Michael Khoury

If you love Michael Bay films, you'll love this game, period! Easily the best game (when compared to any others that were only IN DEVELOPMENT for a few months before release) ever made! Many critics of this game state straight up falsehoods like "this game was in development for six years" ... no, it was in "planning/concept" stages for 5+ years and then programmers and artists actually got to get STARTED on it just a few months before it actually came out. People nowadays spend too much time hating a game for everything they thought it would be at E3 (pro tip: car "concepts" never release looking like that) and not enough time appreciating it for what it actually is. Controls 10/10: Utilizing effectively every button on the controller during combat plus one (holding Y to change weapons vs pressing it to reload), without being ridiculous like say Red Dead 2 or Override Mech City Brawl. The actual feel of movement and camera controls is smooth, I would say nearly on par with Titanfall games (the benchmark of ideal look/move controls on Xbox controllers, going as low as zero deadzone sensitivity which is extremely rare to find), very welcome compared to newer/"better" games like Jedi Fallen Order which oddly feels like 30% of the thumbstick movement is all deadzone, either that or terribly laggy look/move controls (best example of terrible look/move controls: Alien Isolation), Anthem has a pretty much "ideal" deadzone/acceleration curve as far as look/move controls too, other games should use this and/or Titanfall as their control benchmarks. Graphics 10/10: Do I even need to say anything here? This game was and still is one of the best looking games in existence, right up there with other graphics titans like Red Dead 2, Hellblade, Division 2 and Control, this one is easily in the top 10 best looking games of all time. Gameplay 10/10: Much like (and thanks to) the great controls, combat is extremely responsive and always feels good, I can't think of many other games that have such a good feel to their combat; Hellblade and Monster Hunter World come to mind though those games have very telegraphed / rotoscoped combat which -- while very "cinematic" feeling -- sometimes detracts from the immersion and can lead to frustration due to an attack taking too long to execute or getting hit midway through an animation... by comparison all combat in Anthem is always right on point and if you get killed you never feel "cheated" because of a laggy attack animation; you either pressed the right button on time or you didn't; your fate is in your hands, not those of animation frames. Other categories (music, story, load times): 5/10 Most complaints I've heard claim the "loot" isn't all that epic, or that the story isn't the whole bioware "choose your own adventure" that they originally advertised it would be... On the loot note, frankly, for a looter SHOOTER game, I don't feel any shortcomings here; the game has an ample variety of different guns, special abilities, buffs/shields/spells etc at least on par with most Tom Clancy style games and some MMORPG style games, there are at least 18+ different guns (that's more weapons than Monster Hunter World) and then several dozen lancer-specific abilities for each suit! And as far as story.... I play Anthem for the amazing feel and combat of the game, it's like a Marvels Avengers/X-Men game (Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine and Storm Lancers), if I wanted choose your own adventure I'd fire up Mass effect or Witcher. If a game needed a good story to be good, nobody would play Gears of War, Remnant, or Call of Duty.