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ANTHEM - failed Destiny clone from BioWare

Agame

Arcane
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Mar 29, 2015
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I cum from a land down under
Insert Title Here
It would be great if this was another Andromeda level cluster-fuck but sadly I think enough people will be wowed by the general gameplay ie. pew-pew and "muh jetpack mobility", that it will probably do ok. Enough that it gets supported after launch, cos obviously MMOs live and die on frequent content updates.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
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27,816
The life of an MMO can be stretched out veeeeeery thin these days. TOR is still around, for example.
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,925

There's a large roadblock in Anthem's campaign that more or less forces you to spend hours completing in-game challenges (get 50 kills with ult, find 20 treasure chests, rez 3 players, etc) before you can continue and I can't believe this game is what it is.

"That thing that annoyed so many players in Dragon Age Inquisition? Let's do that but make it even wores."

That "large roadblock" takes a few hours at most and you do most of it while playing other quests. Journos gonna journo.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
That "large roadblock" takes a few hours at most and you do most of it while playing other quests. Journos gonna journo.
Making 'chieve hunting mandatory is still incredibly obnoxious.
 

fizzelopeguss

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
811
Location
Equality Street.

There's a large roadblock in Anthem's campaign that more or less forces you to spend hours completing in-game challenges (get 50 kills with ult, find 20 treasure chests, rez 3 players, etc) before you can continue and I can't believe this game is what it is.

"That thing that annoyed so many players in Dragon Age Inquisition? Let's do that but make it even wores."

That "large roadblock" takes a few hours at most and you do most of it while playing other quests. Journos gonna journo.



It's jeff tho, literally he'll use a power ability/ultimate once a week. If it's not a gun he's not interested.
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Holy fuck the level of laziness is off the roof. I just played the third Stronghold mission and it LITERALLY COPIED THE FINAL STORY MISSION, same structure, same enemies placement, same dialogue, same boss fights. The final boss is just as spongey as before and you take like 3x more time to defeat him compared to the other two bosses, but the amount of XP I got from this mission is lower (1650, while Tyrant Mine yielded 2300). The only thing it omitted is two cutscenes at the end.

Great endgame content right there.
 
Last edited:

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,232
Jesus fuck!! I’m gonna have to play through this 100 hour game like 18 times in order to see all the content!
You mean there will be 18 mutually exclusive gay alien party members? And 100 hours of sweaty gay buttsex cutscenes for each?
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,807
What i love the most about Anthem is that people seriously believed that Andromeda was just their B-Tier studio working on it which is why it sucked while all of Bioware real resources and talent went into Anthem and it will be amazing game with amazing graphics etc.

Meanwhile Andromeda looks like actually better game than Anthem in every way lol
Yeah Bioware is going to EA graveyard after Anthem, no wonder heads of studio bailed out.

tenor.gif


Meanwhile dudes who were given literally chair for free on Bioware booth and used their engine to make their first game are about to release game that probably will sell upward of 20mln copies
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Meanwhile dudes who were given literally chair for free on Bioware booth and used their engine to make their first game are about to release game that probably will sell upward of 20mln copies
?
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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Uwotopia
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Meanwhile dudes who were given literally chair for free on Bioware booth and used their engine to make their first game are about to release game that probably will sell upward of 20mln copies
?
CD Projekt RED, Bioware lent them a booth at E3 to promote the first Witcher which used Aurora engine (IIRC). CP2077 is now destined to be a big hit while Bioware spent 5-6 years with... this thing.

I just noticed one more weird thing about this game: quests don't give you any kind of reward whatsoever. After each expedition, you get loot dropped from enemies and XP based on medals you earned. Challenges give coin, XP and weapon blueprints. But missions themselves? They don't seem to give anything upon completion. No XP, no unique weapon or gear, no banner, no cosmetic, no armor piece or anything. Quest entries in journal don't show reward, completing any quest and they disappear, that's it.
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
What i love the most about Anthem is that people seriously believed that Andromeda was just their B-Tier studio working on it which is why it sucked while all of Bioware real resources and talent went into Anthem and it will be amazing game with amazing graphics etc.

