#more bad

Just watched another video put out by Bioware about Anthem. I swear... very little about it is even remotely original or new. I get the reuse of previous Bioware game stuff (For example, the Titan... I mean... the Colossus... does a “battle cry” that uses the same animation from previous Bioware games, think Dragon Age Warriors, the red aura they ‘yell’... exactly that). So, I get that, same company, you’re gonna get the same kind of stuff, which is okay. But damn... if it isn’t a almost too direct Destiny rip-off, I don’t know what is. 

Javelin types... Storm (Warlock), Ranger (Hunter), Colossus (Titan), and Interceptor (Another Rogue like suit). The suits are called “Exosuits” (I get why but still)... each one has a “special” power that only that suit can do. IE: How the different classes have their different supers. They have emotes... which... let’s face it, are everywhere now but still. And even though they say that Anthem was in “development” back in 2012, before the first Destiny game, they openly admit that they didn’t actually start working on it until after Andromeda. I fully understand that there are years of planning put into these games but when you’re in the ‘ideas’ phase of a project for two years and then a game comes out that is... basically what they’re saying is it was their idea... that’s the equivalent of saying “I saw it first!” or “Well yeah, but see, I thought of it first.” It doesn’t matter. The point I’m making with this part is... at least change the fucking names more than what they’ve done. At least change the mechanics. All of which might or might not have been even thought of or planned before Destiny was released. Basically, what I’m guessing went down was like someone in a Bioware office was like “Okay... new game ideas?” And wrote it on a piece of paper, pinned it to a wall, and someone added “future sci-fi RPG type game, multiplayer, suits, awesome powers, protect humanity.” And left it like that, for years so now they can say “we thought of it first”. 

It’s just sad. Anthem is obviously has heavy Destiny influencing. Painfully obvious. From the supers to the humans living in last free cities surrounded by walls when the light (Shaper Gods) abandoned them seemingly to fend for themselves, therefor requiring people to now protect humanity from... whatever... darkness or something. From the basic names of Exosuits to the antagonist after “the power of life and death”. There’s even a part in the new video that shows them in a cave. Now, I understand that there’s only so many damn ways to show stalagmites but damn, Volundr Forge anyone (they have a Forge too). Then they have a “gear score” (Light Level) which shows how powerful your  Javelin is. 

Now, I’m not saying that it’s a carbon copy of Destiny, but when you watch the video it’s like... you’re with it, you got it... and then smack, Destiny something... then the video keeps going and you’re like “okay, cool” and then SMACK, another Destiny drop. By the third one, you’re like “Come on!” And then, after that, it just gets sadly annoying. 

What I’m getting at is... if you know your game has got a lot of another popular game’s content? Change the fucking content. Don’t put out a game that mimics another to the point where it’s smacking people in the face. Right now, gamers are vicious. And they should know since it basically started with them on Andromeda! But then again, you’d think other developers would know better too. -Cough-Bethesda-Cough-. And that’s the point. They’re trying to get some hype going about a game... that appears to lack original content... while all of this 76 crap is going on. It’s shitty timing, it is but right now, there are a lot of gamers chomping at the bit, waiting for another developer to “so obviously screw them over”. People swearing off pre-ordering, etc. Right now, it’d be in every studio’s very best interest to put out completely original games. Anthem has a lot of awesome stuff going for it (it really does, it’s another beautiful game) but if they had just tweaked a few of the things a bit more, then you wouldn’t be able to say it’s a Destiny rip-off... you’d be able to go “it’s a bit like Destiny but these similarities are understandable, there’s only so many ways to draw a stalagmite.” 

Like I said, the game is beautiful (what we’ve seen so far). And you can swim! Kick-ass! They’ve already said that there won’t be loot boxes for sale, but you know they’re be something (there always is and that’s okay, as long as what is for sale is either purely cosmetic or you can actually get the item through normal game play). You get a few things (so far) that are very Bioware. And that’s good. Fans like that. Just like in Fallout 4, people pointed out a few Skyrim similarities, which was fine. No one got in a tizzy about it. It was kinda nice. And Bioware has always done this, crossing Dragon Age into Mass Effect and vice versa. So, seeing a few nods to Bioware’s other games (Battle Cry, the Wyvern sniper rifle) and so on, is pretty cool. 

Yeah, there’s no romance. Which, for a Bioware game, is kind of a bummer but meh, it’s okay. It’s not a deal-breaker by any stretch of the term. You’ve got a crew that are NPCs, so you aren’t technically required to play with other people if you don’t want to (unless they do Raids... which would kinda suck as a solo player). That’s one thing, so far, that if they stick with it, they have a leg-up on Destiny. I’m not saying Raids suck, they don’t, they’re freaking awesome. But, as a solo player, it’s kind of a bummer when you can’t get that loot any other way, especially when they have a Triumph based on it (I’ll share more about that in another post). You have an antagonist faction called the Dominion, that are after the Anthem glow stick thing, they apparently have various monsters at their disposal to hurl at you, so you’re gonna be fighting some gnarly looking things, some of which will offer an actual challenge. You can fly! And I’m not talking about gliding, no... apparently you can do flips and spins and dive and all this stuff. Which is pretty cool. Their Infiltrator Javelin (looks a lot like an Overwatch character, btw) is pretty neat looking, probably going to be a favorite of the Rogue playing people out there. The world seems very immersive, which is going to be fun to explore. And they’ve obviously laid the ground work for a FT of lore, unless they pull that “it was all lost in the collapse!” Or... whatever they call their abandonment. 

So, now that I’ve ranted and raved, pointed at things and gone “bad Bioware!” Now that I’ve actually had some good stuff to say too.. that’s where I’m standing on Anthem right now.