Last Play - Anthem [2019]

It's actually my first play, but I felt it was more significant an event for saying "Last Play" as by the time this is being read, Anthem, Bioware's failed attempt at a live service game is permanently offline and unplayable forever.

A significant amount has been written about Anthem, specifically it's monumental failure for both Bioware and EA Games and I don't feel it necessary to delve too deeply into it but what I do believe was that Casey Hudson (then General Manager of Bioware) pitched the idea to EA as a departure from the Mass Effect and Dragon Age IPs to merge a live service service looter-shooter with Bioware's classic storytelling. As Bioware only had experience with the latter and the team had no experience with Frostbite - EA's engine of choice, the writing was on the wall for an unmitigated disaster.

Reviews were not as bad as they could have been averaging 6/10. Praise was heaped on the combat mechanics with particular attention to flying. But criticisms were levelled against it's mostly unfinished state, boring loot, repetitive game play loop and lacklustre endgame, the death sentence of a live service title. Most egregiously slighted however were the die hard Bioware fans who showed up for a new sci-fi story but were met with a half-baked plot that didn't hold much water after 30 hours of game with no traditional companions (romanceable or otherwise) for your nameless, unmodifiable!!! character. It was the latter issues that I picked up on in the reviews and decided then that it just wasn't something I would be devoting time to.

I didn't miss much. The first (delayed) post-launch content Cataclysm, the first of three acts of a story was released in August 2019. By September this was canned and instead "seasonal updates" were promised which would address the game's massive problems instead. By February 2020 this was also cancelled in favour of a complete 'reboot' of the entire game similar to FFXIV's A Realm Reborn. By February 2021 Bioware announced that all future work on Anthem had ceased. In July 2025 EA announced that the final nail in Anthem's coffin was to be hammered in on 12th January 2026 as the game's servers, essential to deliver the game's online-only content to the game clients, were to be sunset, so last week I installed the game I picked up from a sale that appeared after it ceased support.

An hour in the game gave me a look inside the vision for this new IP. As expected from Bioware the lore was laid on thick but clearly open to be expanded upon as one would progress. A plethora of proper nouns were introduced in a way that you would know that this was going to be your lingo for your foreseeable future. The opening cutscenes lasted more than 5 mins before you were given control of your Javelin (exosuit), the narrative being you crashed and have to reinitialise each "new" system one by one.

Once you have full control and all of the abilities you were going to get for the prologue though, I will say that the gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable. The Frostbite engine was made for shooters as opposed to RPGs so I think it looked far better here than when EA forced Bioware to leverage it for Mass Effect: Andromeda. Shooting, jumping and of course the flying all felt amazing and I found myself disappointed not that the game would be shutdown in a few days but because even if it wasn't, the game from all accounts would after a a few hours offer no incentive to progress.

 

Hudson's folly was the original pursuit of a live service game. Had he pitched the same setting and mechanics but as a traditional Bioware RPG, EA may have greetlit it based on the success of both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises as story-rich choice-driven RPGs. In the aftermath some have suggested that a reworking from it's live-service to single player RPG model may have saved it but after seeing the failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard to do the same (as that was originally also set to be a live-service game) I doubt it would have worked. With Anthem and Dragon Age's failure the entire future of Bioware now rests on the next Mass Effect.

Final Verdict: Some great ideas were woven in to some impressive early gameplay and story that reportedly dies as one progresses towards an unremarkable endgame. We can only be left wondering if EA had given Bioware the time and resources to fix or reboot the game, could it have seen a revival like FFXIV, No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077? Sadly we will never truly know.

Availability: You're too late, it's gone forever. Review copy obtained from the EAStore for €1.99 in December 2022. 

 

10 Future Games on the General's Radar (2026 edition)

Following on from last year's list, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 were all released; so here is a new list of 10 games that caught my intention in alphabetical order. Only the first is actually expected this year with others between 2027 and 2029 if we're lucky.

 

007: First Light (IO Interactive)

Last year, all we knew was that Hitman developers IO Interactive were working on a James Bond game under the working title of Project 007. Now we know everything and have seen it in action. 007 First Light will depict Bond as a rookie agent in third-person action much like Hitman. We'll know if it's any good in May this year.