Meanwhile Andromeda looks like actually better game than Anthem in every way lol
Yeah Bioware is going to EA graveyard after Anthem, no wonder heads of studio bailed out.

Meanwhile dudes who were given literally chair for free on Bioware booth and used their engine to make their first game are about to release game that probably will sell upward of 20mln copies

No they are both garbage. Anthem doesn't even have a lot of the things that infuriate me in Andromeda in the first place.
They are replaced with other things that are terrible.

But yeah anyone who came with the different team excuse was an idiot, especially since the Andromeda team was on paper not any worse (if better) than your regular Bioware team. Company culture breeds these abominations.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,807
Meanwhile dudes who were given literally chair for free on Bioware booth and used their engine to make their first game are about to release game that probably will sell upward of 20mln copies
?

E3 2004 Bioware booth. Ray gave free chair to them since they were making game on their aurora to promote their game at bioware booth.

BoPidEVIgAE8Wx3.jpg


15 years later Ray and Greg are no longer in Bioware while Bioware itself walking thin line hoping Anthem will sell gangbusters to please their EA overlords and it looks like this will be their last game as Andromeda didn't sell a lot and their supposedly main project Anthem which absolutely doesn't look like poor cashgrab is getting mauled by people and reviews are yet to hit which will basically kill it.
 

Freddie

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Mansion
https://www.pcgamer.com/anthem-review/

If you can't tell, I'm not enjoying my time with Anthem. The combo system is a clever innovation that rewards teamwork and aggressive but smart use of my javelin's abilities, but that's about the only worthwhile thing I like about Anthem aside from it being gorgeous.
So they learned something from ME3 multiplayer. I wonder if that became first or was Anthem originally supposed to be something else.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-02-18-anthem-early-review-flawed

Anthem is fascinating and flawed
Impressions from the first 10 hours of play.

Timing is everything. Anthem comes at the end of a scrabble of releases as the fiscal year ticks over, though it's the most high-profile of the lot; a vast, expensive pivot from a much-loved studio that's been under scrutiny in recent years, it's the epitome of AAA game production. There's loot and there's shooting and there are cosmetic microtransactions and a big day one patch that may well serve to smooth over the many rough edges of a game that's just enjoyed the earliest of its many release dates.

Beneath all that, there's the unmistakable shadow of another game. Even after the first ten hours, Anthem can't shake off comparisons to Destiny: there's the same loose set-up - a small group of elite agents holed up in a fort, teaming up to head out to the beyonds for adventures in pursuit of loot so that they might become more elite yet - and the same gloriously painterly sci-fi aesthetic. There's the same loop of missions that involve an awful lot of shooting, punctuated by downtime in a hub world where much of the story is doled out.

jpg

When you're not looking at loading screens, Anthem can look sublime.

Anthem does have its own personality, though. Its world has character and context, two things that Destiny lacked upon its own launch. Walk the streets of the strangely muted hub of Fort Tarsis and there are snippets of conversation to dip into, characters to chat to and catch up with via lightly branching conversations (where, it's worth pointing out, your choices seem to have no impact on the action, unlike in BioWare's previous games). Here, I understand what's going on, who the key players are and what's at stake - even if none of it is particularly interesting. The backstory has none of the nuance or drive of a Dragon Age or a Mass Effect, but it does have the benefit of clarity.

Beyond the walls of Fort Tarsis things get a little fuzzier, though it's still infused with its own sense of itself. The world you explore is achingly gorgeous, as if the impossible geology of Guilin has been transposed and amplified on some exotic off-world. Caves give out to outcrops and jutting rock-faces, all complete with a sense of verticality that is entirely Anthem's own. Piecing that together are Anthem's Javelins, the suits of armour that act as an analogue for an RPG class system, that you don before you leave Fort Tarsis, and that are gifted with the power of flight.

jpg

The RPG stuff in Fort Tarsis is kept very light and doesn't seem to have much impact - the reminder of BioWare games past might sadden as much as it placates older fans, though.

And what a power it is, told with grace and beauty. Getting around the world of Anthem is just as stirring as taking in its splendorous sights, a jet-boosted jump segueing into gloriously weighted gliding. It makes exploration a pleasure, and reinforces a sense of connection and wonder with your own Javelin - even if they're not the prettiest of creations, their design more B&Q tool-shop than fantastical sci-fi. Still, kitting them out is just as much of a joy, the sense of connection you have with your suit and its loot reinforced by the third-person view employed out in the field.

