Quick Look: Anthem: First Impressions

The game looks worthless, but I think a bunch of Jeff's criticisms were more about him wishing a different game instead of whether what they are offering is good or not.

Comparing this to watching the Mass Effect 2 playthrough (a game I played through 2 or 3 times when it was new), it's shocking how lifeless the NPCs look here.

I did play the free demo weekend, and wasn't very impressed. Seeing this is just firming that impression in my mind. The UI, NPCs, loading screens, mission design and really everything other than the act of flying around seem so poorly done in Anthem. Technically fine, but just shockingly soulless.

I can't wait for Brad to fight for this at Game of The Year

Harsh.

Looks like a Free To Play game in 2019 terms... and it also looks like one I wouldn't play.

Every combat encounter still seems way too easy. I made this criticism of the first gameplay trailer, and have continued to make it every time I see more of it. The various moves you have access to seem really cool, but everything you face seems to die from as little as a stern look, let alone a well executed combo of abilities.

I'm not going to be as harsh as some of the other people are being here, but this definitely doesn't feel like it's up to Bioware Edmonton's standard of quality.

Hrm the conversation format almost reminds me of Oblivion.

Regardless of Jeff's opinion this looks fun. I may pick it up on sale, however.

I'm actually reconsidering getting this game at launch. There are just other games that I want to play, so I'll probably just wait until this game has been out for a little while before I make the purchase.

It's a very weird feeling for a developer to to go from a series that I thought was a little flawed, yet still the best thing to come out of an entire generation of games, to something I could not care less about.

Why does this have to be multiplayer? The whole time Jeff is playing this I find myself asking this question.. the people he is playing with are just an annoyance, and they are playing like playing with him and the rest of the squad is an annoyance.. (Running ahead, triggering dialogue etc etc.) Then you have the cut-scenes where it's just focused on your character, the in combat banter that's just focused on your character.. the multiplayer aspect of this just feels so forced and I feel like the game suffers for it, can you play this thing 100% by yourself?

I feel like these story missions being multiplayer adds absolutely nothing to the experience.. it's so throw away - as Jeff said at one point it bums him out that he can't change gear as he's looting.. this is probably set up this way because of the multiplayer! You can design interesting content around something that is multiplayer, you really can.. but this game just doesn't seem to be doing it.. and that is exactly the vibe I got from the Beta as well.

A lot of us like multiplayer, it adds a lot to the experience.

I would totally play this if it was single player.

Also after playing the daemon x machina demo, that is much more what I want from a game with mechs in it.

This game definitely looks like it has some very glaring issues, but Jeff does himself no favours in the ways he chooses to play these games, or a lot of games really. I've seen him do this in Mass Effect, Kingdoms of Amalur, and pretty much any game he plays. There could be 200 unique and different weapon types, he will choose the standard assault rifle 100% of the time.

He always seems to choose the most stock, barebones class/abilities. If there is a way to just mash X and win, he'll do it. If there are tons of choices between classes in a game, he'll always choose the basic soldier. I kind of understand his "path of least resistance" mentality, but he really ends up screwing himself out of a lot of features, variety and fun in the games he plays.

From my time with the betas I think the shooting is just as good as Mass Effect 3 or Andromeda which I thought had really nice feeling guns. I loved the ability priming and detonating from Mass Effect as well so I'm really looking forward to finally playing the whole thing and having more of that combat since ME Andromeda was a let down and the multiplayer was DOA.

@spindini: or *gasp* maybe he just doesn't like it!

Regarding the voice acting - I didn't mind it as much as Brad and Jeff did, but I do think there's some disconnect happening between the first person view of the models and the theatricality of the acting. I found that occasionally happened in Mass Effect as well, but the third person view somehow helped? I wonder if someone took dialogue from ME or Dragon Age sans visuals and compared it to the dialogue heard in this if there would truly be as big a difference in the performances as they suggest.

Any rate, I'm bummed by this game and what it seems to represent in a larger context.

@doctordonkey: You say, "Jeff, stop playing the boring characters"; I would reply, "Maybe the games should try to avoid having 'boring characters' be a playable option."

Anywho, this looks quite competent, but I (and others, clearly) can't help but think someone at Bioware said, "But we want Destiny's money, tooooo"

This looks exactly like Mass Effect Andromeda with the ability to fly around. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about how similar it is. I put about 80 hours into Andromeda and did not love it. I'm even seeing some UI stuff here that is carried directly over.

Also people saying that they wished this game was single player. Just play Andromeda.

@dasakamov: I absolutely agree, games should avoid having boring, stock classes as a playable option. It's just kinda funny how, when given the option, Jeff will always choose it, even if the other options are much more unique or interesting. That's his prerogative, of course. Just an observation.

