You shouldn't compare sales with Mass Effect 3 but Fallout 76 sold twice as many copies in the first week and Destiny 2 four times as many copies.
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Anthem Review Thread
- Thread starter Earvin Infinity
- Start date
If this game is everything they have to offer after 6 years... I really don't know.
I think there's a serious management problem that goes all the way back to Mass Effect 2 and they never solved it.
It happened to Andromeda and the same thing is happening now. Papa EA saying "Fiscal year, time to release the game, gotta please the shareholders" and Bioware is forced to release a game with bugs, long loading screens, terrible AI, no weapon variety (just copies with different decals), repetitive mission design, etc.
A bunch of puerile fetch & kill quests in front of the actual meat of the content, ie the forges themselves. Bungie actually gets a half pass from me for that since BA was pure endgame content and some grind was to be expected. It wasn't plunked in the middle of Forsaken's campaign.
There's no fucking stats screen. It's been a while but I'm pretty sure ME1 had a stats screen.
Let's list all the RPGs in the last twenty years that don't have a stats screen:
Anthem should not be compared to Fallout 76. Come on people. It isn't even close.
DICE hasn't released a single good game since BC2. Every single BF game of the Frostbite era has been crap overall. If you want to blame EA for that instead of the studio inability to make a good game do it, but it's nowhere near the truth.
Best post that i've seen in a long time.
Exactly. 76 at least has basic functionality with a stats screen, working map, etc.
Developer's notes on the ME3 ending, IIRC.
Some sources say that Casey Hudson and Mac Walters spent one week alone drafting it without letting anyone else interfere, though I don't think we really know.
???
What are you asking here? They're both meaningless puerile timesinks in front of the content you actually want to play, I'm saying Anthem's is worse because they blocked off the critical path of the main story in the intro to their franchise with it as opposed to the gating off of a few endgame activities.
I'd rather have had the forges be doled out than have the dumb grind in front.
Holy hell YongYea's review on youtube really put into perspective the absolute wall of LIES the team said through various interviews.
How it was all about crafting your own story, through choices, both in gameplay and story, in the world or in fort Tarsis.
There is LITERALLY none of that in the final game. That's insane.
How it was all about crafting your own story, through choices, both in gameplay and story, in the world or in fort Tarsis.
There is LITERALLY none of that in the final game. That's insane.
If it did, I don't remember it. They had the skill tree screen of course and you could see your health, but nothing like a character sheet.
The Mass Effect series didn't really need a character sheet, though.
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This is fucking hilarious
Yeah fallout 76 at least has a stats page.
Yeah, Fallout 76 is a much more complete and cohesive game.
Sorry, but I hate this narrative that it was all 'lies'. That stuff was probably in the game or intended to be in the game at one point, and then was either not implemented in time or just not fun. It's not like the Anthem that's out now is the finished game that BioWare intended to make.
Promising features that you couldn't implement in time, were pie-in-the-sky ideas, or weren't in the budget, eh? Claim you'll add them later in DLC or in a sequel?
Been awhile since we've had a good Molyneuxing.
Promising features that you couldn't implement in time, were pie-in-the-sky ideas, or weren't in the budget, eh? Claim you'll add them later in DLC or in a sequel?
Been awhile since we've had a good Molyneuxing.
Idk, saying 'we're going to have a story that changes and adapts to your choices' feels different to me than ' you're going to plant a tree and watch it grow'. But maybe I'm giving BioWare a pass bc they weren't as obviously BS as Molyneux.
Then don't say that it is coming if you aren't sure if it would meet deadline or if it isn't fun. It's not like developers had to disclose that information in interviews.
We aren't talking about basic costumes or changes in level design here. We are talking about the entire direction of the game as well.
Don't say it if it isn't fun?? That's not how video games are made. There are multiple sources that have shown that developers rarely know if their game is actually fun until the end of the project. If they have to rip out a feature that's not working last minute and was core to the original design, it's not their fault for talking it up in the first place.
