Hello ladies and gents this is the viking telling you that today we are talking about
BioWare, the developer responsible for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, has returned with its first new series in over a decade, Anthem. It's a pretty big departure for the RPG-heavy studio: a jetpack-fueled, action-first online "looter-shooter." And after a disastrous demo launched weeks ago, we wondered whether we'd even get a playable game.
The good news is that we did, and at its best, Anthem feels brilliant, beautiful, and thrilling. At its worst, though, this is a stuttering, confusing, heartbreaking mess of an action game.
The good stuff Anthem ultimately offers—artistic design, BioWare-caliber plot, and that freakin' Iron Man feeling—fails to coalesce. Players are expected to log in again and again for missions with friends in true "online shared shooter" style (à la Destiny and Warframe), but the game's inherent structure makes this basic loop difficult to pull off.
The disappointment we feel perhaps stems from the fact Anthem often feels like a classic BioWare single-player quest that was shoved awkwardly into an always-online game.
A bird? A plane? Even better!
Anthem comes complete with its own sci-fi universe, one with no apparent ties to previous BioWare series. In this one, you control a "freelancer," a class of bounty-hunting soldier decked out in a robo-armor suit called a "javelin." You learn exactly what happened to your dwindling ranks in an opening mission that sees you and teammates contend with unbeatable odds and suffer from a tragic loss.
This booming intro mission hits all of the beats you might hope for in a BioWare-ized action game: solid voice acting, killer vistas, soaring music, and epic strange-planet combat. In this first mission, your AI allies are old pros and do a good job of immediately establishing a rapport while you start wielding firepower in third-person perspective. One button fires an equipped military-grade gun; four other buttons are dedicated to special attacks like fireballs and temporary shields.
And one important button sends you into the air, careening in any direction you wish as a jetpack-flying super-soldier. I call this the "WHOOSH" button.
Almost everything about Anthem's flight system is awesome. The sheer act of lifting off looks, sounds, and feels great, no matter how many times you do it. There's a timing chain for the required jump-then-boost combo, coupled with a light-and-sound reaction of blasting off. The combined effect implies enough torque to make your real-life head rock back instinctually. Once you're airborne, the default speed is slow-and-maneuverable for newbies (aided all the more by a useful "hover in place" button), while pressing "forward" delivers a juicy amount of controllable velocity.
My only complaint at this point is that these suits overheat when flying for too long. In combat, that trade-off is understandable. Outside of combat (and there's a lot of non-combat time during missions), I'd rather not stop flying. Anthem's flight system is right up there with the tortoise-shell skateboarding of Super Mario 64 and the dash-jumping of Celeste. It's the game's purest, most crystallized gem of joy-in-movement, and one that I'm glad I get to do again and again.
I hope you liked this post and as always have a chilled day from the viking.
Anthem review: BioWare’s sky-high gaming ambition crashes back to Earth.It's out, finally. But maybe it shouldn't be.
BioWare, the developer responsible for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, has returned with its first new series in over a decade, Anthem. It's a pretty big departure for the RPG-heavy studio: a jetpack-fueled, action-first online "looter-shooter." And after a disastrous demo launched weeks ago, we wondered whether we'd even get a playable game.
The good news is that we did, and at its best, Anthem feels brilliant, beautiful, and thrilling. At its worst, though, this is a stuttering, confusing, heartbreaking mess of an action game.
The good stuff Anthem ultimately offers—artistic design, BioWare-caliber plot, and that freakin' Iron Man feeling—fails to coalesce. Players are expected to log in again and again for missions with friends in true "online shared shooter" style (à la Destiny and Warframe), but the game's inherent structure makes this basic loop difficult to pull off.
The disappointment we feel perhaps stems from the fact Anthem often feels like a classic BioWare single-player quest that was shoved awkwardly into an always-online game.
A bird? A plane? Even better!
Anthem comes complete with its own sci-fi universe, one with no apparent ties to previous BioWare series. In this one, you control a "freelancer," a class of bounty-hunting soldier decked out in a robo-armor suit called a "javelin." You learn exactly what happened to your dwindling ranks in an opening mission that sees you and teammates contend with unbeatable odds and suffer from a tragic loss.
This booming intro mission hits all of the beats you might hope for in a BioWare-ized action game: solid voice acting, killer vistas, soaring music, and epic strange-planet combat. In this first mission, your AI allies are old pros and do a good job of immediately establishing a rapport while you start wielding firepower in third-person perspective. One button fires an equipped military-grade gun; four other buttons are dedicated to special attacks like fireballs and temporary shields.
And one important button sends you into the air, careening in any direction you wish as a jetpack-flying super-soldier. I call this the "WHOOSH" button.
Almost everything about Anthem's flight system is awesome. The sheer act of lifting off looks, sounds, and feels great, no matter how many times you do it. There's a timing chain for the required jump-then-boost combo, coupled with a light-and-sound reaction of blasting off. The combined effect implies enough torque to make your real-life head rock back instinctually. Once you're airborne, the default speed is slow-and-maneuverable for newbies (aided all the more by a useful "hover in place" button), while pressing "forward" delivers a juicy amount of controllable velocity.
My only complaint at this point is that these suits overheat when flying for too long. In combat, that trade-off is understandable. Outside of combat (and there's a lot of non-combat time during missions), I'd rather not stop flying. Anthem's flight system is right up there with the tortoise-shell skateboarding of Super Mario 64 and the dash-jumping of Celeste. It's the game's purest, most crystallized gem of joy-in-movement, and one that I'm glad I get to do again and again.
I hope you liked this post and as always have a chilled day from the viking.
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