It targets 30fps on consoles, but it's not particularly stable. I played a bit earlier tonight on the One X and it's better than the demo a few weeks ago, but it still drops frames pretty often, and runs at less than 30 in town pretty much all the time. There's a scene early on where you have to shut down a glowing portal thing and it drops into what looks like the low 20s there.

Early reports out of the PC version don't sound great either. I have a R7 1700 and a GTX1070 and it sounds like I'll be lucky to hit 1080p/60. I'm still debating paying $20 to get a month of Origin Access to try it out.

I'm loving all the Jeff and Brad QLs, but it's just a damn shame these games are all turning out to be massive bummers. And it sounds like that same lack of enthusiasm will be present for The Division 2 QL. And if Jeff has to cover Days Gone - a game I'm not even excited for and I fucking love zombies - I think we all know how that'll turn out.

It's a real inauspicious start to the year, that's for sure. I'm anticipating an indie-heavy GotY list for 2019.

I'm confused as to what "First Impressions," title is now.

I hate to say this because I love the guys, but this seems like an utterly pointless QL. 1 hour into the game? Everyone who is interested has seen that stuff in the demo. Why not play more and show some new content? What mission types are there? How substantial are they? How to the items you get evolve? How many different types are there?

I don't love this game neither do I hate it ... I played the Demo and it seemed fun enough to play with friends if there is enough content. This does nothing to answer that question :(

@2headedninja: Jeff said on twitter there would be another video coming next week.

If I want to play this as a singleplayer game can I do that? And is it fun?

Jeff and Brad sound like burnt-out MMORPG players at the start of 2010, taking note of every familiar system and gameplay element and already looking ahead at what the endgame loop is because the patterns look all the same.

Yeah, Anthem doesn't add a whole lot to the formula, if you're done with this type of game then you're simply done with it. It's a good game in it's own right but if you've spent enough time in Destiny or Warframe I can't see this game enticing someone to step back into those same routines.

@cjduke said:

Access premier does work like Game Pass (as long as you remain a subscriber you get the full top priced edition of each game). If you play a sports game (Madden/Fifa/etc,) each year and are interested in another couple of EA games, it's definitely worth it.

Having said that, even for free (with my subscription) I doubt I'll put a lot of time into Anthem. It's so dull and the shooting/action isn't close to what Destiny has going.

How can Brad be surprised Jeff chose Ranger? He plays Ryu in Street Fighter; he chooses sword and board warriors in RPGs, he only uses automatic 30 round mag assault rifles and aims down sights WAY too much in competitive FPS games. He is the ultimate vanilla. I can't imagine him as anything other than the Ranger. To pick otherwise might actually be exciting and introduce cool gameplay mechanics. No!!!!!! That is the anti-Jeff.

Why is this just a QL of the first hour of the game? it's exactly the same as the beta. Put some more time into doing these QL's, please.

Also, you can see that this is not a game for Jeff, he hates everything except COD and Titanfall.

Jeff picked the worst possible choice for his first suit. The Ranger suit has much more focus on shooting then the other suits. Ranger has slower ability cooldowns then the others. It's abilities do really good damage but the slower cooldowns mean that you are shooting much more often then the Storm or Interceptor. I played the most with Interceptor and almost never use my guns.

I would agree that the shooting is not great when compared to Destiny, but I would say it's on par with The Division 2 beta. This game is all about the abilities and mobility options. The Storm has the coolest abilities, Interceptor is the most mobile (and the suit that Jeff would probably like most). The Colossus was the weakest suit in the demos and its lack of mobility make it a hard recommendation. The Ranger is effective but not really that fun.

The menus are confusing at first, but once you get use to their idiosyncrasies you will be whipping through them with no problem. They are much better in the launch version of the game then they were in the demo. In fact, I would say most of the issues in the demo have been fixed or at least lessened.

This game make a bad first impression. It takes a while to get used to the flying and combat loops. It takes a while to find the guns you actually like (for me it is the marksmen rifles and snipers, but i'm on mouse and keyboard). It took me about 6 hours of playing the demo for it to click with me. I am a long time Destiny player and this game is definitely not as instantly playable as that. But once it clicked for me, it's great. I have played a few hours of the launch version but I played 37 hours over the two demo weekends.

I'm level 15 after a few hours and this game is so much better than the closed alpha and the VIP demo. The closed alpha was kind of the same as the early game where you do the first couple of missions but it skips farther in as well so there wasn't any continuity. The flying was hoooo boy, you would hit a wall the second you hit the button to go into flight and also there was so many issues with the shooting with the sound cutting out etc. The flying in the retail product is 50000% improved and you can actually move pretty deftly with dives and such and continue your flight if you use water or fly above it.

