Anthem - Release Day Reviews

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Spaceman
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Anthem will be officially released shortly and initial reception has been middling reviews.

PCGamesN 6/10
Beautiful and mechanically robust throughout, but weighed down by repetitive missions, a flabby structure, and a lot of the people you meet in Fort Tarsis. Even the strongest beats become tiresome if repeated or drowned in white noise, and that's Anthem in a nutshell.

Game Revolution 5/10
Unfortunately, I feel like fixing this game goes beyond patching glitches, fixing bugs, and then cramming in expansions. To bring this game up to the must-play level, many aspects of the game need a full overhaul.

PCWorld 5/10
All I can do is review the game I was given though, and the game I was given is mediocre. Functional? Sure. Flashy? Absolutely. But it's a puddle disguised as a lake, a universe with so much potential that makes good on almost none of it. To make matters worse, I don't think the core loop is interesting enough to keep me playing. The tougher end-game enemies are so damn spongy, and the shooting isn't nearly as tight or as punchy as Destiny, a game that kept me playing long past the point I'd exhausted its similarly dreadful story.

PC Invasion 5/10
Anthem offers near unlimited potential, with certain features, taken separately, representing a marvel in design. Combined together and it proves to have a lot of style but very little substance.
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Another Fallout 76 situation sums up the critic and player reviews. Look if you hate it's okay, if you love that's okay as well. As everyone has different tastes and opinions.

All that matters to EA anyway will be sales and future monetization income.
 
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Middling? Anything less than a 7 is a disaster for a company of that scope. How long can this last before they have to undergo a major restructuring?
 
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Ok, I'm not a spiteful person and I don't think I really wish Bioware any ill will... and yet, reading these mediocre to bad reviews of the game kinda makes me feel all fuzzy and warm. =)
 
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rjshae said:
Middling? Anything less than a 7 is a disaster for a company of that scope. How long can this last before they have to undergo a major restructuring?
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Gotta figure EA will do something soon. Andromeda got one of their offices shut down and it was reviewed 11 points higher than this game as of now (72 -> 61). They haven't released a game that got good reviews in 5 years now and it doesn't sound like they're close to releasing anything else in the near future.
 
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What are you guys talking about? Didn't I post in BS thread that EA just halved the number of employees in their studio responsible for Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile - two cheap2develop phonegames that are earning them millions?

If they close Bioware it won't be because some mmo ended up a dud, especially if that same dud earned millions (and I bet it did). Who cares about reviews if it's selling?

"Below expectations" is just CEOs' scapegoat.
 
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There's no way this game sells 6M copies in 6 weeks, which they said was their goal. Not after the reception. I don't know how much they need to sell to be profitable. But anyway, nobody said closing, rjshae said restructuring.

On a separate note, given what some of these reviews are saying, it's pretty hilarious to revisit some old articles such as this:
https://in.ign.com/bioware-edmonton...e-a-complete-package-on-day-one-says-producer
 
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Clearly the bad reviews are because they forgot to include a Battle Royale mode. And because of the visible damage numbers we discussed a couple of months ago. Obviously.

Joking aside, I feel quite bad for them. This is definitely going to cost some jobs if the number of copies sold follows the review scores. Bad for the developers involved, not the suits.

Maybe i should buy a copy to support them so my chances for a ME5 increases (and the new DA doesn't get cancelled).
 
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SSIGuy said:
Ok, I'm not a spiteful person and I don't think I really wish Bioware any ill will… and yet, reading these mediocre to bad reviews of the game kinda makes me feel all fuzzy and warm. =)
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This is NOT the Bioware that made Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect. The heart of Bioware, as well as the brains, founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, retired in 2012 after the release of Mass Effect 3. Wise move. Since then, EA’s golden goose has been pumping out some rotten eggs in desperate need of a spit shine.
 
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I'm a little surprised by those scores to be honest. I tried the demo and didn't think it was that bad.

The game is beautiful and the combat is very solid, but I have to agree about the repetitiveness. I could see that even in the demo. Still, fans of the genre don't seem to care about that as it's all about grinding to get to that next level and find that next shiny weapon.

