Anthem (Bioware's Destiny)

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

 

 

 

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I played the "demo" all weekend. It was a mess in typical EA fashion. They can deny they didn't have enough servers all they want, but its been their calling card for the past decade.

When it worked, it was a blast. The flight controls are surprisingly smooth and easy to understand. There is no fall or collision damage so you can take all the risks you want. The only time you're punished is if you overheat or collide with a wall. When you crash into a wall, you fall to the ground, and you cant restart your thrusters until you land (You can normally, but not after a crash). The only agitating part about this is that there is no direct liftoff from the ground. You have to jump and hit the R3 which propels you forward. You can pull up REALLY fast, but if you are right up against a wall, say like you're in cover, you'll just hit the wall and not go anywhere rather than trying to boost over it. You're flight time is about 20-30 seconds until your overheat kicks in. The meter is done well and lets you know when you're reaching critical long with a sound que. Overheating can be circumvented by flying through a waterfall which completely resets your heat meter, or you can fly low over water which won't reset your heat, but pause it in place. Water also quickens your ability to get out of overheating.... There is a ton of water, so with some map knowledge and some learning curve, you can almost fly indefinitely.

The starting assault rifle was TRASH... awful, but once i got more weapons I fell in love with the heavy pistols and LMGs. The LMGs I had were slow firing and each shot hit like a truck. I really liked this more than the rapid fire bullet hose you traditionally get. The recoil was pretty easy to control and just the rumble of the controller of each shot felt satisfying. The heavy pistols do as much damage as scout rifles, just with less range and around 9 rounds per mag. The range penalties are real. If you shoot something far off you'll do little to no damage. Your reticle will let you know if your weapon can make the shot by turning red when aimed on a target. If it stays white, don't waste your ammo, sometimes it is precious.

Ammo was love/hate. If you go shooting up random monsters around the open world, they don't really drop ammo. So you have to be careful with your engagements. Pretty much only enemies that can shoot at you drop more ammo and health packs. These can be augmented with mods as far as ammo capacity and drop rates. You're R1 and L1 abilities recharge pretty quick, along with your super. Supers are devastating to normal mobs, but they'll only do about 4-6 mags of damage to a big boss. I think this justifies the charge rate, you can use it more freely knowing you can get it back reasonably fast. I think I would get my super back 3-4 times during the final encounter of the stronghold boss. Its more of a mob clear than a "beat the boss faster" like Destiny. Going back to health, you have a shield, and a health bar. Your shield recharges automatically, your HP does not, except the last 1/5th. Heath drops frequently, but generally in big mobs so you have to be careful about just picking them all up. I never really found this an issue personally, even if they nerf the health drop rates, you just should play more careful. The AI can aim really well, and flying your way out of something doesn't always work pending on the enemy type.

Freeplay was fun, Going around the small section of the map doing world events was interesting. They're kind of like destiny where they are limited to 4-5 types of events, but the perimeters were way more varied. While you had to pick up X and deposit it at Y, the enemies, and the situation could be several different things rather than "defeat the fallen devil walker" Some of these were pretty tough, but I was able to solo all of them. There was no timer, so you can battle it out until you get it done if you're by yourself.

Stronghold was where the demo shined. This is what I envisioned Destiny raids being. These are 30-40 minute affairs where you have to complete objectives to move on to the next section. Each section rewards a chest with a lot of loot. The difference from destiny is that there aren't any asinine puzzles, and unlike strikes, you can't just skip mobs until the final boss. You can skip some mobs, but these are generally between the end of one section and the start of another. The Stronghold that was made available was the one there are videos from after E3. You start out in a cave and you have to collect whispers or orbs of light. The first sector you have to collect 8 while fighting off elite enemies, the next section you have to fight off more along with some beastly turrets that will one shot your shield off. You collect 12, but you can only access 8 at first. The second wave comes with even stronger foes, and they grant you access to the final 4 orbs. This spawns your first chest. The next section you have to collect 8 pods and return them to the center of the area. When carrying the pods you can't fly, you can only sprint and jump. Of course you're being attacked while this is going on. Once the pods are collected, you have to stay on a platform thats being swarmed by bug creatures. You don't have to stay on it, but staying on it fills a meter similar to the VSAT or Cabal Drill public event from Destiny. This will give you your second chest. The last section is the final boss which is the huge bug thing. Overall it was a blast doing it... especially since i felt I carried a lot of people through it that didn't know what to do. As long as everyone could stay alive, I had no issue doing all the collecting... Oh yeah, it has matchmaking.

