Anthem (2019)

So I've finally taken the plunge and bought Anthem second hand for £3. I see it more as £3 for Sarah Schachners incredible soundtrack, because whatever critics say about the gameplay, her musical talent is undeniably some of the best in the business.

But anyway, the game. The opening is rather impressive and even promising if it's at all reflective of the rest of the game (which I fear it's not). I love how close and personal the camera gets with the mech suits, the lore and environments seem intriguing too, and the characters seem rather believable.

Then you launch into the actual gameplay and the majority of it falls apart. A repetitive slue of 'trigger this and fight waves of enemies' and 'defend this whilst fighting hordes of enemies'. The mech suit customisation is all done via menu screens and much of the game continues this arcade-like feel.

Bioware potentially have a really special IP here that could be quite interesting if fleshed out properly.

What I'd love to see is a grittier, visceral approach where the camera is up close and tight with the mech suit. I want to see my character physically bash together metal to customise my suit. They have a first person mode during hub areas and I feel like it's incredibly underutilized. I'd love to be able to get out of my mech suit for tactical reasons and then summon it again. Make melee combat feel meaty and powerful - have the mech suit swing his elbow into an enemy and then engage thrusters on their arm to drive it the rest of the way. I'd love to see a greater sense of speed and finer control when flying.

Overall there's a lot that could be done to make the world feel more believable, more interactable, more grounded. Instead what we have is a very light, pretty surface level looter shooter. I'm sure people love this game and that's great, but I really do think there's a gap there where a game closer to what I've just described could make a real impact and engage with a wider audience.

Great concept though and I'm going to stick with it for a while longer. Maybe some of the ideas I've floated above will materialise later on. Fingers crossed!

Following and doubling on Martin Scorsese's comments of the devaluation of the art of filmmaking as content, a similar conversation should take place in the game community. The announcement of Anthem NEXT doesn't come as a surprise, and the debacle of Vampire-The Masquerade: Bloodlines is also worrying. And as someone that loves the art-form or video games, it is worrying the many cancellations, rushed-works, crunch-exhausted developers and control that corporations have over the artist developers. It's also worrying the amount of games being released without any poignancy nor interest into developing the art further, such intents only reserved for indie games; in fact, many games released today are indeed content. Even a seemingly ambitious work as Cyberpunk 2077, which could've been great, has been prevented to reach such state by the manipulation that the suits held over the game state, same goes to Anthem -which was as promising- and Bloodlines 2, a game that is effectively dead before being born.

It has reached a level when our alarms should be blaring, because this looks like isn't going to get better. I pray for the BioWare and wish them the best with their upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but my hope is lost that with the control of EA and the dominance of content over art in the AAA landscape, they can turn an actually good and progressive work for the gamers, and specially the hardcore fans of their franchises.

Anthem Next reportedly cancelled:

Game Informer: Anthem 2.0 Canceled By BioWare

Though Anthem was BioWare’s foray into the online action/RPG space (ostensibly as a rival to living games like Destiny 2), it hit some obstacles almost immediately. A repetitive structure, unimaginative missions, and an uneven integration of the single-player story got in the way of many players’ enjoyment – and that’s before they reached the sparse endgame experience. Though updates released in the months following release to address some of the major issue, it was clear that a more serious overhaul would be necessary if Anthem was to be redeemed. That was the goal of the now-canceled Anthem Next.

As tempting as it might be to remember Anthem as a total failure, don’t forget that it also had successes. As a core concept, flying through the world in a robo-suit and firing off a bunch of sci-fi weapons works very well, and stands apart as a huge achievement. Game Informer’s Andrew Reiner summed this up well in his review: “The Javelins are Anthem’s biggest triumph, making almost every little action feel like you are controlling a superhero capable of unleashing hell. Javelins give their users temporary jet-fueled flight and a wonderfully deep arsenal of offensive and defensive tools to play with. As the game goes on, that well of toys expands deeply and in exciting ways.”

Electronic Arts to Decide Fate of Anthem Game This Week

Look, we all know that Anthem launched a mess. But I liked parts of that mess. Traversal felt great and the Storm Javelin was a joy to play. I loved flying around the world of Anthem. It’s a game that I think could be a whole heck of lot of fun if BioWare had been given the time and funding to make something fully thought out and executed. But like Dragon Age II, like ME: Andromeda, BioWare devs were crunched on unrealistic deadlines and the game were released in the fraction of the time that their scope required.

Could Anthem be a good, maybe even great game if EA guarantees them additional funding? I think so, yes. Will EA give them that funding. No, I very much doubt it.

Alright. Earlier today, the sound went out at the start of a mission. I looked it up and people have been having this problem for the six months since launch.

Just now I was trying it again and the game locked up when I hit an enemy with a rocket. That's enough! Uninstalling. When it's not crashing or losing sound, the performance is awful. Glad I didn't pay money directly for this alpha-state garbage; I'd have been irked and wanting a refund if I did.

Hmm! Tried this out for an hour today, since it's newly in Origin Access. I had one crash-to-desktop while lowering the music volume in the first 15 minutes, so that was a bad sign.

However: I like the graphics, the flying jetpack thing, and the voice acting.

I'll keep on it for at least a bit longer to see what it's about, and why it flopped.

Though I'm pretty sure it won't be for too long, as I don't have the space in my brain for multiple looter-shooter games. I can barely grasp Warframe (my #1) as it is. And then I had month-long stints with both Destiny 2 and The Division before dropping them (before I completely forgot how to play Warframe).

Anyways, I'm kinda intrigued to see what's happened here.

Unlocked my third javelin on the weekend, went with Ranger in case I need an all-rounder for some content. Also because I failed miserably with the Colossus during the demo and want to wait until I can beef it up with gear before I try again. Anyway, here is my Ranger in the N7 vinyl: