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

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

Post by Animalmother » Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:10 am

Next time it pops up on the Xbox store for 6 quid I think I'll actually buy it.

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

Post by Animalmother » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:38 pm

There's currently an EA sale on Xbox so picked up ME Andromeda and Dragon Age Inquisition plus all dlc for a few quid. Nice :)

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

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:45 pm

Cool. Like I said, the story ain't up to much so try to look past that, the gunplay and exploration is pretty great if you invest the time getting some skills, abilities etc. And don't forget to use the jetpack in combat, that's one of the best bits :)

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

Post by Lee » Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:04 pm

Honestly I think this is now when even the die hard fans have to be thinking of not touching another game from them till it's been out for 6 months minimum and on sale.
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Re: Anthem [PC, PS4, XBone] - February 22nd 2019

Post by Animalmother » Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:33 pm

Lee wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:04 pm
Honestly I think this is now when even the die hard fans have to be thinking of not touching another game from them till it's been out for 6 months minimum and on sale.
Very true, Battlefield V has only recently gotten to the state it should have been released at.

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

Post by Maturin » Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:15 pm

Sly Boots wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:03 pm
Personally I had fun with Andromeda, the main issues were the story and antagonists, both of which were forgettable at best. But as noted in the article, the combat and exploration were excellent, in many ways the best of the franchise. Like the article notes, Andromeda is probably the worst ME game, but that's like being the worst athlete at the Olympics.
It was actually my favourite game of the series in terms of enjoyment. The story wasn't as tight and the character dialogue wasn't as consistent, but the gameplay itself was better than ME1-ME3 for me.

Difficult to know how to judge which is best in a series like this. If I favoured story/characters over gameplay I'd probably say either ME1 (story) or ME2(characters) was the best game. But I was always a gameplay-first kinda guy so I guess it makes sense ME:A was my favourite.

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

Post by Hatredsheart » Tue Apr 02, 2019 5:37 pm

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

Post by DjchunKfunK » Tue Apr 02, 2019 6:35 pm

EA/Bioware's response is pretty rubbish. They didn't even bother to read the full article before posting the response, just responded to a bullet point summary Kotaku sent them before they published their story.

http://blog.bioware.com/2019/04/02/anth ... velopment/

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

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:08 am

Finally had the time to read the Kotaku article in full. Firstly, great piece, proper investigative journalism the industry could do with more of. It's a shame EA/Bioware didn't take the time to read it before responding so they could actually address the points, rather than what they assumed the points would be.

On the one hand, it's impossible not to sympathise with Bioware here, it feels like they were badly let down first by their own management in failing to set proper goals and establish a clear vision, from the sound of it something that didn't happen even weeks from release. If this was an Apprentice task, they'd have all been fired for appalling project management. EA also had a hand in the game's demise, from forcing them to use Frostbite then failing to provide the proper tech support for people not used to using it, then forcing them to release months before it was ready.

Blame on all sides, really, though I think it's still clear there are talented, passionate people within the studio. Given how many people they've lost though, it sounds like the Bioware of today is a husk compared to what it was even a few years ago. Maybe it would be best if those talented, passionate people left the EA collective and set themselves up as a new studio, Bioware 2.0 and try to go back to making the sorts of games that made their name. Obsidian seem to be doing all right, so it shouldn't be impossible.

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

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:21 am

Angry Joe has put up a video discussing the Kotaku article:


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

Post by DjchunKfunK » Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:57 am

I think Bioware themselves deserve a lagre portion of the blame. Obviously working with Frostbite wasn't ideal but they spent so long just doing nothing in terms of development it seems with no real idea about what the game was meant to be. The way in which Edmonton dismissed the views of Austin was shocking considering how much experience Bioware Austin have with making an online game. There seem to be so many structural issues at the company.

Like you say Sly the talent drain appears to be quite significant and after two terrible games I have next to no confidence in them being bale to make a good fist of Dragon Age 4, and this was before the response to the article which shows that they have apparently learnt little to nothing from the development of Anthem.

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

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:02 pm

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:57 am
I think Bioware themselves deserve a lagre portion of the blame. Obviously working with Frostbite wasn't ideal but they spent so long just doing nothing in terms of development it seems with no real idea about what the game was meant to be. The way in which Edmonton dismissed the views of Austin was shocking considering how much experience Bioware Austin have with making an online game. There seem to be so many structural issues at the company.

Like you say Sly the talent drain appears to be quite significant and after two terrible games I have next to no confidence in them being bale to make a good fist of Dragon Age 4, and this was before the response to the article which shows that they have apparently learnt little to nothing from the development of Anthem.
Yeah, when I said above I feel for Bioware, I really meant the devs doing the work - I think the main blame, even more than the portion attributable to EA, has to reside with the Bioware senior figures who provided no direction or focus for a mind-blowing length of time. It's staggering that five years after work began the devs were trying to work on a game they didn't even understand the nature of, because at no point had it been clearly set out.

The fact that they were even able to put out something playable - even if it clearly has well-reported issues - in just over a year of full production is a minor miracle in itself.

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

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Apr 04, 2019 6:59 am


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

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:30 pm


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

Post by DjchunKfunK » Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:10 am

Bioware have delayed all the content that was meant to be coming in the next month or so, including the raid like Cataclysm, to focus on bug fixing and improving the game. Hard to see who is still going to be playing months from now and will be around to experience the new content.

The game is going to need some kind of relaunch and repackaging I think in order to get anywhere now. Not quite sure how you go about that though without some kind of major content update.

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