I didn't get to play the last few hours when they unlocked all the Javelins, which was stupid that they only gave us 1 unlock to begin with. The Ranger felt great. Tons of power with versatile weapon selection. Your specials were grenades and a field which. As I found gear, I had choices of a acid, fire, and sticky nade. I had a bubble shield, or a buff that granted 20% more base damage to everyone. The great part about this, was no one had to just stand in the field to get it. You just had to pass though and you'd get a cool down meter of how long the buff lasted. At the same time, you can't just stand in it and get the buff longer. This was great for when enemies charge into your bubble... you get to keep the buff regardless. The Ranger's super is the mutli lock-on missile barrage.

Naturally with my one unlock, I went with the Storm. This will probably be my main. Its always wonderful and very rare when a game allows you to do to enemies, the annoying shit they do to you. My encounters with enemy storm javelins from the outlaw faction, was they'd freeze me... and that shit lasted a good long 3-5 seconds before you could start moving again by mashing X to get out of it. Well I got the same gear drop that allowed me to freeze enemies for the same length! What a joy. I also go flame, acid, and electric ones, but I wasn't giving up that frost because its amazing CC. Of course, you can't freeze bosses, but you can freeze elites and legendary tier enemies. I used this with an Arc blast that chain lightninged mobs. I rolled with a marksman rifle and a heavy pistol along with a wind barrier that creates a giant wall shield rather than a bubble like the Ranger. There was also a quickening field I could have chosen over the barrier, but I didn't see the point in it. The super consisted of sending down three blasts of Arc, Fire, and Ice. The storm can't take a hit like the ranger, but it has a phase dodge, and can hover for longer periods. I also found it satisfying to act as the source of crowd control for my group. The colossus seemed to be the most popular choice for the demo, which is surprising since I figured the Interceptor would be seeing that is pretty much like the Hunter for Destiny.

Overall i expect the first few days to be a clusterfuck like this demo... its EA... but the game was a ton of fun, and the story mission I got to play was pretty interesting. The facial animations were 10 out of 10.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

The loot table being the same for all difficult content is going to make people cry, but if they all have the same difficultly adjustment its ok to me. Hopefully they make auras or something for people that raid.

[Myk JL 1,731]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

So Anthem's development was basically 6 years of making all the assets of the game and getting basic controller movements, menu, etc. Then frantically rushing the creation of a campaign, lore and actual gameplay design in the last 6 months to a year.. Sounds like Anthem truly was a clone of Destiny 1. Lol. And this is another example as to why I don't pre-order games any more. The more hype a game gets prior to its release generally means its garbage and the company is banking on pre-order sales and FOMO (fear of missing out). Only a few games will actually deliver on their hype. Borderlands 3 probably will. Last of Us 2 probably will. The next couple big games I expect to flop with massive hype will be Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077. After those games come out we'll get more behind the scenes stories about what happened to the development, why they had to cut corners, why we weren't given all the things we were promised, etc. etc.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I dont think Death Stranding will fail to Deliver. Kojima has always been solid along with Sony first party games. Now it will probably be wierd AF and not MGS like so people may not like it, but from a content standpoint it will deliver. 

The Division 2 has exceeded my expectations, Kudos to Ubisoft for actually learning and building on what they improved on post launch TD1. The game is outstanding. 

I would be very surprised is BL3 doesnt deliver. Its Gearbox's bread and butter. The Aliens fiasco aside, I have full confidence.

I'll give Respawn one chance with Fallen Order, and then I'm done with EA. Anthem should have just been a single player game. The gameplay is unique and a ton of fun until there is nothing to do. Not enough loot was made for the game so it's clear it wasnt originally a looter shooter. EA has completely destroyed BioWare. Enjoy Mass Effect 1-3 because that was the pinnacle of their existence. 

