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THE ANTHEM DEMO MAKES ME EVEN LESS INTERESTED IN IT THAN I WAS BEFORE

28/1/2019

20 Comments

 
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So, EA dropped a "demo" for Bioware's Anthem in the last few days, and by all accounts it's a bit on the buggy side, and servers have struggled to cope. This tells us two things: their decision to call the beta a demo has backfired - it's clearly a beta - and that lots of people are (or were) interested in playing Anthem.

Also, it's possible that - thanks to the wildfire-like way that negativity can escalate across social media - Bioware might be in for a rough ride, and they'll struggle to escape the stink of failure. Once bad news gets locked in, turning it around can be like trying to smuggle a fully-grown narwhal through customs.

I don't even know what that means.

Suffice to say, following the flaccid response received by Mass Effect: Andromeda, Bioware needs another flop like it needs a bum in its face (not a good thing, despite what some of you perverts may think). This is despite the fact that bugs in new games are no big surprise anymore. I mean, name a triple-A game in recent memory which hasn't required a patch in the first few weeks of release, or been beaten with the shitty stick on YouTube. 

These games are so huge, so complex, that - especially when you throw in the added unpredictability of making it an always-online multiplayer nonsense - you can't really blame developers for failing to prepare for the unexpected. After all, they're only underpaid, overworked, sleep-deprived, humans struggling with the pressure of having to meet unrealistic market expectations.  

None of this is a surprise. What is a surprise to me, however, is that Anthem is even getting so much attention in the fIrst place, and I can only assume it's because we're being told this is the first big release of 2019. A nude in a nudist camp is no surprise and doesn't stand out. However... a nude in a supermarket (unless it's a nude supermarket) will have all eyes on him. 

Look, I get that Bioware is a company with a following. I get that this is Bioware moving somewhat outside of the genre they've typically focused upon. But what I don't get is that anybody is remotely interested in this game, which looks - to all intents and purposes - like Destiny, but with flying. 

Wooooh! Yeah! Gimme some of that delicious more of the same! 
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NOT BOTHERED
I've not bothered trying to play the Anthem demo, but I've watched videos of other people playing it. If I wasn't aware that this was a new game, then I would've thought it was one that had already been out a year or two. 

A MMO shoot 'em up where you fight bullet sponge monsters in return for finding neat equipment and weapons set within an intricate world full of lore is literally the most unoriginal sort of game you could make right now. And yet Bioware and EA have done exactly that, and the only reason I can assume this game is still being released is because it was set in motion after Destiny proved a massive hit, and before Destiny 2 failed to achieve the same sort of buzz.

They probably thought they could make a fortune off of loot crates until Battlefront 2 walled-off that avenue - by which point Anthem was too far down the road. 

Fortnite and PUBG, for better or worse, are where it's at now - one tailored for a more casual, younger audience, and the other for the hardcore crowd. By contrast, Destiny 2 and Anthem feel archaic. Indeed, the dark, claustrophobic-looking "open world" of Anthem feels like just more of the same forests, mountains, and caverns that we seem to get in every open world game these days. 

Furthermore, the game's Javelin suits - the robotic eco-skeletons that players wear - are about as uninspired as you could imagine. They're literally the default "person-in-a-robot suit" design - quasi-Iron Man-like, with then usual glow-y bits, and exactly the mix of character classes and weapon bolt-ons that you would expect.

It's not enough. None of this is enough. It's tired and lazy. I don't even fault the team working on it - I blame those at the top who just want to try to surf what they perceive as a zeitgeist wave, rather than trying to stand out. It's a game driven by the bottom line, rather than creativity. 
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GENERIC
Everything I've seen thus far about Anthem screams "generic". I hate saying that, because it's clearly had an enormous amount of time and money and skill invested in it, and to dismiss it as "generic" seems almost cruel.

And yet... that's exactly what it is. The USP seems to be that you can fly for limited amounts of time, but everything else appears ripped from Destiny's playbook, with a bunch of Mass Effect-style cut-scenes and wandering around slapped atop it. 

I don't want that. I don't want to feel like I'm playing the same game over and over and over. For all its faults, Fortnite at least is bright, colourful, and welcoming. It very much brought its own personality to the genre.