This is very concerning; I watch gameplay and I see fantastic visuals and free-flight. That should push any game to the top these days. The fact that those 2 winning vectors couldn't actually convince in the current market is astonishing to me.
They're reusing old mechanics, well-known shitty-padding-quests, constant annoying one-liners from characters who don't matter, and poor story. None of this is new, but it usually still works for many AAA games with the big marketing and visuals.
Maybe we (as the global potential playerbase) are shifting away from formulaic titles after too many repeats and no signs of learning.
They're reusing old mechanics, well-known shitty-padding-quests, constant annoying one-liners from characters who don't matter, and poor story. None of this is new, but it usually still works for many AAA games with the big marketing and visuals.
Maybe we (as the global potential playerbase) are shifting away from formulaic titles after too many repeats and no signs of learning.
"Everything you are about to see was captured in-game running in real-time."
It's been lies since frame 1 of the first trailer
We're going to play a game, it's called "watch this part below and then realize it's in fact a lie", it's a lot of fun I'm sure you're going to enjoy it.
In case your video doesn't load it's at 10:50 seconds and it shows a not so old trailer talking about the deep "real time story telling".
There are other multiple examples like this throughout the review, including recent interviews / trailers.
No excuse.
Yes it is. They don't have to show the game years in advance. They don't have to say things in the interview until they are done and polished. Many publishers including Bethesda, Nintendo, Capcom, Rockstar, and even Activision do not show off games until they are relatively close to completion. Lying to your customers is a bad look no matter what. Deceiving customers before release, is also a bad look. The developers don't have to "talk up their game" at all. You know that right? Like I said, they weren't forced at gunpoint to announce the game when they had. This simply is not a problem with most publishers anymore. And if they talked it up, maybe they should have waited until the game was finished to release it. Or not released it at all.
Considering that everything including the downgraded graphics, the horrible technical issues, and loading times leave me to believe that Bioware did not cut it because "the gameplay wasn't fun". I don't think it was an artistic design choice. It's simply because this game was clearly half baked and rushed. Since this is indeed the case, they deserve every bit of scepticism coming towards them. Especially since this is a $60 game with micro transactions, and it barely works as a game in general. They lied to their audience, over promised this game, and then released a complete mess.
We're going to play a game, it's called "watch this part below and then realize it's in fact a lie", it's a lot of fun I'm sure you're going to enjoy it.
In case your video doesn't load it's at 10:50 seconds and it shows a not so old trailer talking about the deep "real time story telling".
Once again, do you know how video games are made? Several public demos are aspirational 'vertical slices' that symbolize what they want the final game to look like at release but aren't necessarily indicative of what it looks like then. Sometimes this works out (Uncharted 4) and sometimes this does (BioShock Infinite). But it's not like the team is lying and showing you a game that only existed to sell copies. They *want* the game to get to that place eventually but doesn't for various reasons (BSI was technically to much for the last gen consoles, for example).
Also, as more and more GAAS games appear interest will obviously dwindle since people don't have an infinite amount of time and money to commit to them. Add to that free-to-play alternatives like APEX and Warframe and brand loyalty (people passing on Anthem while waiting for Division 2) etc.
One of the big issues with Anthem is that besides the "Jetpacks+Guns?" premise from the Onion whiteboard... There are very few new ideas in this game.
Like extremely few.
It's... confusing that they spent so many years in pre-production and came up with almost nothing.
If the game isn't fun to actually play, is repetitive, lacks content and has also suffered generally poor word of mouth, there's no reason to expect that gamers would support the game. They'd be stupid to. The previous mishandling of other EA franchises didn't do much to help matters either for Anthem.
My dude, there is a bunch of evidence out there that huge cuts to features are just a part of the dev process. For example, Dragon Age Inquisition showed a whole Fort Assualt mechanic that was absent at release. Do you think that was the developers just mocking up something that looked cool to sell their game? It literally wasn't. Go read 'Blood Sweat and Pixels' by Jason Schrier, it goes in depth of how games are made, even BioWare games to boot.
