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Honest Anthem Review - So Far
Unkillable
Member UncommonPosts: 123
in Anthem
When I first played the Closed Alpha Test less of the game was available and working, as to be expected. I found that the new VIP demo test revealed features that rounded out the gameplay experience and allowed me to fully play/enjoy/recommend the title.
The crafting system was incredible and easy to use, intuitive and fun. I knew where I could obtain the components, and loved the random roll bonuses feature of crafting. 100% spot on, great crafting system that will have players making some great gear and allowing them to push their item rating higher and higher.
The Tyrant Mine experience was great, you feel the progression through the mine/ dungeon and difficulty increases as you make your way to the boss. the boss encounter is challenging even on the normal middle setting, on hard its a lot harder as well. I had people leave me alone/ leave match, and leave me to finish off the tyrant solo. but overall it was a great progression type experience that I enjoyed.
Overall the game seems like it will provide enough content and customization, as well as, fun and engaging combat for a lot of different people and playstyles.
Finally when I unlocked the Colossus "frame" or "exo suit" with a more Tank like ability set and different more powerful "heavy" weapons, the game seemed to shift completely into the Plus Column for me. The Colossus felt like it should with a large HP bar and the Ability to take out a shield and actively block with it. My choices of weapons were simple, An Autocannon style chaingun, and a Explode on Contact Grenade Launcher.
Each of these amazing weapons (both of which I had crafted myself with found and earned components) were very effective at handling enemies and bosses alike. The Autocannon or Minigun/Chaingun was great for the smaller mobs in the encounters, it mows them down quite effectively. The Grenade Launcher was great for boss damage, as the nades were sticky but exploded on contact. From Across the room I could lob the grenades onto the Tyrant Boss's side and cause a lot of damage. Overall the Colossus Only weapon selections seemed perfect and spot on with the playstyle of the class.
I look forward to Anthems release now, having been a part of all public tests up until this point i can say i think this game has amazing systems and the potential to be a really great game.
Thanks for your time,
Unkillable
Comments
TL;DR - not a immediate purchase for me. I was not impressed.
Playing on PC, mostly with XB controller. i7 4790k with GTX980 GPU, 2x 4K monitors.
First off:
4 - launches where the game would just quit before starting and dump me back at Origin
3 - launches where the game would hang on starting to a black screen, and would refuse to start until I rebooted
1 - unexpected game crash to desktop
Across several hours just trying to get into the game, I wasn't very impressed with client stability to say the least.
FIrst game launch - game spread across my 2 screens, with 50% of the UI unviewable. Alt-Enter got me into full screen to fix it, but again, another strike against client programming.
Once I got in - Graphics defaulted to High. I run 4K - my computer definitely cannot run this on High at 4K. It was a slide show. I was able to get them adjusted. and adjust the mouse sensitivity, then the game ran smoothly and looked good, but it did not do this by default.
Once I got all of that squared away, now it was finally time to play this game.
Inside the Fort - it's 1st person view, and you move so slow. I don't know what the purpose of this is. I never saw anyone else in the Fort, so it didn't appear to be a Hub like in Destiny. It was more like your ship in Warframe, only a lot larger, so it just took a lot longer to get around.
Trying to get to an Expedition - I couldn't figure out the UI right off. It took me a good while to finally sort of understand it. I only got into my first Expedition by happy accident. Same with Forge - it was not immediately obvious to me how to use this. I did fumble through, but never felt entirely comfortable with it.
In the game. It controlled ok. I had some issues between flight and hover that I never did get nailed down, but apart from that, the game played well inside the missions.
The biggest, single harshest comment I can give this game: Loading screens. Everywhere. Very, very long loading screens. Even inside a mission - you stray a few footsteps awry in an open world, and the game decides to warp you back to your group.... with a loading screen. Even in Freeplay, I still encoutered loading screens bringing me back to the group, even though I was solo. And when it does finish loading, your smack in the middle of the fighting and getting pounded.
I initially had the game installed on a standard HDD. The loading screens were so harsh (>60sec at times), that I copied the game to my SSD. The load times improved, but it was still very significant, on the order of 20-30 seconds.
Running Expeditions with other players reminded me a lot of Warframe as well. Those that knew the mission would race off, leaving me playing a perpetual game of catch up. By the time I did make it to the area, they would be mostly done already. I know familiarity fixes a lot of this, and I didn't give the game a lot of time, admittedly... but it didn't exactly hook me to want to put in that time this weekend.
Maybe after the release, when the bugs are worked out mostly, and I catch the game on sale or something I'll come back and revisit. But for now, I unlocked my second Javelin (Collosus), tried out freeplay, got stuck in Loading Screen after Loading Screen, and just decided to walk away for a bit.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!