Deftones

Reviews trickling out: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/...-not-finished/

Load times are brutal: https://kotaku.com/anthems-loading-t...lem-1832733306

This seems like a hot mess.

OldBoy

Fuck I just preordered and dled digital from amazon. Hope I can cancel...

OldBoy

and cancelled! yet it's still downloading. weird. probably just fade away or won't be playable on friday. credit already went through so not sure what exactly is downloading currently. just doesn't seem single player story-centric. that's all i do. i don't go online or whatever with friends and stuff. just like single player. oh well. still got to make it through Destiny 2, which i was enjoying...

mattysemo247

PC is sitting at a 70% on Metacritic. I would only assume the console versions come in less than that. Bummer since I was really looking forward to this one. Not looking too good for Bioware.

OldBoy

huh, Destructoid gave it a 70% and said it was good, but the review seemed even more positive, but again doesn't seem single player friendly...

mattysemo247

Well shit, I canceled my preorder too. With The Division 2 out next month and Metro Exodus already in my backlog, there are better things to play at the moment. The Bombcast addresses a lot of the issues on their podcast this week. So hopefully after a few months and a good price drop, I'll check it out at some point. There have been plenty of examples of games getting better post release, so hopefully this is one of them.

robin2099

I miss the days of Bioware being a sign of quality. Those were good days.

K&AJones

Most of the major game sites don't have a official review up and some have a "review in progress"......that said on the official forums yes some are complaining about the load times, some quirks here and there and already wanting more armor, health, damage from their Javelin. But if some want to throw in the towel over a couple of pre-early reviews so be it.

In the meantime...like so many other games in the past...a huge Day One Patch has already been announced... https://www.gamepur.com/news/39092-a...changelog.html

Anthem Day One Patch Changelog

High level fixes

• Improved loading times
• Fixed many infinite loading screens
• Fixed multiple challenges not tracking properly
• A number of issues have been fixed that were causing players to disconnect or crash
• Weapons and gear now have numbers present for modifiers

There's a long list of General Fixes and Improvements, Javelins, Gear and Weapons and Strongholds.

mattysemo247

Not really a day one patch though since the game officially came out last Friday, depending on which version you bought. So in other words, early adopters got fucked.

Decker

I know. It seems pretty incongruous that while Alita : Battle Angel is sitting at 54 on Metacritic and yet everyone here is losing their collective minds in the de-facto review thread about how GREAT it is, here a few early reviews have Anthem sitting at 70 and everyone is frantically cancelling their pre-orders -- even though they KNOW that some of the issues will be addressed post-launch. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
I still haven't tried the EA Access copy on my X1X yet since I've been busy. But I will give it a go before opening my PS4 copy. With GCU and pre-order I get the game + a nice-looking Steelbook for $38. I can live with that for a pretty-fun, not-perfect game.

lopper

Improving the load times is the only meaningful thing being addressed that I can see.

Gameplay and graphics are top notch, but everything else is astonishingly lacking.

All weapons, regardless if level or rarity, look identical. Your basic shotgun looks the same as the rare one. And you cannot customize them at all .

Aside from paint color and decals, there is very very little armor customization. And each Javelin has maybe two sets of armor, and I think one of those is only for preorder or early access or whatever . You can equip different components that change your abilities but they don't effect the cosmetics of your suit at all. My Storm looks identical to most others, except mine has green trim .

There are maybe three mission types. Defend this, kill this, or gather these pieces and bring them here. Sometimes, it's a combination of those things if you're lucky.

The central hub sucks. Movement is so slow, and most of the time you have to cross from one side to the other in order to access your vault is start a mission.

Inventory management is cumbersome. If you equip something on one suit but want to put it in another one, you are jumping between menus to swap them out. And the menus, beside being ugly and bland, are not exactly spry.

I could go on and on. The number of obvious quality of life items that were left out if this is really something.

But it's not all bad! All those gripes aside, I've still put around 20 hours into this the moment to moment gameplay is very good . Jumping off the spawn point and shooting straight down this narrow canyon and into the water below, being able to seamlessly transition from above to below water, is insanely cool. The world design is very impressive.
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i just hope they flesh this thing out soon.

K&AJones

FWIW...Destructoid gave Destiny 2 a 65 when it came out.... https://www.destructoid.com/review-d...--473355.phtml

But this is not Anthem 2....this is is something new for Bioware and not Mass Effect we've had before. I think the core game play and setting is there; just it''ll be a wait & see and what changes, improvement and tuning will come. I look back at Destiny 1 and it was a blast but some cracks started to appear with the economic, crafting and inventory system...but the gameplay was just fun. Warframe had it's share of issues when it first came out espeically on console. It's way and above what it was when it first came out in about every area possible. Technically, looking at Anthem it's just a Baby ....We'll see but it was bad enough during the demo everyone bashing "The Game" as if it were the final released calling it a failure and demanding changes on something that was a separate build 6-7 weeks earlier.

fumanstan

Games in general are on a weird curve with reviews, where gamers seem to treat anything in the 70's or lower as a bad game.

