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Anthem Review Thread
- Thread starter Earvin Infinity
- Start date
Sure, let's blame the publisher for giving developers more time to get their shit together, how evil....
Exactly, the game worked at launch and the campaign is actually good. The end game was crap though, at the start anyway.
I don't see how it's confusing. To use a terrible analogy, lets say a game is a bucket, a good game is a full bucket, a game lacking content e.g. Destiny 2 is an empty bucket but an empty bucket can be filled, a game with tons of bugs and fundamental design problems is a broken bucket e.g. Anthem. Or terrible analogy aside, its a lot easier to add content then it is to fix fundamental issues. The problems with Anthem are not the problems that Destiny 2 had. I suppose you're confused because you don't see that.
Just handed in my (Dutch) review after checking out the latest patch.
I'm really torn on this game, the mechanics are great, but there's just so much dragging it down.
I hope they manage to support it better than some other EA products in recent times, and we end up with a game that lives up to the potential that is clearly showing underneath.
I'm really torn on this game, the mechanics are great, but there's just so much dragging it down.
I hope they manage to support it better than some other EA products in recent times, and we end up with a game that lives up to the potential that is clearly showing underneath.
Just wanted to co-sign: something on the order of 80% of people who purchase things online when surveyed said that they used reviews to help inform and make a purchasing decisions. There is no way the younger, more technologically-inclined generation that plays games isn't somewhere in the 90% range.
And we've already seen demonstrable evidence of low scoring affecting sales.
Oh everyone does. People who are suggesting that these frequent load times are no big deal are lying to themselves. It's not even completely about the length of the loading screens; it's the immersion-breaking frequency and how they sometimes appear out of seemingly nowhere. If I'm in a groove and my play is interrupted for 20-30 seconds multiple times I'm going to be irritated.
Maybe this strategy of forcing every developer to use frostbite isn't working so well after all...
I have read about the horrible loadtimes as well. Is the Frostbite Engine the problem here ? Or the way it was programmed?
Even if you have a fast SSD, you compare the game with the experience of other games. If other games load times are usually 10-20 seconds thanks to your expensive m.2 SSD, and Anthem needs 45 seconds, it still will feel as too long, because you have been accostumed to 10-20 seconds as the 'new normal'. It isn't relevant if in console they need 2 minutes and only 45 seconds sound super short for them. Different prices, different standards.
According to posters here who have worked for EA (verified) in the past, Frostbite is pretty good in terms of tools and shared assets thanks to all the internal teams. Sounds like almost purely a Bioware issue if that is the case. That isn't to say, however, that Frostbite itself might not be partially to blame. Issues like loading screens specifically. It's just hard to say right now. But the core and fundamental design issues from the gameplay loops all the way down to the menu design make me think the problem was Bioware.
I can't think of a single console game -- certainly not a looter game -- that asks console players to wait longer than 20-25 seconds to load up a map or level. That's probably the highest end of the loading threshold. Anthem is trying to break new ground here in the wrong direction.
The Digital Foundry analysis is going to be brutal.
I guess that's correct - though I actually enjoyed the gameplay loop of the Anthem demo a lot. Probably put in 10 hours of it during the two weekends. I enjoyed it probably about equal to Destiny 2 which I also enjoyed a lot. I suppose my main issue is after playing the demo of Anthem and Destiny 2 I personally think they both are flawed but fun experiences.
But have you tried them tho? You can't comment until you've literally had to leave 10 because no one fills empty slots.
This game is the best advertisement for Destiny I've ever seen.
Please ignore posters like this:
You won't know unless you try, but it does depend on the platform and how much risk you're willing to take with the money.
Plenty of people like this game a lot despite its flaws, so don't just listen to the doom sayers. These kinds of people were the ones doing the exact same thing when Destiny dropped, and those of us who enjoyed that game did so despite all the constant negativity.
The game is flawed, but almost all of it has the potential to be fixed over time. All story DLC will be free, too, so you're not just getting this for your money. It really depends if you're willing to risk not liking it, or bet on the future.
For me, I'm enjoying it a lot.... for now. And I don't think the sotry is anywhere near as bad as many make it out to be, it's just coming from a pedigree that has expectations higher than usual, but as a "gameplay first" person too with looter shooter games, there's enough here to keep me happy while I wait and see what BioWare do...
Of course, they could completely fuck this up as the months go on.... and there is a lot to be said about support devs who do this (drop a GaaS in a bad state knowing they can fix as they run), but I'm willing to give BioWare a chance here.
I'm not sure how far that good will will go, though... they will have to move fast.
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Jeuxvideo.com posted their review :
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/test/1005640/anthem-les-bases-imparfaites-d-une-recette-allechante.htm
13/20, a catastrophy for a AAA game.
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/test/1005640/anthem-les-bases-imparfaites-d-une-recette-allechante.htm
13/20, a catastrophy for a AAA game.
These are not open world games, they're GaaS loot shooters.
First goes are usually in the 70 range (metacritic scores)
Warframe was a 60-70 range across all platforms.