It seems solid for what it is. I'm not big on looter shooters though, so it doesn't appeal to me much personally.
 
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Wasn't really my kind of game, but obviously not fun for devs to see that that game they spent making few years is tanking so badly. However after reading some of those reviews, it seems that flaws of this game are quite obvious. Reviewers seem to agree that there is just too much repetation and too little unique content. Seems like a fantastic setting and a game with a thrilling opening, but soon the player notices how much gameplay and exploration aspects are lacking long term.

So those seem like fair reviews to me. This makes me ask: Has Bioware lost its mojo? Mass effect andromeda wasn't exactly a home run, but I think it was much better received than this (despite the notorious animation issues). Bioware obviously needs to rethink what they're doing. They need to get back to basics.
 
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Oooof... I had minor interest in Anthem after learning it was an MMO, but this kind of flop (if not just overreaction) can and will affect the future of games I do like, such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
 
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They're definitely not the studio they once were and I'm glad the gaming press (who I have little faith in (with some rare exceptions)) seem to be calling them on this one and not dolling out blind 9 outta 10s.

Or, I dunno, maybe the person who was supposed to grease the reviewers' palms, forgot to do their job this time.
 
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SSIGuy said:
Or, I dunno, maybe the person who was supposed to grease the reviewers' palms, forgot to do their job this time.
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There's only so much you can do, as far as polishing a turd goes.

Remember when many people said that the reason Mass Effect: Andromeda was sub-par was that BioWare's "A-Team" was all busy working on Anthem? Yeah, about that...
 
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I honestly believe the reviews are based off EA/Bioware hate. Maybe they didn't get free copies of the game or some such. The game isn't a 10/10 definitel, but I've enjoyed thoroughly the 6 hours I've put in it today, and I can't wait to wake tomorrow to play more.

To compare this game to Fallout76 is really misleading. Fallout76 is pointless, empty, and glitched beyond recognition. Everything in it is reused and lazy. Anthem is stunning from the almost endless scenarios to the facial animations and lip sync. What is debatable is whether this "shoot'em up RPG mambo jambo" formula even works at all, as I'm not sure if it feels more like a shooter with forced RPG elements, or a RPG with forced shooter elements. But the game is not a bad game, it's a visual and technical prodigy, and for once it doesn't even have lootboxes or possibility to "pay to win" in any way, and anyone saying otherwise is lying and misleading others, be it out of ignorance or malice.
 
A big complaint in some negative reviews I've seen is way too many long loading screens, that will stop anyone in their tracks. What a bad design.

Also, you are not allowed to explore on your own in certain group mode situations, after you are like, a tiny distance away from your group a stupid message appears saying you will be teleported to your group in 5 seconds or something if you don't get closer. That is one of the dumbest, most annoying ideas I have seen yet in a game and probably pisses off many players too.
 
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Arkadia7 said:
Also, you are not allowed to explore on your own in certain group mode situations, after you are like, a tiny distance away from your group a stupid message appears saying you will be teleported to your group in 5 seconds or something if you don't get closer. That is one of the dumbest, most annoying ideas I have seen yet in a game and probably pisses off many players too.
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Evidently, if your partners are advancing story events and you lag behind, you are teleported to the group to keep up with it, this happens in every party based story game, else you're wasting everyone else's time, or just not contributing towards completing the mission for players that don't want to be stuck in the same instance as you while you decide you want to randomly explore on your own.

If you really want to follow a slow place and look at every detail or explore every corner of a mission on your own, you can simply make the party private and go solo. I've actually done that a couple times, and it's fun and relaxing (although quite inefficient).
 
Arkadia7 said:
A big complaint in some negative reviews I've seen is way too many long loading screens, that will stop anyone in their tracks. What a bad design.
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PC Gamer did some testing of the load times: https://www.pcgamer.com/anthem-load-times-tested-hdd-vs-ssd-vs-nvme/

The numbers you see in the article are the updated results after they improved the times with a patch a couple days ago. Still completely insane. Also, I played the demo and in this game you're getting constant load screens, they aren't rare by any means.

I wonder how bad they are for anyone who's unfortunate enough to play this game on a console.
 
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