By contrast, Anthem just looks like the kid hanging around with the playground alpha, Johnny Destiny, emulating his mannerisms and dress sense. Oh, and occasionally the bigger kids will ask Little Anthem to do that trick he can do, and Little Anthem will duly fold his eyelids inside out, and everyone will laugh, and for a moment he'll feel accepted... but that's the extent of what he brings to the clique. One trick. One new idea. Everything else seems borrowed or stolen or appropriated in a bid to fit in and be liked.

And get this: even Johnny Destiny is on the way out. He's in sixth form now, and the kids in the younger years think he's a bit boring. Yeah, he used to be cool, but fashion moves on. Everyone's hanging around with Johnny Fortnite now. He does funny dancing, but he's so un-selfconscious, and somehow you can't hate him even when he tries to dab. 

​Maddeningly, I've even read articles that struggle to make the case that Anthem won't simply be a Destiny clone, but once they get past the flying mech suits, they're into minutiae like "no self damage!" and "no PVP!". That's just splitting hairs, like trying to sell a new model of car that's exactly like an old model of car, and your main new feature is a special cup holder that can hold up to THREE DRINKS. 

Enough now. Anthem - and all you other games with your one-word names and your sci-fi armours and your forested alien worlds - your day is over. Everything has its time, and yours is up. Find us new ways to get us excited about games rather than playing to same old songs again and again and again. Give us games where the ideas surprise us, not the same peddling of stale tropes and gameplay.
20 Comments
Ste Pickford
28/1/2019 10:02:39 am

Not bothered.

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Cunzy1 1 link
28/1/2019 10:10:22 am

This review resonates with me! Especially the bit about assuming this game came out before.

I'd add another thing to the list of generic stuff we're tired of and that's 'Games As A Service'. I don't want to play online, I don't want to sign up to your club or 'net' for measly 'rewards' I don't have time for daily, weekly, seasonal quests in one title let alone more than one. Sometimes I just want a great lunch date with a game, not a mediocre but with a few high points 25 year long relationship. ENOUGH.

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Bo
28/1/2019 10:19:43 am

Well said.

I think that an under-appreciated aspect of what makes Fortnite/PUBG so popular is that there is no 'grind' to them. Yes they require practice to get better at them, but outside of cosmetic nonsense, there are no levels. About 10 years ago it seems like games designers made this collective decision that all big multiplayer shooters had to have 'progression' systems built into them - I feel like it started with Call of Duty 4 and a line can be traced all the way here to Anthem - as though they didn't feel the core appeal of their gameplay was enough to keep us interested. Play just a little bit more, they say, and you too can have a few more handfuls of our utterly nondescript currency, and maybe you can even buy a marginal improvement to one of your weapons, which will in turn be replaced after a few more hours!

I've probably made it fairly clear which side of this fence I lie, but nothing turns me off a game more than being immediately presented with these kind of facades in games. I don't want to be told I have to play hundreds of hours to get anywhere in your game - sell me on your actual mechanics, or you're wasting my time.

I don't think I'm confident enough to say that this is the end of those kind of systems, but it's actually kind of heartening to see that people just don't seem interested in them any more. I'll take a million tacked-on battle royale modes over this.

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Pete Davison link
28/1/2019 11:09:04 am

It's been sad to see BioWare's decline; they used to make consistently amazing games, but since the EA buyout they've gotten gradually worse and worse, until from about Mass Effect 3 onwards they crossed that line into "stuff I don't want anything to do with any more". (I refused to buy Mass Effect 3 because of its day-one DLC, and I stand by that; I'm kind of glad I did now.)

You're right about Anthem looking generic; every screenshot I've seen looks like a sort of fusion between Overwatch and Warframe, and neither of those are games that hold my interest. Shoot and loot can be fun, but I'm not sure we need any more right now when we're already pretty saturated with them.

Your comments here remind me of the common criticism of the early to mid Xbox 360 era which was that too many games were "bald space marine" games. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
28/1/2019 05:33:06 pm

I refused to buy Arse Effect 2 after they polished up the PS3 and PC releases with a spanglier GOTY edition but never did that for the 360 users who’d supported the series from its inception. After seeing the shots how regarding 3 and what happened with Mass Effect: Autism, I’m glad I left it when I did.

