Anthem review
The truth is, we never felt compelled to play Anthem. In the sea of competing titles released in just the last few weeks alone, it falls short on almost everything, and there's rarely the temptation to stay up too late to have One More Go, finish off one more mission, or whizz about, idly collecting more stuff. It's weird because, again, it's not a bad game, and whilst we're in the grips of it - tackling a Stronghold, perhaps - it's not boring, either. But beyond the Javelins and pottering about in The Forge, obsessively tweaking your loadouts to boost your level, nothing in Anthem stands out. We're not sure what BioWare can do to inject a little more colour into the game's bland, underwhelming world (and it's possibly already too late to do so). It's not even that the studio - famed, quite rightly, as it is for its astonishing single-player stories and complex, compulsive world-building - doesn't have the chops to pull it all off. It simply feels like in its desperation to tick all the boxes and appeal to all players, Anthem, as mechanically solid as it is, has become nothing for no-one.
Javelins are unique and fun to tweak; Solid, enjoyable combat; A fantastic, character-driven tale;
Lack of stuff to do once the story's over; A lot of grinding for comparatively little reward; A cluttered and confusing UI and menu system;