.

Kind of bummed out actually.

Whatever else Anthem may or may not bring to the table it certinly has some great looking explosions.

I hope it does well for Bioware’s sake.

I keep going back and forth on this game. There are moments when it just looks boring and generic and then there are times when it kind of looks... okay? The flying mechanic seems neat at least. I want to try one of these loot shooter types of games and I feel like I missed the boat with Destiny.

@morningcoffee: This is actually arguably one of the better times to get into Destiny 2, because at least on Amazon you can find a package with all the expansions + forsaken for well under $60. Even putting the endgame/PvP/gambit aside, that's a lot of campaign content, satisfying combat, and pretty skyboxes to dig into.

Looks like The Division with mechs, in turns of gameplay loop. Navigate to waypoint in the open world, shoot everything, hear some voice say some stuff in your ear, get color-coded guns and shit. It is easy to see how Bioware/Mass Effect fans would be disappointed by what this appears to be.

@tds418: Unfortunately I'd have to get it digitally because I play on PC and don't have an optical drive. Thanks for the heads up, though.

Woof. This seems like a very 6,5/10 kind of attempt at a GaaS lootshooter. But i will say that the flying & bigger focus on abilities could set it apart a bit from Destiny. While that's not too innovative, i can still see a lot of people enjoy to blow up a bunch of dudes in their firey / icey balls of doom and get stuff out of that. It's not innovative, but it has served us for a long time in gaming. But at the same time i can see people turn on this game and just keep playing their warframes & destinies instead. Sadly nothing about this makes me excited for the game.

This looks like it was conceived around the time Destiny 1 was picking up steam. If this is "another one of those", Bioware might be in trouble.

The flying and stuff looks really fun - I'd be interested in a single player structured game with these type of mechanics, but feel no need for another loot game in my life.

BRAD!

I think I might rather just try playing Mass Effect: Andromeda instead of this. This just looks very underwhelming sadly.

Brad is gonna push for this to be #2 on GOTY because it has a loot treadmill, isn't he.

Remember the time that you shot a guy and numbers start popping off? In Borderlands? 10 years ago?

Man, the combat seems kind of boring. I'm super biased, since I'm a big Warframe fan, but compared to that this game just seems very static. Another thing that bothers me is the disconnect between the different kinds of movement. When you have a game like WF where the movement is so kinetic and integral to gameplay, it seems clunky to switch back and forth between flying and regular third-person walking around.

Man, the combat seems kind of boring. I'm super biased, since I'm a big Warframe fan, but compared to that this game just seems very static. Another thing that bothers me is the disconnect between the different kinds of movement. When you have a game like WF where the movement is so kinetic and integral to gameplay, it seems clunky to switch back and forth between flying and regular third-person walking around.