Blade (Arcane/Bethesda)

 

Returning from last year's post, everyone's favourite daywalking dhampir is getting his own 3rd person action game with lore from the Marvel comics as opposed to Wesley Snipes' movies. I predicted last year that we'd hear something about this game this year after its reveal in late 2023.

The Blood of the Dawnwalker (Rebel Wolves/Bandai Namco)

 

It just so happens that the next game on the list is about another 'daywalker' a Dawnwaker - human by day, vampire by night from former Witcher developers who founded  Rebel Wolves. The Blood of the Dawnwalker will be a dark fantasy action RPG. 

Exodus (Archetype Entertainment)

Still on the list since last year, from Archetype Entertainment who were formed by ex-Bioware personnel, Exodus is being advertised as sci-fi action adventure RPG which looks to the the spiritual successor to the older Mass Effect games with a heavy dose of concepts explored in Christopher's Nolan's Interstellar. They even have Matthew McConneghy on board with some voice work. The promotional work being done here is some of the best I've seen. Release is currently scheduled for early 2027.

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn (Owlcat Games)

 

 

A new entry to the list, an upcoming ARPG developed and published by Owlcat Games who have entries in both the Pathfinder and Warhammer 40K franchises. Apparently Osiris Reborn's plot will run parallel to the events of the first two books and first two-and-a-half seasons of the television series The Expanse. 

Iron Man (Motive/EA)

We still know next to nothing about Motive's Iron Man game since the time of last year's post. As a major fan of the armoured avenger, I hope they use lore from the Marvel comics as opposed to the MCU. If there was a side game mechanic to manage Stark Enterprises, prevent your heart stopping and battling alcoholism as well as being a superhero it just might be perfect.

Mass Effect 5 (Bioware/EA)

Again, no news since the post last year but all reports suggest Bioware remain committed to working on the next Mass Effect which will be developed with Unreal Engine 5. If we see this before 2028 I'll be shocked.

Star Wars: Eclipse (Quantic Dream/Lucasfilm Games)

 

PR embattled Quantic Dream's games have always intrigued me by how different from other games they are. I'm fascinated by how this could be applied to Star Wars even though it's set in the High Republic era. 

 

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic (Arcanaut Studios/Lucasfilm Games)

 

 

The final new entry is another Star Wars game from former Bioware honcho Casey Hudson's new outfit Arcanaut Studios. This will apparently be a game set in the time period at the end of the Old Republic era. Hudson's involvement suggest it's (hopefully) an RPG. This is expected to be on this list through 2029 now.

The Witcher IV (CD Projekt Red/CD Projekt)

Last year I mentioned that the reveal of a Witcher IV trailer reminded me that I need to play The Witcher III before this comes out in - I expect late 2027. I still do!

There's are of course a few other projects that I'm following but not enough is known yet or they could be too far into the future to get hyped for yet. These include Larian Studio's next projects, one of which is Divinity, a CRPG set in one of their own original IPs, likely some time out before it's early access period. Another is a Knights of the Old Republic remake currently with Mad Head Studios and Saber Interactive that's been sooooo long in the development that I fear for it outright. A Cyberpunk 2077 sequel from CD Projekt Red which is barely in pre-production. And Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine game and GTA VI from Rockstar for which PC versions aren't even announced yet.

First Play Review - Assassin's Creed III Remastered (2019)

Assassins Creed III wasn't a hated game in the series but it had the task of progressing the franchise forward after the fan-favourite "Ezio Trilogy" (Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood & Assassin's Creed: Revelations) in 2012. Unlike some missteps elsewhere with their custodianship of the Tom Clancy brand (specifically Splinter Cell), Ubisoft churned out seven Assassin's Creed titles in the five years between 2011 and 2015. Assassin's Creed III was the only AC title to release in 2012 and to date is the only full title in the series to be remastered.

Assassin's Creed III takes the eternal battle of the Assassins vs The Templars to Colonial America from 1754 to 1783. Here you will control Englishman Haythem Kenway who makes the journey from England at the onset of the French and Indian War and later a Mohican boy Ratonhnhaké:ton who becomes known as Connor, the first Native American member of the Assassin Brotherhood.

