Six hours later, the anthem has a lot to like

I played about six hours of Anthem, a game in which the players fly in mechanical combination, exploding tricks in search of a loot more and more rare, and while I still have my marks, I already feel much better in the game than during of his two demos.

The game was launched earlier today on PC for Origin Premier subscribers and on Xbox One as part of a 10-hour trial conducted with EA Access, with a full launch for non-subscribers and PS4 players on February 22nd. Unlike the previous two month and last demo sessions, I have not been disconnected from the servers or encountered any bugs at the endless loading screen scale. Loading times are always a nuisance and I wish the developer BioWare did something to make them less noticeable and annoying than a bar slowly filling over a still image, but at least they are not broken . There were some occasional graphics issues, but nothing that lasted more than a second or interrupted in any way what I was doing. Until there, Anthem works.

It's also very fun. The core of Anthem fly through ancient caves and jungles dotted with ruins, and this part of the game could not feel better. It's easy and responsive to point the left analog lever to turn on the front or right boosters to gracefully fly over the spot, but plenty of complementary camera effects and layered sound effects that will really convince you to control a sensitive rocket. Even if Anthem were just a flying simulation imbued with fantasy, it would always be a ton of fun.

But of course, the game is not limited to flying. Anthem It's about getting missions from people in your hub, a city called Fort Tarsis, who are traveling to the vast, evil and dangerous world to carry them through, then come back and use the loot that you've collected for improve a mechanical combination. Javelin. You can play in a group of up to four players or alone, although some of the missions are actually designed for team work. Fortunately, Anthem offers automatic matches for everything.

One of the big questions that the game had to face before its release was to know if there would be a significant story beyond some wacky sci-fi-related locales to explain why you steal into a weird world in armor of robot. And although storytelling is secondary to everything that happens in the hours I've spent, it exists. As a freelancer, a class of warriors charged with protecting humanity from the deadly forces of nature brought about by mysterious artifacts, you are entangled in a plot to prevent a particularly ruthless faction, the Dominion, from getting special artifacts that could be used to many terrible things.

From what I've seen so far, this is nothing as complex as the political conflicts and the intrigue at work. in the Mass Effect Games. Instead, it is more in line with the destiny The clear drama of games around good versus evil, and it's pretty decent with a world that feels a little more lived than the Bungie series. Or destinyThe tower, located in the clouds, looks a bit like a dream. AnthemFort Tarsis looks more like a giant, greasy auto repair shop with a bar inside. I have no idea what people in Anthem it smells, but I'm absolutely sure they smell something.

The plot, also very simple, the game is also helped by a cast of characters extremely well expressed and well played. Motion capture is the basis of many performances and it shows, with small winks, bitten lips and idiosyncratic mannerisms that differentiate each person. You can see it in characters like Owen, a side-kick that helps guide you on the radio during missions. He is charming, disjointed and out of his depth.

So far, Neeson Giles is my favorite, although I have only spoken with him once and the conversation has not been very satisfying. A loser who just wants to hang out with the cool kids, Giles said that Owen was strange and unstable before going back after realizing that he had me up. clearly offended to say that he had heard only other people say that Owen was strange and unstable. He then went on to say that we should spend time again, before finally begging me to do it again. I do not know at all if Giles will play an important role in the main plot or if he's just there to add flavor. Maybe he will have a series of interesting missions for me at some point. I could easily have missed him and never meet him at all. Did I mention that it is expressed by Brooklyn 99Joe Lo Truglio?

Although I run the game on average settings to keep the framerate with my GTX 970 underpowered, it always has a clean and detailed, especially if you take into account all the action. Despite all the flights and explosions almost non-stop, everything is going well. The few times I slowed down to maximize my settings and see how the light looks over a ridge or bounces off the ripples of a pond, I was really impressed. Even when environments begin to work together and feel repetitive, their size, range, and detail are breathtaking.

Of course, the real challenge for a game like Anthem is to know if he can still feel almost as intoxicating after 100 hours as after six o'clock. Even now, I worry about the scale and diversity of enemy encounters and mission types. They almost resemble a sort of space of a spherical arena requiring a slow and methodical encirclement. When I find myself in a difficult situation, I fly out of reach and then start a new scan. The objectives of the mission were up to now simple, to maintain a point or to collect orbs to activate an artifact. AI enemy does not help either. On more than one occasion, I saw completely immobile enemies, or turn around and show their backs, exposing their weak points for no particular reason. Given all the powers and mobility available to the player, Anthem seems to try to compensate for these slippages by giving a good share of health to his enemies and by throwing you tons. In the end, it may seem a little chaotic, rather like a shootout than a close shootout, than to force you to consider strategy and tactics.

So far, I've only completed a dozen missions, including a fortress – a longer dungeon designed for a group of four players with a leader at the end. As I unleash more abilities and equipment, I hope the game encounters will also change things, beyond offering me even bigger challenges to complete the same missions. I have not found any yet that I would like to run just for hell. For the moment, there are many other things that make me come back.