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'Anthem': Is It Worth Your Money?

Is Bioware's new title worth your paycheck?

By Xavier DevinePublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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Anthem, one of the most anticipated games of 2019 since its initial showing at E3, is Bioware's next big release with EA backing them all the way. We are promised that there will be no big microtransactions, no pay to win mechanics, and the game is intended to last at least 10 years. With promises of huge expansion packs, an ever-expanding map, and hours of gameplay, what could possibly go wrong?

Expectations vs. Reality

At the core of Anthem is what every gamer dreams of: A huge open world with a beautiful scenery, loads of enemies, and dangerous wild life for you to hunt down and take out, with loads of armor customizations for your character to unlock and equip. Hell, they even let you play the main story and free roam with three of your friends. It all seems like a happy story until you actually start playing the game. This game clearly has its ups and downs, just like every other major release. The only difference is how this game almost feels like it robbed you of $60 with its short anticlimactic story and lack of missions.

EA and Bioware pretty much shot themselves in the foot before the game even came out, clearly putting all their eggs in the same basket. At first glance, Anthem is beautiful. The world is full of colors, danger, and excitement. Fort Tarsis, your home base, is full of lively NPCs who love to interact with you. Many of the NPCs constantly have dialogue options—almost all of them are pointless and are just used to waste your time—but some give you side quests or give you options to be a good person or a bad person in a choose your own adventure kind of style. Not to say that it's a bad thing to have random NPCs wanting to talk to you after every mission, but it's just a pain. You have to run all over the fort looking for people who want to talk your ear off about nothing important and waste your time. It's not the end of the world, but it's just annoying sometimes.

Now let's talk about the overall performance and gameplay of this title. The first couple of days on Anthem were bad in terms of connection. The lag was very consistent, whether it was free roam or just running around Fort Tarsis. Eventually, it would sort itself out, but the lag was lurking everywhere. But I will hand it to Bioware, the graphics are stunning. Their detail to each character and the tracking of the mouth movement with audio was beautiful. Sometimes it felt as if I was watching a movie instead of playing a game. The world has many different places to explore, ranging from tall mountain tops, hidden waterfall caves, and even underwater loot. I have absolutely no complaints on the graphic side of this game. I was blown away. Unfortunately, that is kind of where my excitement ends.

The story to this game just didn't hit me in a good way. I found it kind of hard to actually care what my freelancer was fighting for. It feels like you are just kind of thrust into a fight, waging war in the heart of rage against titans, and then before you know it, it's over. The opening mission is just very anticlimactic for a game that looks so magnificent. Without spoiling anything, there are some twists in the story that mix up the plot and make it somewhat exciting. But as you progress, most of the missions are the exact same. Go save this group of arcanists or silence this relic. Fight this titan, defeat the scars, or clear out the scorpions. After the first hour, most of the missions are quite repetitive and almost feel like they drag on forever. But don't even get me started on the ending. The last mission is by far the worst part of the game. How can I put this without spoiling the end? The end fight almost feels rushed and you are completely robbed of that satisfying feeling of beating the boss and rubbing it in his face that he lost. It's very frustrating to see the game end knowing you didn't really deserve it. On top of that, they took the lazy way out and added an after credit scene—like most Marvel movies even though Marvel credit scenes are amazing—and left the game wide open for DLC to continue the story. I've actually never been more upset with a game's ending—other than Kingdom Hearts 3 smacking my childhood in the face and kicking me to the curb, but that is another review for another time.

So, now that the main story has brutally and utterly disappointed you, you might be thinking that you can explore new areas of the map in free roam, or maybe you want to go and defeat some strongholds and get high level loot... guess again, buddy. Pretty much any cave or area you choose to explore in free roam you already cover in the story. You hit every cave in the story and even some in the side quests. So, unless you just hop in to get your world event prizes from the free roam missions, it's pretty much pointless, especially since most of the free roam world events are the exact same. Guess you might as well go play the strongholds with your pals, right? If you like grinding the same damn dungeon for hours with no guarantee of better loot from the boss, no matter if you up the difficulty, then sure, go right ahead. Some people don't mind grinding the same mission for hours and hoping for better loot. Not me, though, and definitely not most people. About halfway through the main story you unlock your first stronghold, and for the first couple of times, it's exciting, fighting lots of enemies and the boss trying to stay alive. But after the sixth time through, it gets boring. It's the same routine every fight. Only after you beat the main story do you actually unlock two more strongholds. One of which is basically the last mission in the heart of rage. There just simply is not enough for you to do in this massive open world game that took them roughly six years to make and it is still easily eight months out from being 100 percent complete. It almost feels like you were catfished by the trailer and the promises at E3, and then handed an incomplete product with laggy servers and a disappointing stories.

Honestly, though, at the end of the day, it all boils down to the type of gamer you are. In my opinion, this game is not worth my money, let alone your hard earned paycheck... yet. Anthem has unlimited potential, but was clearly rushed because EA wants to reap your wallet of $60 early in an attempt to keep you along for the ride as they finish up their half-assed project. So, if you are someone who doesn't necessarily care about a campaign and would rather grind the same missions over and over again for hours with your friends, then this game is just right for you. If you are more like me and enjoy the multiplayer aspect, as well as an enticing story that really pulls you in for a hell of a ride, then I suggest waiting a couple months for a more polished game with some kind of DLC that could redeem the anticlimactic story we were fed.

Graphics: 10/10

Gameplay: 5/10

Story: 4/10

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About the Creator

Xavier Devine

Hello,

I'm just a die hard fan of video games and lover of movies. I tend to have very heavy opinions on most of everything and I'd love to share them with you.

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