The plot once again has you as Desmond uncovering the secrets of the mysterious Isu picking up directly from Revelations. While I admit I was intrigued by this in the beginning, by now the fifth outing, I grew weary of it as it serves no real purpose and has become more incoherent and annoying more than anything. The true game anyway is inside the Animus and the American Revolution was an interesting backdrop to play in. Along the way you meet everyone from George Washington to Benjamin Franklin and even kill a few famous people (who historically died albeit under different circumstances).

Conor is a very different protagonist to Ezio and it was quite jarring to play as someone with such a different personality or dare I say lack thereof. I get he is supposed to be a Native American, incensed by outsiders invading his ancestral lands, destroying his village and killing his mother but this seems to be expressed through a petulant child's impatience and arrogance rather than someone taking mature and measured view of the changing political landscape while assassinating people in revenge. Being annoyed by the main character isn't a great feeling for a long game but thankfully each AC game from this point onwards has a new protagonist so it's a short-lived suffering.

It's fair to say that once Ubisoft scored a hit with a game, they often simply reiterate on the formula with little by way of significant innovation and that's very evident from ACIII. Traversal is as the older AC games, without the extra zip-lining of Revelations and now one can free run through trees as well as over rooftops. Combat is a little more streamlined and and a tad easier than before and also shows Connor's sheer brutality with his traditional weapons like a stone axe or tomahawk, very different from Ezio's more redefined and elegant combat. The majority of the game isn't vastly different from before other than the setting and characters and that's not necessarily a bad thing but there does need to be more significant innovation than what we got here for a title to be elevated above it's predecessors.

One new thing that did to come to ACIII is a naval battle mechanic, where you take control of a naval vessel and manage its sails and weapons to outwit the enemy and sink them before they sink you. While this is a welcome change from the other 30 hours or so of melee combat, it's underutilised here and wouldn't be until the sequel Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag where it would be explored properly.

While I wasn't bored by any means, I did not on this occasion seek out to reveal as much of the map through synchronisation points, nor did I complete all the side-missions after a time, preferring to concentrate on the main plot. I know that later titles in the series somewhat softlock you until you gain experience or wall off access to content through playing but this was not necessary here which is good in the way that Ubisoft respect your time and not require you to complete certain side content to progress, but bad in the way that I do feel I did miss out on part of the game that I may have enjoyed. I also chose not to engage with the DLC, The Tyranny of King Washington as it was essentially a "dream sequence" and unrelated to the main narrative.

At the time of playing Assassin's Creed III, I was unaware that the remastered version is considered partly inferior to the original release due to differences in lighting and character facial textures being more "plastic" looking. Knowing this I would still have elected to play the remaster due to some quality of life changes and modernised controls. The original retail version of ACIII is no longer available for sale.

Final Verdict: With a lacklustre protagonist and nothing too innovative, Assassins Creed III is not the most beloved entry in the franchise and a relatively by-the-numbers Ubisoft adventure. It was a bizarre choice for the only remastered entry of the series as of 2025.

Technicals: 35 hrs playtime approx though Ubisoft Connect in 2560x1440 @ 60FPS (engine cap) on RTX4070Ti in Windows 11. In-game HDR.

Bugs: Horses would occasionally get stuck in terrain.

Availability: Assassin's Creed III: Remastered is on Steam or the Ubisoft Store for €39.99. Review copy came as DLC included with a purchase of Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Gold Edition for €33.43 in November 2019. 

Series Timeline [PC]:

• Assassin's Creed [2007]
• Assassin's Creed II [2010]
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood [2011]
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations [2011]
• Assassin's Creed III [2012]
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag [2013] 
• - Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry [2014]
• - Assassin's Creed III: Liberation HD [2014]
• Assassin's Creed Unity [2014]
• Assassin's Creed Rogue [2015]
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate [2015]
• Assassin's Creed Origins [2017]
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey [2018]
• - Assassin's Creed III Remastered [2019] 
• - Assassin's Creed III Liberation Remastered [2019] 
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla [2020]
• Assassin's Creed Mirage [2023] 
• Assassin's Creed Shadows [2025]
• Assassin’s Creed Hexe [202?] 