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

12 hours ago, Sledgstone said:

So Anthem's development was basically 6 years of making all the assets of the game and getting basic controller movements, menu, etc. Then frantically rushing the creation of a campaign, lore and actual gameplay design in the last 6 months to a year.. Sounds like Anthem truly was a clone of Destiny 1. Lol. And this is another example as to why I don't pre-order games any more. The more hype a game gets prior to its release generally means its garbage and the company is banking on pre-order sales and FOMO (fear of missing out). Only a few games will actually deliver on their hype. Borderlands 3 probably will. Last of Us 2 probably will. The next couple big games I expect to flop with massive hype will be Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077. After those games come out we'll get more behind the scenes stories about what happened to the development, why they had to cut corners, why we weren't given all the things we were promised, etc. etc.

While I have yet to touch a Witcher game CDPR has never failed to deliver a stellar game from what I've heard from friends so I'm pretty damn sure Cyberpunk will be everything it's hyped to be and more (yes I am on the hype train for this and am actually considering buying a PS4 Pro just for this game (well that and my PS4 is showing its age pretty badly as of late) because I'm pretty sure my PC will kill itself trying to run it) and CDPR is probably one of the few developers that never cuts corners to bring games out (the joy of having the Polish government funding their studio). I honestly don't get hyped much anymore but this is probably one of the only titles I'm hyped from outside of Shadowbringers. I'm just really hoping it releases this year (and not around Shadowbringers like rumors are suggesting).

Kojima will deliver a pretty solid game even if it's not what everyone is expecting. I've only played MGS2 and only half of it at that (great game but I just never had time to finish it) but considering how outstanding Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders 2 were I have complete faith Kojima will deliver an outstanding game. Now if only he could wrestle the ZoE IP from Konami (hey a man can dream can't he).

I have no opinion on Borderlands as I've never been interested in the series (outside of ZoE2 I can't stand cell shaded graphics and that's my major issue with the games, that art direction infuriates me) but I'm pretty sure Gearbox will deliver since it's the only title they seem to be able to release without issues and at a higher quality then most of their other games (Duke Nukem Forever and the aforementioned Colonial Marines).

Anthem was doomed from the beginning and there were signs of that everywhere. BioWare is not the same company that brought us gems like KoToR 1, Neverwinter Nights (by far one of my all time favorite PC games and RPGs), ME 1-3, The Old Republic (say what you will, it's a solid game even if it's really no longer an MMO (from a gameplay stance)) and a myriad of other games from our childhood. They've been gutted of their actual talent and turned into yet another lackluster EA studio (which is sad since they brought me so many of my favorite games.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

lol, I wasn't even excited for the supposed "rebuild", but if they can't even reverse a patch for decor, the future doesn't look promising for the so called revival.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I don't see how EA can make more money off Anthem with a overhaul at this point unless they are doing it to lay the ground work for paid expansions so it can be more like Destiny. Theres no way they are going to completely redesign and make new end game content for a basically dead game unless they can somehow charge money for it.  

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Like of any console game in history. I'd praise Anthem's gameplay to the mountains. The flight and fight mechanics are 11 out of 10. It was so fresh and amazing. Its just really sad how bad the content of the game turned out. it had a lot of promise with the puzzles and what not. I had fun for a good 40-60 hours. Which made me feel like I got my money's worth. But the potential it had fell so short. If they really cared, they could have rivaled WoW.

I really hope that Activision and everyone else sees with Modern Warfare, that you can make an assload of money by being generous to your playerbase. What is even more sad about Anthem is that their cosmetic shop was a joke and it was like they didn't even want money. They weren't trying to rip off people, or did an extremely poor job of it with how bad the content was.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Jeez. Maybe thats why they want that re-invention... they see the potential for multiple sequels than they do for current expansions. Perhaps if they get the game running strong and show they will support it then any potential sequels will sell a hell of a lot better. I agree with you about dollars to hours though. 40-60 hours of solid entertainment is easily worth $60 to me.  I need to watch those CoD videos you posted in the other topic. The whole battle pass system some games are using seem to be much better than the outdated premium / season pass of old.