Destiny 1 was 76
The Division just scraped an 80 (79 on pc, 80 on console)
People exxpected Anthem to have learnt from past mistakes, though, which is part of this backlash and rightly so. But it seems the curse of GaaS first goes is still in swing.
Worse than loading time was the static loading screen that made it feel like it was longer than it actually was. If Anthem had active loading screen like Destiny where you could shuffle gear or check the map or dismantle stuff while it loaded, it wouldn't have been this insufferable.
Forsaken has a ton of content, I would hold off on the annual pass tbh.
astro , kindly piss off telling everyone to ignore people because you disagree with them. Thanks.
I loved Destiny. Anthem is dreadful. No patch is going to fix the awful story, terrible dialogue, useless conversation options, and lack of mission and enemy variety. That's the game. Telling someone to "try it for themselves" in its current state as if it's going to be better than it is any time soon is bad advice.
I loved Destiny. Anthem is dreadful. No patch is going to fix the awful story, terrible dialogue, useless conversation options, and lack of mission and enemy variety. That's the game. Telling someone to "try it for themselves" in its current state as if it's going to be better than it is any time soon is bad advice.
I find it strange more reviews aren't available. The game has been accessible for a week and comes out in a matter of hours.
It's a GaaS game, reviews really won't doom it at all.
What will doom it is poor support/support taking too long/etc...
This is a perplexing one. The load screens were made with some of the very first screenshots made for the game. It's a little bizarre, they could have been cooler.
I said ignore the posters posting one line "it's bad, don't bother" posts. What value do they have?
Subjective mate, plenty of us are enjoying it despite its flaws. No need at all for your hostility.
huh? they aren´t even harsh enough, everything over 5 or 50% is too much for this game in this state, it is a trainwreck
There is the old guard Piranha Bytes (Elex, while not as good as Gothic 2, was better than last two Risens), newcomers Warhorse Studios and Dontnod (KCD and Vampyr were both awesome), the guys who did ATOM RPG, InXile (hopefully Wasteland 3 will be great), Hairebrained did pretty good Shadowrun games, SureAI did awesome Enderal and of course Pathfinder Kingmaker was fantastic once patched.
I can't possibly say, I'll keep playing until I've had enough.
They will almost certainly need to have a running start with communication, support, etc... to retain a healthy enough player base, though.
More value than "ignore posters like this", surely.
The poster you quoted has already shared their in depth opinions on the game. Make a case for the game yourself without telling people to ignore people you disagree with.
I think it ties in with the idea that the game was rushed in time for the fiscal end of year report, for example, no way a decent QA team would miss all those bugs
That's because this game is especially boring.
It's a looter shooter with an uninspired and limited loot pool, half-assed RPG mechanics, a so-so combat loop with combo mechanics that are poorly explained, and a practically non-existent end game that relies on the strength of the loot to keep people interested (see the first point). Even if you take PVP out of the equation for a proper apples to apples comparison, vanilla Destiny 1 launched with more activities than Anthem has.
For the last few years BioWare constantly talked up how the world building and story would be a differentiating factor between Anthem and the rest of the genre. They assured us repeatedly that it would have the BioWare touch or BioWare feel.. But it just doesn't. It's hard to believe this is the studio that managed to pull off The Old Republic, putting in branching, multi-level stories for multiple classes in an MMO and the best they can do now with Anthem are binary options that have little to no impact. And the character quips themselves are just as bad as "no time to explain" or "we've woken the hive".
Destiny reviewed in the mid-70s for all platforms. Anthem has a slightly better story (but only ever so slightly) but everything else feels inferior to what was present at vanilla Destiny launch. The scores thus far, at least IMO, feel justified.
Edit:
This whole thing is starting to remind me of the MMO market circa late-2000's/early-2010's when everyone was trying to take a piece of the WoW pie. Developers forgot that people only have a finite amount of time and money and players can't flock to every new game that comes out that demands all (or most) of either time or money (or both).
All these GaaS games want players to spend all of their time behind them, just like MMOs did. They want people to become invested and spent as much money on microtransactions and extra content, similar to MMOs with expansion packs. Eventually, like MMOs, the whole house of cards is going to crumble and leave only one or two major contenders and a handful of stragglers hanging on for dear life by their fingernails.
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My feeling is the main thing they are gonna need is endgame activities/content...probably before Div 2 drops.
What are you even doing defending a single line "don't do it to yourself" response to someone asking if they should play?
You know posts like that aren't helpful to people, yet you decided to tell me to piss off for pointing it out.
Your hostility is really fucking weird here.
Based on the given timeline/roadmaps, that won't be happening.
Especially in this case, where reviews are dropping after the release date. I think depite all the problems, Anthem will have no trouble reaching its 5mi sales target by the end of march.
They're going to NEED to prove to the hardcore playerbase that they have plans worth sticking aroudn for, yes, otherwise those players will move on... and games like these need a health hardcore base.
This is how I feel, too.
I think player base will start to drop off very fast if they don't keep updates coming in, though.