Hello!
Yes! Hi! Welcome. You’re likely wondering what this place is to be about. Although if you got as far as ‘Loot’–well, that was easy. It’s in the name! I hope you’re not after too much praise for that. ;)
I love games that give you the chance to collect loot and put it together in interesting ways. Gear that can change the way you play through skill modification or synergies is where it’s at for me. ARPG, CRPG, Looter Shooter–the genre matters less than the interesting layering of systems allowing for depth of theory- and build-crafting.
The caveat? There must also be a compelling enough end-game to test yourself against and feel the power progression you’re going through.
Of course, I can’t cover ’em all – so what’s on the horizon? What was so exciting it drove me to come out of a 5-year blogger-hibernation to kick this project off?
Anthem
The game I currently pin my gaming hopes and dreams on. I very nearly created a blog name to focus on Anthem alone.
But… as I’m yet to lay hands on it myself–I did consider this perhaps a little risky. ;) There is a ‘VIP’ Demo1 dropping Jan 25th-27th which will let me dive into a slice of the game. Posting of impressions, screenshots and even video will be allowed, so keep an eye out for that.
If you’d like to get your own hands on Anthem and check things out, there will be a completely Open-to-Everyone Demo coming Feb 1st-3rd. You can find more information about the demos here.
There is reason for hope already though–the Bioware team have been incredibly transparent with Anthem so far, with plenty of detailed videos available, answering questions frequently on Twitter and even EA looks to be making nice with the consumer this time around. There will be no loot boxes and story DLC to be free to all players.
While there will be MTX (micro-transactions), you will know exactly what you’re getting and for how much with no gambling involved. Even better, you will also be able to buy cosmetics with an in-game earned currency rather than real money.
So! All going well with the game–expect me to cover Anthem extensively. Group play, solo play, best ways to get the fanciest of loot drops and some analysis on the best ways to put it all together. I’ll cover the big news up to launch, and provide you with impressions from the VIP and Open Demo sessions.
What if Anthem doesn’t work out?
I think it will; I really do. But there is certainly enough concern over the quality of the enemy behaviours / AI and general game difficulty–alongside not yet having tried it–that I do have a contingency plan.
I’ll fallback to The Division 2 should Anthem need a little more time in the oven.
Honestly–with the amount of fun my friends and I had in The Division 1, it’s a given that we’ll give The Division 2 a try at some point.
I have a few concerns that the simplification and streamlining that The Division 2 is incorporating might be going a little too far, but nonetheless I have little doubt that there will still be a solid play experience to be had here.
Wrapping up
So in summary:
Anthem will be the big main game of this blog for the forseeable future. (Unless it wah-wah’s out of the gate of course, then The Division 2 will need to rise to the challenge.)
The intent will be to cover the main news and info shares from the developers in the lead-up to release and any opinions I may have on them.
When the demos hit–I’ll be sure to share my impressions, take some screenshots, that kind of thing.
Post launch we’ll dive into build guides, theory crafting, best ways to get loot, run missions – all that good stuff.
Can’t wait to share the experience with you!
