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ggrobot
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Joined: 28 May 2004
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 Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:32 pm Post subject: Anthem Open Demo [47430] |
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to test out the game and experience the world. The download is roughly 25GB across all platforms. Downloading and installing the Anthem open demo on your PC is extremely simple and to the point. First, youâ??re going to need to make sure you have an Origin account. If youâ??ve played any EA games in the past few y
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Source: GGMania headlines
GGMania.com - Daily Gaming and Tech news |
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gx-x
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Joined: 02 Jul 2007
Posts: 2542
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| Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2019 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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You can't turn off motion blur
Controls are disgusting
Objectives unclear, as in directions unclear, d**k stuck in the ceiling fan
Gun play is terrible
Flying your suit is like some simulation of...idk. It's unnecessarily stiff and not fun (should be a lot of fun but it's just the opposite)
I have no idea what this game is supposed to be. At least they unlocked the graphics so it kinda looks like in trailers, unlike in the previous invite only event. |
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heretic
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Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 2745
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| Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2019 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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Visually, Anthem can be quite stunning, but the presentation design choices simply don't allow the subtleties to shine. I walked away with a strange impression, despite the prowess on display. In snapshots, standing still, observing things slowly, the game is terrific. The lighting, textures, geometry and model work are all very nice. Animations run the spectrum of OK to terrific, with the Javelin's themselves having some really nice touches. The hub feels like a strange mix of designs and cultures, but everything feels properly crafted and visually interesting, taste notwithstanding. Outside feels properly organic, natural and untouched, with Frostbite pushing some terrific moments where the scenery comes together, offering a glimpse into an alien lost world of sorts. Unfortunately, all of this only applies when static, and the game isn't about standing still. Once everything hit full pace in motion, the visuals simply don't translate, and the screen becomes a muddied mess of motion blur, particles, post processing, lighting, and effects that simply don't permit the user to appreciate what's on display. It devolves down into visual soup. To say that Anthem is a bad looking game is wrong, plain and simple; graphically, it's actually pretty darn wonderful. But the presentation of those visuals is really quite terrible. I feel for the poor artists who poured over the way the rocks and grass meet as the waters edge, only for it all to be coated in chromatic aberration and motion blur. It's nowhere near as crisp, clean or precise as one would expect from a AAA title in 2019. Contrast this against other titles like Warframe, which are incredibly fast yet manage to hold onto their crisp visual presentation, and Anthem isn't really up to par. Destiny, for all of the many, many, many faults, is brilliantly presented, with the time and care paid to its visuals on full display from the first frame to the last. Anthem simply hasn't received the same love in its visuals, and it really shows. Frankly, games shouldn't look this messy on my hardware.
Audio is serviceable. There's hints of the musical score peppered throughout, but nothing concrete or memorable. It's there, and it works, but its not lasting. I'm hoping the full game has something special in store. Bungie has shown the power that music has in elevating games, and this applies moreover to games that are attempting to establish worlds and themes that players will inhabit for years to come. I don't think we've seen Anthem's soundscape in full yet, but I'm hopeful. The sound effects are generally all fine, but again, nothing exceptional here. I was hoping that the traversal effects would be something special, because you're potentially going to be listening to them for quite some time. But, they're fine. Not bad, not great. They'll do.
The UI is a mess from the opening screen. Menu's are confusing and un-intuitive. No idea who they built it for, but it wasn't gamers playing a loot driven action game, nor gamers engrossed in a deep RPG. The map is, literally, stolen wholesale from Destiny, and yet manages to somehow make it worse. It's serviceable in the worst kind of way; you'll tolerate its existence and learn it begrudgingly, all the while questioning every single decision. Why does an animation play after I salvage an item that means I can't do anything for a second, every time I salvage one of the 10 items I need to salvage? Why is the screen broken up into vertical "blades" that remind me of the Xbox 360's original UI, minus all of the usefulness?
