So I've been playing Anthem since Friday, and I'm truly baffled by what I'm playing. There are a host of issues that just don't make sense, and why it was pushed out the door like this is definitely strange, especially after the recent drop of Apex Legends, another EA title that is extremely polished but also came out of nowhere.
First issue, the load screens. What the hell happened here? Want to equip a weapon? Load screen. Finished a mission? Load screen so you can see your point totals for the mission and then ANOTHER load screen into your base. Have a slow hard drive when you're starting a mission? Two minute load screen, followed by another load screen because your squad is ahead of you (WHY ARE YOU FORCING PEOPLE TO BE ON TOP OF EACH OTHER AT ALL TIMES?), and by the time you've finished your four minutes of loading you're probably going into another load screen for the dungeon. Good lord, every damn thing in this game has me on my phone more than I'm playing.
The game seems to have a small amount of content, especially given the 6 year dev cycle, with players reporting they finished all the story quests in under 20 hours, and they're left 10 levels short from the true "endgame", which seems to just revolve around doing the same limited content you've already done. It's not like the story is particularly high quality either, with weird semi-cutscenes with you talking directly at someone's face, not even meeting the bar that Mass Effect set in 2006, or pre-rendered cutscenes (THAT DON'T LOAD IN THE BACKGROUND SO YOU NEED TO LOAD AGAIN AFTER THEM) that are spread out and don't particularly fit with the rest of the game.
The UI is clunky and overdone, you need to traverse a bunch of clunky menus to actually do whatever you want, all of which are in different styles and don't seem to have any coherent design except for "everything is a rhombus". I've also had issues with text boxes loading before the background graphics, and everything just seems so unfinished.
For the game's credit, the art is beautiful and the flying and shooting are both enjoyable, but every single thing in the game detracts from that experience. If I want to just go out and do a mission, I'm sitting at probably 5 minutes of load times in a 20 minute mission. How the hell did this happen in 2019 when it seems like every other game has managed to almost eliminate load screens altogether?
First issue, the load screens. What the hell happened here? Want to equip a weapon? Load screen. Finished a mission? Load screen so you can see your point totals for the mission and then ANOTHER load screen into your base. Have a slow hard drive when you're starting a mission? Two minute load screen, followed by another load screen because your squad is ahead of you (WHY ARE YOU FORCING PEOPLE TO BE ON TOP OF EACH OTHER AT ALL TIMES?), and by the time you've finished your four minutes of loading you're probably going into another load screen for the dungeon. Good lord, every damn thing in this game has me on my phone more than I'm playing.
The game seems to have a small amount of content, especially given the 6 year dev cycle, with players reporting they finished all the story quests in under 20 hours, and they're left 10 levels short from the true "endgame", which seems to just revolve around doing the same limited content you've already done. It's not like the story is particularly high quality either, with weird semi-cutscenes with you talking directly at someone's face, not even meeting the bar that Mass Effect set in 2006, or pre-rendered cutscenes (THAT DON'T LOAD IN THE BACKGROUND SO YOU NEED TO LOAD AGAIN AFTER THEM) that are spread out and don't particularly fit with the rest of the game.
The UI is clunky and overdone, you need to traverse a bunch of clunky menus to actually do whatever you want, all of which are in different styles and don't seem to have any coherent design except for "everything is a rhombus". I've also had issues with text boxes loading before the background graphics, and everything just seems so unfinished.
For the game's credit, the art is beautiful and the flying and shooting are both enjoyable, but every single thing in the game detracts from that experience. If I want to just go out and do a mission, I'm sitting at probably 5 minutes of load times in a 20 minute mission. How the hell did this happen in 2019 when it seems like every other game has managed to almost eliminate load screens altogether?
