As South Africa enters its 21-day lockdown in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus, it has left many civilians in the isolation of their homes. Many see this as a great opportunity to spend quality time with some family and loved ones, while others cherish diving into forms of entertainment to occupy their time and pass the weeks (when not working remotely, in that case). To cushion some of the tedium, Nexus has decided to create a daily feature in which we recommend games of varying lengths and content that could pass the time. Our sixth recommendation in Lockdown Gaming is a double whammy... So let me get down to why you shouldn't play BioWare's Anthem and Bethesda's Fallout 76.

For today's lockdown gaming piece, I'll be doing something a bit different. After all, on this auspicious occasion of April Fools day, I thought it'd be fitting to revisit two games that made complete fools of themselves upon release. A year later, how do Anthem and Fallout 76 hold up? The short answer is "still not well", and it's best you should avoid ever playing these games until the studios actually give a damn about them. However, the long answer is ahead, so strap in and prepare for reasons why you shouldn't touch Anthem and Fallout 76 in this lockdown time.

Anthem


BioWare's Anthem released in February 2019, and was previously touted as the "Bob Dylan of gaming" going by its development title, "Project Dylan" (pity it turned out to be the Vanilla Ice of gaming instead). Upon release, fans were warmly greeted to constant server crashes, excruciatingly long loading screens, more bugs than Starship Troopers, uninspired gameplay, atrocious "characters", and a story so dull it made Mass Effect: Andromeda look Shakespearean.

You get it, the problems were insurmountable at launch. However, in giving it the benefit of the doubt, it's been a year and Anthem has had plenty of time to make a turnaround. So what did BioWare do in the interim to fix and tweak Anthem? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They left it out in the sun to rot and die. To be fair, they finally added the very long-awaited Cataclym events (which sounded cool on paper) but it actually just turned out to be the base game with an Instagram filter slapped over it to emulate a storm. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if the base game were any good, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world - and I'm pretty sure Anthem would be shunned in a perfect world too.



The moment-to-moment gameplay loop of Anthem is, for lack of a better word, repetitive. So repetitive, in fact, that it makes its sub-genre counterparts like Destiny and The Division look like they've perfected the art of the fun gameplay loop (spoiler alert, they haven't either, but at least they're trying and doing well for themselves). Anthem's gameplay is okay in the moment as you destroy completely mindless AI bugs with your mech-suit javelins that are about as functional as Tony Stark's iron suit that he built in the terrorist cave, but they get the job done. It's only when you've been doing the same remedial task since the first hour of the game for the last 30 hours (if you lasted that long) do you quickly realize just how boring it all feels to play. Don't get me wrong, flying is great and I love the feeling of being Iron Man, but when you have to stop to shoot something, I always hoped that my javelin would just aim the gun through the screen at me instead.

Anthem is a prime example of an apple (BioWare) falling so far from the tree, it rolled down the hill, fell through a crack in the ground, and dropped into the melting core of the Earth. These developers were once the kings of storytelling, from the excellent Mass Effect trilogy to Star Wars: KOTOR, they paved a legacy for themselves that was swiftly undone with the release of Anthem. Admittedly, I'm not the biggest BioWare fan, but I do appreciate their games and admire their impact on the gaming industry. Which is why Anthem was such a painful shot in the foot for them. I hope they don't limp their way into Dragon Age 4 now.



If there's some great praise I can throw Anthem's way, it's the amazing soundtrack by Sarah Schachner. She really went out of her way to make something unique, and single-handedly made the best thing about Anthem. I highly urge you give the OST a listen. You won't be disappointed.

Fallout 76


So unlike Anthem, this one hurts a lot more because I'm a big fan of Bethesda's games and the Fallout series. Even though I believe they didn't actually make the best Fallout game (Obsidian Entertainment did with Fallout: New Vegas... and then again with The Outer Worlds), both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 were flawed but incredibly entertaining and scratched my itch for post-apocalyptic RPG goodness. Then Fallout 76 came along and suddenly, the fire nation attacked- ...I mean, the series took a nosedive.

When Fallout 76 came out, I was trying to be generous by giving it a 6/10. I still do love its focus on the monsters of the lore and Appalachia is a fantastic open world, but if those were the only praises keeping it afloat, then I'd like to drop it down to a 3/10 now. Fallout 76 unintentionally cracked Pandora's box open for everything wrong with Bethesda that fans and critics have shied away from criticizing all these years. It was a buggy, glitchy disaster that highlighted how horribly outdated the Creation Engine is (and they seriously want to build The Elder Scrolls VI on this?!).



Some games simply do not need multiplayer. Yeah, The Elder Scrolls - as a high fantasy game - feels better suited for an MMO experience, but nobody has ever seen (or really asked for, for that matter) Fallout as a multiplayer experience. The joy of the Fallout games were all about building your own adventure, enjoying rich stories and characters, and looting, shooting, and crafting at your own pace. So adding multiplayer to the equation, now do you see the problem? It completely contradicts everything that makes Fallout, well, Fallout.

Beyond the technical and legacy problems, Fallout 76 still contained a myriad of issues. At launch, there were no NPCs and you got all your quests from computer terminals (trust me, that's as boring as it sounds. Doing tax is more fun). At best, these quests were nothing more than fetch quests or "go here, kill that" objectives that would pad out the side quests of any RPG. The only difference is, this is the MAIN QUEST of Fallout 76! I seriously doubt adding NPCs to the game is gonna greatly improve it, but at least we won't be trying to sympathize with an audio recording. The multiplayer aspect also clashes with the structure of these quests, and in a multiplayer world where nobody wants to do multiplayer, doesn't it just make it a single-player game? Why wasn't Fallout 76 a single-player game to begin with? It could've actually been good! I don't want to think or talk about this game anymore...

Just listen to John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and forget about it.



So in conclusion, don't play Anthem or Fallout 76 during this lockdown. Ignore the price drops and deals, and as much as it pains me, don't buy it at all because it sends the wrong message to both BioWare and Bethesda - that these kinds of broken, buggy, and uninspired messes are okay for them to get away with. Maybe one day both of these titles will get the No Man's Sky treatment (assuming BioWare and Bethesda are as passionate as Hello Games) and we'll see them rise to glory (or above average, really). We know Anthem is planning a complete rework, so we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, just play Destiny, The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, The Division, Borderlands, Monster Hunter: World... they're all better and worth your time if you're looking for something similar.

Other Lockdown Gaming Features:

Lockdown Gaming Day 1: Skyrim Special Edition
Lockdown Gaming Day 2: Persona 5
Lockdown Gaming Day 3: Fallout 4
Lockdown Gaming Day 4: NieR: Automata
Lockdown Gaming Day 5: Bloodborne

Remember to visit the South African Coronavirus Website for more information on safety and prevention tips. Stay safe!

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