Gameplay is a strange mix. The first person "RPG" stuff is effectively a watered down Bioware RPG. Dialogue scenes with strangely rough animations, lots of walking back and forth, as if adhering to a formula that says a quest must have X number of steps. It's certainly better written than anything in Destiny - and by a wide margin, frankly - but I'd be lying if I said that this was gripping me in the ways that I wanted it to. However, all fairness - we have to remember that this is a demo - divorced from the context of the main story and started 10 levels in - so its not a complete judgement. With that said, I had the same exact reservations after the Destiny alpha, and I was bang on the money there about it being garbage. My main fear is that the game cordoned off its RPG story elements into a single environment and setting. For as rich and wonderful as the texture work is, it's incredibly limited stuff that felt worn by the time the demo was over. Setting an entire game within such a limited environment feels... not smart. I hope Bioware have secrets in store, because the last time Bioware attempted a "bottle episode", we got Dragon Age 2, which should concern anyone hoping for a winning narrative. For all the talk of a "proper Bioware story", the demo didn't give me hopes to think there's room enough for them to craft one. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I suspect we're going to get a "Universe ending threat" narrative, a story that's trying to be a lot bigger than it is, and feeling as deep as a puddle.
The third person stuff is, most unfortunately, all over the page. When it works, you're glued to the screen. Flying around, dealing death, feeling like an absolute bad-ass. It's great. When it doesn't work, you're bored stiffless watching health bars grow incrementally smaller as you wait for cool-downs to tick over so you can see another lifeless explosion with a marginally bigger number float out of it. This was the part that Bioware needed to nail, because its the meat of the entire franchise. And while its good, with flashes of brilliance, it's not amazing. And Bioware needed it to be amazing. Simply put, Anthem is not as good a third person shooter as Destiny is a first person shooter. Destiny has the gameplay you can, and Bungie have, built an entire franchise around. Industry best. Anthem is just a good third person shooter, but that's all it is. Its no better than The Division, but it doesn't have the cover based mechanics that make that game work so well. After the demo, I looked over Datto's and some other steamers videos, where they broke down some of the masterwork items and abilities, showing off the kind of loot we can expect to form the core of our builds. And, frankly, there's nothing. Lots of big damage bonuses, sure, but nothing that's going to inject life into the core loop that isn't already there. This is Anthem, for better or worse.
As for longevity, this where things get, well, weird. For as much as I enjoyed the demo, and I did ultimately enjoy it, I'm not sure how or why I would want to spend hundreds of hours in this game. Take the flying, for example. The flying mechanics, while fun, create the same problems that they created in MMOs, with the players just ignoring 75% of the world that the developers created. So, why waste so much of the development resources creating this lush world if players are encouraged to ignore most of it? From an engagement point of view, I just fly until the developer arbitrarily tells me I can't, kill the baddies at the marker while inane radio chatter between characters I don't care about plays over the top, and move on. If Anthem understood this was built accordingly, ok cool. It'd be a super fast, low engagement game, but still a good romp. Third person Diablo, basically, which is cool. You know, like how Warframe is built. But, no, its not that at all. Loading screens bookend everything from entering caves, to - I shit you not - equipping the gear you just got. This game simply isn't built with an understanding of how players will engage with it over the long haul. You'll spend dozens of minutes every session staring at loading screens, or flying with nothing to really do for minutes at a time. No quick 20 minute farming session with friends, nor deep and engaging strategic combat that really gets your blood going. Hell, it takes around 10 minutes just to load the game and get out into the world with a gun. Bioware clearly built it to be fired up and played for hours of deep engagement, and yet, it appears to have filled those hours with little more than blindly flying to markers, shooting baddies while your screen turns to soup, only to fly to the next marker, and repeat. The lack of engagement in traversal, and by extension, the connection to the word, is really quite staggering.
Anthem is now sitting at the same point that Destiny sat in after its alpha created concern for me. Unfortunately, I'm not prepared to give Bioware the benefit of the doubt here. I hope Bioware is hiding some crazy, game-changing weapons, some truly amazing missions, or a deep and gripping Bioware-standard narrative, or - magically - all three. Because if not, then they literally just made EA's own Destiny, complete with all of its problems, only minus the industry-leading gaemplay. I had fun with it, but not enough to dive in at launch, and certainly not enough to invest in the franchise. I'll wait for the reviews and feedback on the elder game from the community.
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https://www.neogaf.com/threads/anthem-demo-impressions-thread.1471552/post-253762797 |
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gx-x
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Joined: 02 Jul 2007
Posts: 2542
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| Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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yea, I ain't reading that wall of text but thanks  |
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