Happy 250th Birthday to the United States Marine Corps

 

First Play Review - Soldier of Fortune: Payback (2007)

Soldier of Fortune is one my all time favourite games. The Quake II engine was put to a greater use in 2000 by Raven Software than Id Software ever did. It was absurdly graphically violent but that was it's selling point, it  also had some deeply troubling politics even for the time, let alone in today's society. It was nonetheless some campy fun not unlike a 1980's action movie. The game's success green-lit a technically but not narratively better sequel with Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix in 2002 and there was talk of a third game later but that didn't happen.

But it did, sorta.

In 2007 Cauldron HQ were working on their own AA FPS title Mercenaries Wanted for PC, Xbox360 and PS3 using similar graphic gore and dismemberment mechanics not really seen since Soldier of Fortune. Publishers Activision saw the potential to elevate the game to AAA status (well AAA pricing) by permitting Cauldron to use the now dormant Soldier of Fortune licence and shoehorn in some cut scenes to tell a story of a betrayed mercenary out for revenge; and so Soldier of Fortune: Payback was born.

Initially when I started the game I couldn't hit anything when shooting. Apparently this is a known issue when playing with hardware that's generations ahead of the tech. I had to artificially cap the frame-rate before bullets would register. Once that bug was worked around things went mainly downhill from there.

While the game did have some graphic dismemberment probably more than most it was nowhere near the visceral orgy of gore Raven's games had. To be fair there were some some quality graphics for the era, it was let down by a totally ridiculous and disjointed plot even for 'dumb' FPS standards, that just finished half way through the plot as if they intended a sequel which is now the most blatant arrogance I've ever witnessed. It was like a fever dream from someone who watched several straight-to-video movies and fell asleep reading the lowest common denominator of Tom Clancy knock-off novels.

There are many tropes one can look past because it moves along the narrative, but when something is so stupid that you snap out of your immersion, you writing or game design have failed. For example, high security key-cards required to advance a level should be (a) on dead guard, that's either killed by you or not or (b) in a crackable safe in the base-commander's office. The place for a high security key-card is not under the bed of a slave being kept in a prison.

The combat itself was passable, if nowhere near any true AAA FPS. For the most part you're shooting humans with no body armour, and even less intelligence that drop after a realistic amount of bullets - except for the half-dozen or so end of level bosses which were still standing after an assault rifle magazine was emptied into their centre mass and they seemed to increase in sponginess with every boss. I rage-quit at the final boss, not because he was a badly voiced Irish terrorist, but because I emptied an entire belt of 400 rounds from my M249 SAW into him and he kept laughing. I watched a YouTube video of a guy use the same ammo but also about 8x30-round clips of 5.56mm from a H&K G36 and about 7 fragmentation grenades before the otherwise "human" Irish terrorist would fall. If this super-soldier was around for the troubles we'd have a 32 county nation and probably would have invaded the UK by now too.

Final Verdict: If Cauldron had been allowed to develop and publish their original game, it probably would have been regarded as an ordinary AA FPS without much fanfare or regard. However with the marketing force of the Soldier of Fortune label brought expectations and shoes that Cauldron could simply not have filled. This was a bad lacklustre AA FPS but it was excrement as a Soldier of Fortune branded game, a blight on the franchise best ignored forever.

Technicals: 4 hrs playtime though GOG Galaxy in 2560x1440 @ 60FPS (artifical cap) on RTX4070Ti in Windows 11. No HDR.

Bugs: Without an artificially capped frame rate, your bullets won't hit enemies.

Availability: Soldier of Fortune: Payback is only available from GOG. Normal Retail price €9.19. Review copy purchased in a bundle of of all three SoF games for €13.49 in June 2019.

Soldier of Fortune franchise:

•     Soldier of Fortune (2000)
•     Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (2002)
•     Soldier of Fortune: Payback (2007) 

 

Crysis: Remastered (2020)

Back in 2018 I replayed the original Crysis as it was meant to be played and did a full review here. It had been my intention to play Crysis 2 after I played Crysis: Warhead in 2019. However, in early 2020 Crytek announced remastered versions of the Crysis trilogy were being worked on so I delayed playing though the trilogy until it was time.

Now as the game is practically identical in gameplay to the original, there is no need to add comments to my last review in that regard. This is a remaster from the same company that produced the original but the game is different in some regard.