After a few hours in besides the game just being "weird" in the sense that they do so many odd things as play a cutscene in the middle of a mission, and just the way the game is laid out having to force you to walk around from place to place for "immersion" is just so many odd design decisions. I still have no clue where I am in the story, or even if I am playing the game right ... even on hard it seems way too easy though and you get about 75% of a level every mission.

Game is really good, and is exceeding expectations especially to how lackluster the previous demos and closed alpha was. They really listened and made some great changes, but I still am not sure what the hell is going on with the structure of the missions lol.

There is absolutely 0 reason you should be forced to walk through Fort Tarsis. Give us a damn segway or something as a rare drop! Even a microtransaction to walk faster in Tarsis would sell like hot cakes.

I just don't get 'modern' games I think. Games like Destiny and Anthem couldn't look more boring to me. It just doesn't look fun at all. The soul of this game feels so cold and corporate.

I feel like they really do this game a massive disservice by putting together a video after only a single hour of playing. It's painfully obvious from Jeff's lack of actually using his abilities that he doesn't really know how the game is meant to be played (and, to be fair, this is also partially the game's fault with bad onboarding). But I guess that's why they called it "first impressions".

That being said, Jeff comes across as more grouchy about this game than even usual, and it's definitely going to be one of those games that I feel like won't get a fair shake because of whatever personal tastes or moods happen to prevail at GBWest.

Ah shit you're right. I didnt' scroll through enough of the DLC to see that. I assumed based on other things I had seen. There is still no way to play The Sims 4 in its entirety without needing a second job it seems.

I think this is going to be a Nintendo year. Mario Maker 2, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Links Awakening, Luigi's Mansion etc etc

The Banter in these games from characters, it's so much and it's driving me nuts already. For some reason I can't seem to care about any story stuff too, much like Destiny. It's all just white noise.

These shooter games are fine on it's own but I guess I prefer if they're just that, I would love if Anthem was just Hell divers but in this style or Monster Hunter in Robots. I don't need story, just let me team up and shoot stuff while getting better gear.

Finished the video since writing this post. The first (and only) time he uses his ultimate is 1 minute before the end of the video.

Yah not to be a negative ninny but as a bit of constructive criticism this coverage could have been handled better. Since they already had a first look type of video I would have liked to see what this game looks like 6-8 hours in or something.

Yo this game looks bad

@alternate: Theseus' Broom

@doncabesa: Odd that you say that Jeff wouldn't like it anyway because he wants it to be a shooter. My entire issue with it is that everything I've seen makes it seem like all it does is focus on the shooting. The story certainly seems nigh-nonexistent... The only thing that seems to make it stand out from being literally just another shooter is the flying, which doesn't seem like a novelty that could sustain a long game.

Seems like a perfectly fine game from a developer that should be capable of more in a genre that has seen its share of fumbles.

The demo/beta was fine, but nothing inspiring, like Jeff said, the fort area feels so empty and pointless, the story, like Destiny, throws around random words that try to make it sound epic, but it just comes off as lame and pretentious.

I heard the real meat of the game was the different javelin abilities and the way they interact with each other via combos which does sound interesting. At that point though, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to scrap gunplay completely and solely focus on differentiating the javelins, like making one melee only with armor buffs and aggro management, hell, throw in a healer spec for the mage javelin, etc.

Also, hilarious how EA shoot themselves in the foot again by releasing Apex Legends 2 weeks before their big 2019 release.

Ooof, this looks like more of what was bad about release Destiny 1.

I'm glad I'm watching a video of this so I can skip the load times between literally every menu selection

The pauldrons on the villain in the thumbnail are so big that I thought they were two people.

pls can someone put shadows inside these mouths

So Jeff and Brad were trying to articulate why the tone of the NPCs, who are supposed to be encouraging you to get into the fight, seems so fake. As Brad says, it's like they turn to the camera to say "go get 'em, tiger."

But they couldn't quite put their finger on why it feels so fake. Jeff mentioned the feeling of a first-person sequence in a movie and having a character talk to the audience... and then it clicked with me. It feels like a theme park attraction!

The idea that they feel like actors in some sort of immersive theater is right. It's that feeling of a performance being put on "just for you" that jumps you into the action because there's no time to build up the premise. It's the same feeling you get on Transformers: The Ride 3D when Optimus Prime talks directly to your ride vehicle.

It's intended to make you feel like you're already a participant in the world and that your presence (as the player or audience) isn't unusual for those around you. The fact that it's in first-person makes it the writing feel more stilted if they don't already feel presence in the world. It's the same problem FMV games had because the fact that it's filmed makes us aware of the camera the actors are talking to.