And it’s not without some hiccups, though it’s far more stable than I expected (the secret to not being disappointed is having low expectations).
As I’ve outlined in this post here, February the 15th came and blessed us with kindness of Saint Valentine, the patron of execution by decapitation (look it up). And he blessed us with quite a few games indeed, one of them being BioWare’s hail-marry, Anthem. At least for those enjoying the benefits of Origin Access (which I’m not one of, by the way, I don’t like forced localization).
And the launch was… alright. Wasn’t as smooth as I would want it, some people already expressed issues with joining games (quite a few Twitch streamers, so you know, bad optics), but it was better than I thought it would have been and EA got to working on a fix quickly. By now it should be ironed out for all eligible players.
Now, this doesn’t mean the problem is not going to return on the 22nd, the official date of Anthem’s release, but for now the situation is stable. The initial experience was also not without a slew of hilarious graphical glitches. You can watch the highlights on YouTube and I have to say, some of them are eerily familiar if you remember Andromeda’s launch.
And I don’t know what it is, but just like in Andromeda, the faces have this weird, uncanny sense to them. There is just something about these faces that is wholly unnatural. I don’t know if it’s the eyes, the degree of exaggeration or just the proximity of the first-person camera to them but I just get creeped out.
As for what it’s like, well you gotta see for yourself. As far as I’m concerned it’s… fine. Just fine. Which we know translates into a failure to meet financial expectations so we’re all a little concerned.
Also, what’s up with that trailer? Is it for Anthem the game or for Anthem the movie-that-doesn’t-exist? The entire marketing campaign for this game was really confusing.