Anthem Review - Flying High Before Crashing Down

Post by KostaAndreadis @ 03:59pm 25/02/19 | 17 Comments

No doubt you've heard a thing or two about Anthem, BioWare's latest game and experince that attempts (on paper at least) to sit alongside the likes of Destiny and The Division as a looter shooter online thing. Albeit one that will benefit from decades of BioWare's storytelling expertise. And now, after spending considerable time with Anthem - we're ready to share our full review.

A snippet.

Disjointed is probably the best way to describe BioWare’s Anthem; the latest grand sci-fi epic from the Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and veteran role-playing studio. A clear departure, Anthem attempts to fit into what we’ve come to know as the ‘looter shooter’ genre. That style of game where action-RPG mechanics combine with shooter-style action, and players get rewarded with better gear and shinier loot the more they play. Using this cycle as an incentive to head back out into a large online world, alone or with friends, to face new challenges and grow more powerful – long after the story is over. That’s the plan anyway.

How Anthem fits into this mould is strange and confusing because it ultimately fails to embrace or even figure out how to properly merge its two sides.

Click Here to Read Our Full Anthem Review

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Latest Comments

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dais
Posted 02:03am 26/2/19

What a shame. It looked phenomenal at E3. Is it just me, or is this a case of Electronic Arts having them rush it out the door with things like microtransactions as a priority, to make the big moolah on the hype train?

Here's hoping it turns out like Diablo III (with its real money auction house), with a lot more work put into it to make it a great game, many years after a botched original release.

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fpot
Posted 03:13am 26/2/19

BioWare and Bethesda are both in serious peril.

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Zapo
Posted 07:05am 26/2/19

I'm actually enjoying the game, far more than a 6/10 which tends to be the general concensus in reviews.

I'm level 22, I think I'm nearing the end of the main story.

I wonder how much of the negativity is EA hate, or Bioware hype? The game isn't perfect, but I'm enjoying it that I would easily recommend it to people +... It was going for $55.

Also dais, there are micro transactions for cosmetic stuff.... I haven't felt the urge to buy anything, and I have spent a lot on dota 2 :)

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ravn0s
Posted 09:17am 26/2/19

i was interested in the game until i played it during the beta weekends. what a s*** show of a game.

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Khel
Posted 11:35am 26/2/19

Yeah, I'm enjoying it, I think 5's and 6's are pretty unfair, I mean Fallout 76 got 5's and 6's and this is far better than that. Its a flawed game for sure, but I think its a bit of a victim of high expectations, if it wasn't Bioware making it and was just some other studio without that same weight of expectation behind them, I think it'd be a different story.

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Vash
Posted 11:52am 26/2/19

What happened to these two awesome game companies?
Bethesda hasn't been bought out by anyone, and perhaps the EA effect f***ed up Bioware.

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Murf
Posted 01:25pm 26/2/19

6 years in development..(supposedly) The promise of Bioware quality story, characters and world in a seamless online multiplayer experience...

so yeah that considering I think the scores its getting are very fair

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dais
Posted 01:49pm 26/2/19

This is interesting:

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Khel
Posted 02:07pm 26/2/19

Anyone who came into this expecting some classic Bioware game was just kidding themselves, the Bioware of old died many years ago. I came in with no real expectations and its fun, its got a fun combat loop, it looks gorgeous, its an interesting world with a lot of interesting lore behind it. Loading screens are too frequent and a bit of an annoyance, and theres nowhere near enough variation in the missions and the enemies you fight (or the loot for that matter), and the UI and general user experience could do with some improvements, but its no worse than Destiny or the Division was at launch. In fact, its quite a bit better in some regards, like the story might not be up to Mass Effect calibre but its still a hell of a lot better than what was in Destiny or The Division or even Destiny 2, and those were getting 7's and 8's and higher.

I mean, they should have really learnt from the mistakes those games made, and not just made the same mistakes themselves, so its not like that excuses their mistakes but I think a combination of general EA hate and disappointment with Bioware are skewing the scores. I don't think its worth 8's but its at least worth 7's imo, maybe a 7.5. Theres fun to be had there, if you can get past the EA/Bioware stigma

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Zapo
Posted 04:20pm 26/2/19

The expectations you may have of a game, or a studio shouldn't have any bearing on the rating it gets. You should perhaps be more lenient towards games which are not full priced - but otherwise if the exact game is released by Bioware and El'dogio studios it should get the same rating.

+ What Khel said.

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Arpey
Posted 04:56pm 26/2/19

I'm playing and enjoying it for the flying and the combat. The load screens are a real dog, but I've not had any connection troubles which is rare with an online game this early. Story is meh but I like the javelins a lot. Hopefully EA has the guts to do what Ubisoft has done with their online games and work on it until it's better to pull in an audience.

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Hunter
Posted 07:11pm 26/2/19

I believe the game needed at least another 6 months development time

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Khel
Posted 11:33am 27/2/19

I believe the game needed at least another 6 months development time

Agreed, it definitely would have benefited a lot from another few months of development

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trog
Posted 11:41am 27/2/19

man the game in the E3 video dais posted looks awesome

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funky
Posted 03:10pm 28/2/19

I've really enjoyed it so far. Finished the single player the other night, will poke around on the strongholds and other content, but I see it is probably going to be a game that I will probably leave for a while and then turn to when there is more story type content, I'm not obsessed with running things over and over again for loot drops, so the frustrations with some of those mechanics don't really affect me too much.
The combat and flying have been loads of fun, I'll probably spend some more time with the other javelin types as well in freeplay and quickplay etc (i went with the ranger first off and i want to give the others more of a go). but I got it for $66 from JB and I'm pretty happy with what I have got from it so far, but I'm more of a casual gamer anyway. I have had maybe one or two instances of glitches with missions, which is apparently pretty great considering the amount of vitriol that has been out there about them

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Hunter
Posted 07:58pm 03/3/19

I wish MS (instead of EA) had acquired Bioware back in the day... they were literally an MS Studio anyway during the Xbox/Xbox 360 days...

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notgreazy
Posted 09:13am 04/3/19

How are these wicked trailers actually made? Is it real gameplay with CGI added in or do they setup a rail like system ingame, spend time adding in scripted content (like the player shooting and enemies dying), all in-game or do they go all out and just make a completely CGI video?

I've always disliked trailers, teasers etc. It's propaganda showing an idealised version of a game that doesn't exist. Unless you show me actual gameplay footage, in-game, it's nothing more than a cutscene. Unfortunately, they're getting better and better and blurring the lines between what's gameplay footage and what's a movie.

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