Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

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DjchunKfunK
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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:33 pm



Combat starting to look pretty fun. Story sounds generic as anything though.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Raid » Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:59 pm

I think it has potential; I certainly like the aesthetic, and the Iron Man ripoff armours (it's incredibly blatant - the trailer even shows the fist-down-knee-down Iron Man landing) do appeal. It all comes down to how the gameplay actually feels; if the enemies are The Division-style bullet sponges, or if the flight mechanics leave your character just hanging in mid air when there's no input (with basic gain / lose altitude controls rather than fun physics), then it'll be crap, but if the movement and gunplay are good, I might actually be interested.

...but I have zero faith in EA-published titles these days. I wouldn't even consider buying it until several months after launch, because I fully expect it'll be broken or penny pinching, and it will likely drop heavily in price quite quickly.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:02 pm

If the gunplay and action is anything like Andromeda's then it'll be fun to play on that level, at least.

The Origin sub thing just for this is an interesting idea.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Mantis » Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:21 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:59 pm
or if the flight mechanics leave your character just hanging in mid air when there's no input (with basic gain / lose altitude controls rather than fun physics),
From the gameplay video above, it looks exactly like that to me. You just kind of hover and strafe left and right while you shoot. The enemies look pretty bullet spongy too.

I imagine it'll basically be like Destiny, with slightly better gameplay due to the verticality in the combat, but with all the other stuff lacking in the same way Destiny is; so once the novelty wears off it'll very quickly devolve into a pointless grindfest.

I'm still not buying it. -_-

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Thu Jan 24, 2019 3:21 pm

Got myself a beta key so will report back after I've played a bit over the weekend.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:33 pm

Sounds like the demo launch has been beset by technical and server issues.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:52 pm

Boy is the game rough. Will post more tomorrow but I think I will be giving this a miss.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:40 am

OK let's start with the good.

The movement stuff is neat, flying takes a while to get used to but once you do it's fun to move around the areas.
Combat is solid and the guns have weight and heft to them. Zipping in and out of combat using the flight mechanics is fun.
The hub world is very pretty with a lot of detail put into each section.
It looks like there are a lot of options and way to customise your character both in the way they look and the abilities you can take into battle.

Now the not so good.

The AI seems broken. Sometimes it will just stand there and not acknowledge you are there especially if you get up close. However if you are in the air then it will always target you. It seems to cheat when you go out of view, keeping track of where you are so that when you come back out it knows exactly where you are, this makes trying to flank enemies quite hard.
The hub area seems lifeless. Despite the detail put into areas the lack of ambient sounds and people makes it feel at times that you are exploring the Mary Celeste. Areas in which there are people feel incredibly fake and still a bit empty. In the bar there are about six people, one of whom appears to be talking to an invisible bartender and the other speaking to a bartender behind a bunch of chairs that have been stacked on the bar as if the bar is closed.
The areas you play in look quite pretty but once you get close everything looks like it needs another texture pass. (I'm playing with most settings on high btw)
I spent around 20 minutes killing a boss yesterday in an encounter which was clearly designed around playing with other people and once I had taken him out my reward was one blue weapon, not exactly worth the time I put in. Additionally the experience wasn't exactly hard and I only came close to dying once, it just took a long time to do damage to the enemy as my weapons did negligible damage so I had to wait for my ult to come up and chip it down that way. Not exactly fun.
Enemies do feel a bit bullet spongy although it felt better when I got some better guns. Unlike the Division it is tough to get headshots so you are just pumping a lot of rounds into bodies to take enemies down. Again I haven't picked up anything that is more precise, mostly SMGs and auto rifles so maybe it's just those guns are not meant to be precise.
The script is mostly bobbins, those looking for some kind of Bioware magic in this regard will be left very disappointed.

Overall then I'm left feeling quite disappointed. I was actually starting to look forward to playing this with some friends and while it will undoubtedly be better with friends, I don't want to buy a game that is only fun with friends. I'm going to play a bit more and try and unlock another class to see if that is more enjoyable and up to the boss fight lastnight I was having fun in places. It just feels lacking in a lot of ways and not doing anything really different.

One final thing I will say is that some of the reactions online puzzle me. This game is guilt of some of the same things the Division was yet it isn't really being called out for them and on top of that the combat doesn't feel as good. Yet a lot of the coverage seems fairly positive and I can't help feeling that it's because this is a Bioware game so like a lot of the top developers they get a pass with things that other developers wouldn't. If Anthem was being made by THQ Nordic or even Ubisoft I think we would be seeing very different reactions.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Raid » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:00 am

I'm actually a bit surprised that Anthem is popular enough to affect server loads; nothing I've seen of the pre-release hype has suggested many people are actually looking forward to it. The cynic in me thinks that EA deliberately took servers down to make it look like the game is more popular than it actually is.

I am actually downloading the demo, but I am once again surprised by a big gaming company unable to offer download speeds that match Steam and max out my connection.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:47 am

Nah nothing like that, the connection loop they had set up means they were DDOSing themselves as each connection would keep slamming the servers when it couldn't connect.

Everyone who pre-ordered or who has EA Access got given three friend codes to give out so there are a lot of people playing who haven't pre-ordered.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Mantis » Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:17 pm

To be honest DJ, from your description it sounds exactly like Destiny but with flying mechanics.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Raid » Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:47 pm

Is the demo only open to pre-orderers or subscribers?

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by DjchunKfunK » Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:37 pm

Raid wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:47 pm
Is the demo only open to pre-orderers or subscribers?
Yeah, or those who have got a code from one of those people. There is an open demo in a few weeks.

Mantis it is a lot like Destiny, yes.

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Raid » Sat Jan 26, 2019 4:00 pm

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:37 pm
Raid wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 12:47 pm
Is the demo only open to pre-orderers or subscribers?
Yeah, or those who have got a code from one of those people. There is an open demo in a few weeks.
I probably should have found that out before I stuck 44gb of it on my hard drive. :lol:

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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:29 am

Angry Joe impressions vid:



For the most part he says some of the same stuff as Dj above, in particular he seems quite underwhelmed by the story, hub area and NPCs, but particularly enjoyed the flying and eventually got into the gameplay a bit more when he was allowed to specialise a class and customise his suit.

Seems like he hit a lot of technical issues with infinite loading bug, being kicked from the party at the end of a mission so he didn't get XP for it, some loot issues.

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