A lot of talk of Andromeda being a lackluster, messy, mismanaged result of the Bioware Montreal 'B' team, but seems like reality was the whole of Bioware was in over their heads and stumped by a difficult engine.
Mass Effect Andromeda was supposed to be No Man's Sky the RPG with having hundreds of hours of procedurally generated content.
It was an incredibly bad idea that Bioware Montreal wasted 3-3.5 years on for no reason. I don't see the fault of Andromeda being too much Frostbite, it was that the original idea for the game made no sense and was a completely terrible idea.
I do, actually.
Games change over time, yes, but that's why communication is important if the direction of a game CHANGES.
Resident Evil 4 is a big example of a game that radically changed multiple times, but the creators were extremely open about the shift in directions so players weren't going in with false expectations.
There's also a major difference between a shift in direction, promotional footage and concept trailers, and trying to sell a game late in development on features that don't exist or were scrapped without informing players they've been removed.
Even "aspirational" vertical slices are at the very least supposed to present to you the CONCEPT and FEELING of the final game. If there is a clear discrepancy between what is presented and what is experienced, then players will rightfully feel misled. It's important during development to be upfront with players of any major gameplay or feature shifts that make prior pitches and promotions redundant and invalid.
Absolutely, 100% agree with everything you're saying. Something I didn't make clear is that I also 100% believe need to be upfront when their games change. You could look at those early BioShock Infinite demos and assume that's the game you're going to get when you purchase it, not a linear shooter. And that's bullshit and should have been confroted and addressed.
But I do think that the early Anthem slices ARE aspirational; there's not a huge gulf in between the E3 demo and now other than, well, execution and polish (tho the fort tasks stuff does look pretenders as fuck).
I just don't think that characterizing the changes in development as 'lies' is the right way to go about it.
I'd guess it was slightly before Andromeda launch. No stakes though.
Sounds like they bit off far more than they could chew and to exacerbate the issue, they advertised their dreams and aspirations for the game as if it was definitely going to be in the final product.
In short, Bioware Molyneuxed themselves.
Then they shouldn't show off their game. Like I said, publishers do not have to show off their games until they are done. Of course there will be changes to a game as well. There are tons of differences between pre release footage and post release for any game. However, saying all of that stuff pre release, about the deep story with choices is either a sign of lying, or horrible management.
Like I said, many publishers don't have this problem at all. For example, Resident Evil 2 was shown off around 7 months before launch. What was shown in RE2 was what players got, and it's a huge success.
Like I said, if they weren't even going to attempt to fullfill the features they promised, they should not have announced the game so far from release. Of course changes happen, but it's still EA's fault for this happening. Customers are not to blame for calling EA out on this.
I'd say the problem is there are few ideas period. Like Destiny isn't exactly bursting with originality, but it clearly has a lot of work put into its worldbuilding, aesthetic design, cool guns, etc.
Like compare the enemy factions. Destiny released with the Vex, the Fallen, the Hive, and the Cabal. All of these had well-defined back stories, visual and audio identities, gameplay, etc.
Anthem released with... The Scar, the Dominion, and a bunch of random monsters. Neither the Scar not the Dominion are really interesting baddies. The Scar are apparently based on insects? Their main visual identity seems to be having a lot of spiky bits, but they're still power-armored humanoids that basically act as bullet sponges. Well what about the Dominion? They're... Power-armored humans. Huh. Really exciting. And then you have some of the biggest challenges in the game being random Titans that just... Exist? It feels so half-baked.
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Those fools.
Imagine using a cheap knockoff of an already popular font. Just awful.
I don't entirely agree with their post but I do think each mainline Battlefield release has been worse than the last since BC2 in my opinion.
BC2 was the peak of Dice for me, BF3 was good but not quite as good, BF4 was a buggy mess but still a decent game, BF1 felt more polished than 4 but also leaner and stripped back and BFV is BF1 with its problems exacerbated.
I never played either new Battlefront so I can't speak on them. Mirrors Edge: Catalyst was disappointing but I don't think it was a bad game. Hardline is.... Hardline, MoH was hot garbage, Hot Pursuit was fine if boring.