It is kind of tough to judge live online games these days though, especially as things get patched and updated, features added, balance changes made, etc. A game at launch is typically much different then the game 3-6 months later.

lopper

Day 1 (or Day 5) patch went live today. Load times have improved. Instead of taking 2.5 minutes to load into a mission, it only took 2 min 10 sec. So...progress, I guess?

I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed on Friday.

K&AJones

How ironic and what a coincidence......

Gamespot Review of Anthem - Early Impressions - (6)..... https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/ant.../1900-6417093/

Gamespot Review of Destiny 1 - (6).....https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/des.../1900-6415863/

mattysemo247

What's ironic? That the first Desiny launched in a somewhat incomplete state in 2014 across two generations of platforms? Or that Anthem was delayed multiple times and launching in an incomplete state in 2019 with long load times and issues hitting 30 FPS? I'm not seeing the link here...

Destiny managed to address some of their issues over time (and obviously even more with the sequel). There is not a doubt in my mind that Anthem will improve over time, but some issues with the game can't be addressed with simple patches. With it being a Bioware game, more people are expecting a robust story with dialogue options and such that the developer is known for. It doesn't sound like much thought was put in unfortunately. Also the weapons seem generic and lacking variety, an issue that I would say Destiny and other loot based games didn't have.

That being said I would still like to hear some impressions from the folks here that still plan on picking it up. I still plan on playing it once it goes through a few future content updates.

lopper

I keep seeing the comparison between these two games, but Destiny was bursting at the seams with content and a high level of polish that Anthem simply does not have. I just don't think that comparison holds up.

And considering Destiny came out almost five years ago, it's even more concerning that Anthem is launching in the state it is. And it's not bugs that are the problem, it's poor design on a fundamental level. People want to pile on EA and put the blame on them, some of which they deserve, and pretend like Bioware is some benevolent entity being held hostage, but so so many of the issues with Anthem are the result of choices made by the devs.

This thing needed another year in the oven, and that rests squarely on EA, though.

Gooter

I have the digital version pre-ordered from Best Buy and I can still cancel it if I want. I go back and forth on if I should keep and play it or cancel and wait for the polish. I enjoyed the demo and liked what I saw (except the constant loading which I see is still an issue). Flying around in those suits and the action was definitely fun which is why I haven't canceled it yet. Decisions, decisions.... I could also spend the $ on Destiny Forsaken.

K&AJones

The thing was with Destiny and Anthem, both had considerable hype going into release and both had something new which we had not seen or experienced in many games at all. In fact, if you look at a lot of the reviews of Destiny, most were in the 6/8 of 10 range. There wasn't this heap of praise and what a awesome game this was.....yet it was the 3rd best selling game of the year and kept growing and getting players which thankfully ignored the so-called Game Experts.

Just like with Destiny...Anthem is brand new despite some calling it a "rip-off clone of Destiny". And most believe and expect some growing pains...which Destiny had to go thru just as well.. Poor design...I don't think so personally. They have a story, they sure as heck have the world which is right there with the team at Bungie putting out what they do for Destiny. They have a solid makeup of the characters (Javelins) which sure they can tweak and build on and even have said more to come. The Level Up System is close to how it is with Diablo's Torrent Levels with a Grandmaster Scaling. There's a lot that can be built on, added and improved.

Heck...look at Destiny when the Level cap was an insane Level 30...and what is it now? Players are still at it...though the loot, commerce, crafting and even some modes have changed for better and/or worse. If some want to go ahead and rip the game before even the first full week of play and patches, go right ahead. But looking back thankfully me and a lot of others didn't listen to those so-called experts calling Destiny a so-so average dull, boring, doing the same stuff over and over grind fest ho-hum experience.

lopper

This all may be true, but since Bioware has spent the last few years pissing away their credibility and goodwill, I have very little faith that they can turn Anthem around.

OldBoy

So I know I don’t technically own game anymore, but still downloading. It’s been more than a day now and not even half way done. Still moving, but no game took this long, even higher Gb games, were hour or so, probably less...

Decker

You don't own the game. Cancel your download. I had a similar thing after I bought a code for Gears 4 that turned out to be stolen or illegitimate

OldBoy

Too bad. Early and current footage just looks so good. What else has Bioware done? Oh yeah, Mass Effect’s and others. Never played them, but I know people loved...

Decker

Why not try a month of EA Access You get to play 10 hours of Anthem all other Bioware games unlimited in the Vault and if you really like Anthem you can buy it digitally at a 10% discount

OldBoy

eh, no longer interested and already EA member. plus backlog. maybe in future...