The act of shooting things is slightly less convincing, though it has a chaos that's charming in its own way. Firefights are explosions of colour, sparks and multi-coloured storms, a difficult-to-parse noise tied together with the idea of combos, borrowed from Mass Effect and boosted to a ludicrous degree here. There's a rhythm to be found in activating the right primers and detonators, and an enjoyable amount of alchemy in team and loadout optimisation to make sure they're at the most effective, and it's there that the heart of Anthem's combat lies. A small shame, then, that its weaponry feels mostly anaemic and, more damingly in a loot-focussed game, anonymous, with the verticality that defines the exploration not convincingly making its way over to the gunplay.

Missions, too, can feel anonymous, with not much by way of variety or imagination - in the first ten hours, at least. Strongholds - longer missions which serve as Anthem's variant on Destiny's Strikes - do provide more of a draw and sustain the multiple playthroughs they're designed for, but there's not quite the spice to enemy design to make it all truly interesting, and if anything it's the moments in-between the fighting, when you're soaring through the air, that provide the main pull.

jpg

Combat is a mess, but an enjoyable one.

Running through all that is the nagging feeling that this is a style of game that's already been played out. Anthem's development began only a couple of years after Bungie began to map out its own shared world shooter, though it feels like it took shape during that heady year when Destiny was the triple-A behemoth that seemed to rule the world, and looked every part the future. Now, well over four years later, the turbulence that seems inevitable as part of a game as a service has ensured that Destiny 2 has been decoupled from Activision and is now an indie, while BioWare is saddled with a style of game that feels deeply unfashionable, especially in light of stablemate Respawn's recent success with the de rigueur battle royale, Apex Legends.

Anthem's cause isn't helped by a litany of bugs and flaws that feel inexcusable for a title that's coming this late to the game. Preferences aren't saved, requiring a trip to the in-game menus on each new play, rewards bug out at the end of punishing missions demanding replays to grab new loot, or sometimes progress simply isn't recognised, putting impossible roadblocks in the way of players. It seems sadly typical of a game on EA's in-house engine Frostbite to launch in such a troubled state, and the defence of the true release date not coming until later this week doesn't wash, putting too much weight on an inbound day one patch to do the impossible.

Yet still beneath all that there is the spark of something in Anthem - a glimmer in its Rocketeer-like jetpacks, or in the dazzle of its chaotic combat. As ever with a game designed to monopolise your free time, Anthem's real merits won't come into focus for weeks, when it becomes clear how quickly EA and BioWare can fight fires while catering to players' demands. Then there's the question of whether BioWare has enough to time to do justice to a fascinating, deeply flawed game.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394

Oh my God, look to the NPCs, it is Mass Effect Andromeda 2.0 but with robots this time and by the looks of it, it doesn't even have different environments like the ice and desert planets and to make matters worse, EA has Apex Legends now, they found their money milking machine, Bioware is redundant now.

R.I.P. Bioware.:lol:
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria

Oh my God, look to the NPCs, it is Mass Effect Andromeda 2.0 but with robots this time and by the looks of it, it doesn't even have different environments like the ice and desert planets and to make matters worse, EA has Apex Legends now, they found their money milking machine, Bioware is redundant now.

R.I.P. Bioware.:lol:

LoL those faces at 10:10 . Why are people not bashing them for having andromeda level of shitty faces???
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
It's kind of baffling to me why EA haven't taken Bioware out the back and put them out of their misery yet. People that might have bought a Bioware game based on brand recognition alone have surely wised up by now that the company is no longer what it once was 10 years ago, let alone 20.
 

RapineDel

Augur
Joined
Jan 11, 2017
Messages
423
You know the game is a true disaster when the only line of defense are posts like this:

"If I sat down and did the same thing for 3 days straight I would get bored quick too. I would argue that $1 per hour played is a great return on investment. Hell, even $2 per hour played is still decent. Rein in your expectations, addicts."

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheG...of_the_entitlement_around_here_needs_to_stop/

:lol:
 

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