050
VIEWPOINT
“WHILE THE JAVELINS
ARE FUN TO CONTROL,
AND THE OUTDOOR
ENVIRONMENTS TRULY
GORGEOUS, WILL
THERE BE ENOUGH
VARIATION TO KEEP
US HOOKED, OR WILL
IT BE A GRIND?”Anthem
Oscar Taylor-Kent gets the mech game he’s dreamed about
PRE-RELEASE VERDICTS
The thing about
stepping into your
Javelin – your robot
armour – is that it
just feels so good to
pilot. BioWare has
made a name for itself crafting
in-depth action RPGs, so you’d be
forgiven for being surprised that
the pure action elements of
Anthem feel so natural. You move,
shoot, and zip effortlessly around
the huge, lush environments.In a lot of ways Anthem is a side-
step for the studio. While yes, upon
starting the game you can check off
a lot of the BioWare RPG elements
you’d expect (a story steeped in out-
of-the-way worldbuilding, and a hub
area with characters to meet and
befriend), those parts aren’t front
and centre in Anthem. If you’re a
hardcore fan of BioWare’s games
you’ll find traces of what you love,
but in much lighter amounts than in
earlier games. Dialogue choices don’t
seem to offer much conversation
deviance at all. If you’re looking for
your next big RPG adventure, then,
this isn’t it.
As a Freelancer, it’s your
responsibility to use the Javelin suits
to take on the tasks of the rest of
humanity, who’ve taken refuge from
their dangerous planet behind the
walls of settlements. The planet is
half-finished, abandoned (according
to legend) by the Shapers – its
creators. And the titular Anthem Of
Creation is the source of the energy
they used to make it. People collect
and utilise some of the Shapers’
ancient, forgotten technology, as
much as they’re able. They’ve
managed to learn how to care for
Javelins for instance, but don’t quite
understand how it is they work.
You pick one of four suit types to
wear in field to complete missions(conveniently, you’re able to squad
up in teams of four). Essentially the
Ranger is the most balanced class;
the Colossus is more of a tank; the
Storm is mage-like, with elemental
attacks and increased hoverability;
and the Interceptor has a lot more
manoeuvrability and access to better
close-ranged attacks.
There’s plenty of room to scope
your builds to different playstyles,
mixing and matching weapons,
buffs, and special attacks. These
specials abilities are all based on
cooldowns, and fill back up pretty
quickly, so you’ll be throwing out
impressive moves with delightful
regularity. It’s not about being stingy
with your best weapons, but
committing to dishing out as much
as you can whenever you can, and
that feels great. Your mech’s
material and colour types can be
fully customised from the get-go
to allow you to express your own
personality, and it’s great to see
that has not been heavily gated.HEARTSOFIRON
But perhaps the most important
thing is that the Javelins feel
really,reallygood to control. The
environments, especially out in
the open world, all have a lovely
sense of verticality that pushes
you into making the most of your
suit’s flight options. On the ground,
tapping will have you burst into
a wonderfully chunky-feeling run,
but click it while jumping and you’ll
shoot off into the air. It feels pretty
natural to click it in to return to the
ground too, so you can hop from
platform to platform with ease.
Even in tight areas, it feels like you
have plenty of precision to make
the most of flying. Pushing in
gives you a hover mode, and you
can switch between both seamlessly.
Handling your Iron Man-esquesuit really couldn’t be any easier.
Switching modes makes you feel
fully in control of your robo-armour.
Combine this with quick dodges on
e, and the vertical element of a
lot of the world design, and combat
encounters can be approached
mostly in your own way – you can
decide where you want to engage,
and dodge out of the way of enemy
attacks even as you hurtle towards
them with your jets.
In what we’ve seen so far, the
missions you take on are lacking in
breadth. Anthem will doubtless be
at its most fun when you’re cranking
through them with friends, but each
of the lengthy missions we played
(slices from the very beginning and
some of the endgame) seemed quite
similar to one another. You reach
gates you need to open by collecting
orbs in the environment; there are
areas to hold against enemy waves;
there are encounter rooms where
you don’t respawn; and you have to
collect different objects and place
them to open more doors. The
endgame content did give us more
toys to play with, which showed
potential builds at their best, but
we’re concerned that reaching that
point could be a slog.We’ll have our full, in-depth review of
Anthem next issue, out 12 March.VIEWPOINT
We only review finished games, so in Viewpoint we go hands-on with near-final code of a game that just missed our review deadline. Oscar
Taylor-Kent loves robots, RPGs, mechs, and shooting things. Playing slices of the beginning and the ‘endgame’, how is Anthem shaping up?FORMAT PS4 ETA 22 FEB
PUB EA DEV BIOWARE