Anthem (Multi)
By: EA
JUST as ersatz faux-anthem Ireland's Call bridged both sides of the rugby divide, ensuring the eye-gouging remained on the pitch, EA's Anthem attempts to unite the stat-juggling role-players of gaming with the foul-mouthed jocks of online warfare.
The knives were out for Anthem since its reveal two years ago, with naysayers poo-pooing EA's ambitious always-online multiplayer shooter as little more than a Destiny clone and nefarious attempt to deliver real-money lootboxes and microtransactions to a generation of suckers sadly used to the idea of games as a service rather than a product you own.
For EA’s first major new property in a decade, they turned to Bioware, famous for role-players such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It seemed an odd studio to deliver the hair-trigger blasting goods, yet Anthem is burnished with glimmers of the company's trademark splashy sci-fi and groaning with fantasy jargon.
The result, depending on how you look at it, is either a very clever, narratively rich shooter or a very shallow, trigger-happy RPG.
A mash-up of medieval ruins and rusting tech, Anthem takes place in a battered universe where humanity survives in frontier outposts such as Fort Tarsis. Anthem's hub world is teeming with filthy life and gravely delivered space nonsense as a ragtag group of survivors are protected by mech suit-clad Freelancers. Tackling missions in gangs of four, there are multiple classes of suit to wear, each aching for upgrades and cosmetic customisation.
For a co-op shooter that focuses on locking horns with space uglies before looting their corpses, Anthem's core gameplay is undeniably fun, and for every wrong-foot (repetitive missions, spectacularly boring guns, more bugs that a dead hobo) there's a flash of brilliance, such as the punchy liberation of your jet-packed Javelin suit.
In fact, the game is essentially an Iron Man simulator as you Stark it from A to B in your armoured togs, letting off missiles en route.
It's all as fresh, smooth and bloated as a chubby child, with the kind of blockbuster visuals only EA's fat chequebook can command. Glistening with top-drawer everything, its vistas are stunning, ably supported by a Hans Zimmerific score, all orchestra blasts and manic drumming. But with graphical farts and myriad glitches galore, it still needs to be taken down an alley for a rough debugging.
And as an always-online epic, you'll need both PlayStation Plus and EA Origins accounts, lest your disc be little more than a shiny coaster. Games like Anthem, which rely on a rabid pool of trigger fingers, are always more marathon than sprint, meaning it'll be a few months before EA's online space epic shows its true colours.
In attempting to Frankenstein a lore-heavy adventure with unfettered online blasting, the seams do show, but even if it doesn't play to Bioware's strengths, the bones are there for a long-game franchise that, when it clicks, is slicker than snot. As it stands, it's an expertly made toybox yet to be filled, and while it may take a while for gamers to truly stand for this Anthem, it's got off to a rousing start.
