Notes

THE BAD

Servers (Duh)

I mean, obviously the worst thing about the Anthem demo has been the server issues, but we are a month out from launch and this is the first wide-scale test of the game, so I can’t really dwell on this for too long. If these issues persist and crop back up at launch to this degree, that’s a serious problem, but I am willing to have a little patience here for now, at least. Still, it’s been immensely frustrating so far.

Loot Drops/XP Gain

While I like the properties of loot itself, I think both the way you receive loot and XP in this game is…not great. There’s no XP bar I can see on the screen that goes up as you kill enemies, which doesn’t feel good, and instead it’s tallied at the end of a mission. Loot drops are probably worse, as you just run over items to pick them up without knowing what they are, and then at the end screen you see a big pile of everything you picked up. It is essential for a looter to have a proper reward feedback moment when you get a big drop, and I’m not seeing Anthem have that, unless its legendary gear has some dramatically different sort of effect when it appears. If you kill an enemy and get a big drop, you should be able to see what it is right away, and preferably, start using it. Which leads me to…

Locked Loadouts

I know this is a Warframe thing, but I don’t like it here. It feels bad to have your loadout locked during an entire mission, meaning you cannot change any gear, any weapons, any components or use any new loot you pick up along the way. It’s hard to imagine how this would work in The Division or Destiny, changing loadouts only at home base, but that’s what Anthem is asking you to do here, as you can only swap things at Fort Tarsis. I don’t like this, but it’s probably pretty ingrained into the game at this point, and I don’t see it changing.

http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/download-mp3-euroz-for-what-it-s-worth-320-kbps-torrent
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/download-mp3-ella-vos-watch-wait-ep-torrent-zippyshare-2019
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/download-mp3-top-notch-ghetto-life-torrent-zippyshare-2019
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/download-mp3-g-o-d-pt-3-twiz-the-beat-pro-quarantine-torrent
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/download-mp3-boston-george-diego-boston-george-diego-itunes
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-keyon-christ-they-don-t-want-us-itunes-zippyshare-mp3
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-keyon-christ-they-don-t-want-us-itunes-zippyshare-mp3
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-lil-aaron-dark-matter-ep-itunes-zippyshare-mp3-torrent
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-sada-baby-bartier-bounty-320-kbps-zippyshare-mp3
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-summer-walker-clear-ep-zippyshare-mp3-torrent
http://community.vanguardngr.com/forum/topics/full-album-jay-prince-wonder-ep-zippyshare-mp3-torrent

THE IN-BETWEEN

Flying

I have mixed feelings about flying. I like the verticality it adds to combat, but I also hate certain aspects of it. Flying from place to place during a mission, for instance, feels bad because you have to either land to recharge or cruise by some water to cool down in a little traversal minigame I don’t find particularly fun. I think maybe hovering should use up fuel, but flat-out travel-flying shouldn’t, even if that doesn’t really make logistical sense. I also find it weird that when you jump and aim you often don’t automatically hover, and instead have to click a stick to do so, which seems unintuitive. I also keep finding myself crashing into walls trying to fly around in close-area combat encounters, though perhaps that will get better with more practice. Perhaps all of it will.

Story

I am not heading into Anthem expecting Dragon Age or Mass Effect here, but through this demo and the alpha, I haven’t seen anything about the story that’s hooked me so far. Anthem feels like a game that would be better if as a freelancer you were like a…morally grey Boba Fett type, but instead this feels like it’s all heading to a somewhat generic “save the world” storyline, which is a bit of a bummer. I also like the voice acting and animation as I’ve said, but telling every interactive story beat in this weird, first-person Fort Tarsis space does not seem like a recipe for a terribly memorable story, plus or minus a few cutscenes out in the world. Again, I can’t really judge the whole story by so few snippets, so I am reserving further thoughts for now.