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Bilstar
28/1/2019 02:00:02 pm

I agree with this so much, I had to check to make sure I didn't write it.

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Euphemia link
28/1/2019 02:24:07 pm

It's probably pitched at a good time, given that even the die-hard Destiny 2 community is bored to death at this point and looking for something new, but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. Why does anyone else want to clamber onto this ageing bandwagon, or is it just so far down the road they might as well see it through? Despite not being first-person, it's riffing so hard on the Destiny model that it seems like plagiarism.

As a new IP, this looks like such a generic, backwards step.

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FatDave
28/1/2019 11:49:29 pm

Destiny 2 actually became good when forsaken came out

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Euphemia link
29/1/2019 04:09:11 pm

I'd agree with that, and I've immensely enjoyed Destiny 2 since Forsaken re-worked a large chunk of the core game. But that was nearly five months ago, and the current content has been entirely devoured by the regular players. The annual pass is trickling out nuggets of new content, but recent mis-steps like blocking access to a paid high-level activity until the community unlocks it (which they couldn't) is kinda priming a lot of the player base for something else. Like Anthem.

PixelGuff link
28/1/2019 03:39:49 pm

Bleeeeuuurrghh. I have zero interest in Anthem or any of the other games like it. I kind of hope it does alright for Bioware's sake though, because if it falls flat on its backside I'll bet EA* will close them down.

* Enormous Arseholes

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Treacle
28/1/2019 04:30:06 pm

These games are the equivalent of being at the pub and someone asks for a pint of "whatever's on draft".

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
28/1/2019 05:38:14 pm

I don’t understand how loot shooters (or whatever these are) are so popular. You kill monsters for a chance at better equipment that can kill slightly bigger monsters. This is without the story of a proper single player game or the big community of a proper MMO.

Being able to fly? Pfff. Give us a proper Tribes 2 sequel! Not a crippled F2P joke with heavily restricted loadouts and most of the vehicles removed.

With Destiny, The Division and so many other games like this, I don’t see why they ever approved this. It has to be the most generic looking game ever.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
28/1/2019 05:42:31 pm

I forgot Fallout 76! Look how well that did!

They don’t need to waste time on actual content when “hilarious bantz” with your “m8s” keeps you entertained! It’s the perfect crutch for a lazy developer, let all the stupid things people do in co-op carry your boring game!

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Guru Larry link
28/1/2019 06:03:06 pm

Its going to bomb regardless, I posted a tweet over the weekend about no one is pre-ordering the game and sites are already offering large discounts. People are highly hesitant to buy it after Battlefield V was dropped to half price after only two weeks on sale.

But it's a knockoff of Destiny, and there's a huge lethargy about that game already, why would anyone want to play a clone of it?

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Geddy76
28/1/2019 06:39:48 pm

The sad thing is, EA games are basically large safety nets cast out to reel average consumers in.

Art is individualism, and not repeating tried and tested produce to please the many.

Their name is now clearly ironic.

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Geddy76
28/1/2019 06:19:01 pm

Your views reflect seemingly the majority and only the youngest or most easily pleased among us will disagree. There is nothing else one can add. I feel deeply sorry for Bioware that they are slaves to EA's agenda.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
28/1/2019 07:16:37 pm

I doubt that even the youngest and most easily pleased among us would disagree. They're too busy with Fortnite to even look at Anthem.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
28/1/2019 07:13:39 pm

I remember seeing Anthem at EA's E3 presentation last year and switching off after deciding that it was a low point even for a presentation that had included several wasted minutes spent watching two people playing a pay-to-win mobile Command and Conquer game live on stage.

Hopefully once this tedious-looking thing is forgotten about, EA will let Bioware finally get round to making the sequel to the classic licensed action RPG that we've all been waiting for since they left us hanging years ago with a decidedly unsatisfying ending: Sonic Chronicles.

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Robobob
28/1/2019 07:45:37 pm

Do you think there is any sort of niche in the market for nude supermarkets? Is it worth seeing if Tesco are interested?

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HorseMorsel
1/2/2019 04:17:10 pm

Three drinks you say?

Reply



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