Some of these differences may stem from the bizarre fact that this remaster uses code from the console version of the original game as it's newer code than the original PC version. However as the console version is technically inferior to the PC version, it did introduce some issues that were previously only native to consoles but never before seen in the PC version.

Crysis Remastered does bring full in-game HDR and Ray-Tracing which provide some of not a massive visual enhancement to the game overall. The jungle island doesn't seem too different other than the enjoyment of sun rays coming through the dense jungle vegetation but the sections of the game I hate - the zero-gravity alien environment were brought to life under the new visuals and made the sequences much more bearable to play.

It would have been nice if the assets themselves had got a makeover considering the price they were charging at launch and stand out as bing very blocky and this is now far more noticeable as a the game uses 2007 assets with a 2020 skin on them, it's a bit jarring. It's less jarring to play the original at full settings.

I noticed also that the A.I., which was great at the time, has been altered for the worse and enemies are now far more aim-bot-ish in comparison to the original. They seemed to have a significant vision and able to see you from a greater distance than should be possible and end you. This was an issue twofold because manual saves were removed to use a checkpoint system, I dislike these, especially as I'm more used to saving when I want to.

I did clock a few minor bugs, and I noticed also that the sound mix of the game was a bit off in places, some music and sound FX being louder than others that shouldn't have been. I wonder if they took sounds from the later games and grafted them to this to make it a more cohesive trilogy in that regard?

The gimmick of the game as I mentioned in the earlier review is your Nanosuit, a high tech armour that allows you to throw further, jump higher, sprint faster, and resist bullets more than a common FPS. It even has a cloaking device! Crytek changed the way the suit operates in the later games and offers that here, but still offers you the original suit control method if you desire. I tried out the later method here because I want to be used to it as I play the sequels. I think it's a little more intuitive to be able to double up on your suit powers so I'll chalk it down as a positive.

Final Verdict: As 2007 Crysis still holds up much more than most games of that era, this was a pointless remaster in light of the mods available for the original now. If this had been just the graphical upgrade without some buggy knock on effects or even the suit upgrade, I'd say fair enough to take advantage of RT and HDR. At least it runs on high settings at a stable frame rate without overheating. I'm not a purist for many games, and I'm not for this but I still think the original is a better experience overall.

Bugs: Some enemies passing through scenery, some floating objects. One game freeze, app reset required.

Technicals: 7.6 hours through Steam on Windows 11 with an RTX4070Ti @  3440x1440 @ 120FPS on Hight settings with in game HDR.

Availability: Crysis: Remastered is available from Steam or GOG for €29.99. Review copy obtained through Humble Bundle in November 2024 for €2.25.

Crysis Series:

• Crysis (2007)
• Crysis: Warhead (2008)
• Crysis 2 (2011)
• Crysis 3 (2013)
• Crysis: Remastered (2020)
• Crysis 2: Remastered (2021)
• Crysis 3: Remastered (2021)
• Crysis 4 (?)

20 Years of Whopper's Bunker

On Friday 9th of September 2005 I wrote a post entitled "This Blog Thingy". Hardly the most auspicious representation of my extraordinary writing talent; but nonetheless it's what began the now 20 year history of this blog.

Originally entitled "The Colonel's Eagle" and changed the following year in 2006 to "Whopper's Bunker", the blog was actually suggested by Mark Twomey after he observed my extensive "show notes" for one of the early episodes of 2IGTV and in its initial years I used it to cover the stuff we didn't get to on the show.

As one would expect, one's interests may change over the course of 20 years. I certainly have no time to observe the day-to-day antics of Paris Hilton or critique the latest movies nor would I care to do either now if I had the time.

Blogging itself isn't as it was 20 or even 10 years ago. People's use of the Internet has evolved. Later users don't read long-form posts now and they don't need to because everyone can just record a video for YouTube or social media will feed it to you in other ways. If you write more than 100 words people will have AI summarise it and read it to them.

To be fair, being a 3-star general and responsible for the global operations of a multi-national security and defence organisation protecting the planet from what no one believes actually exists takes up most of my waking hours but I still enjoy writing about my video game experiences every once in a while.

I'll be here 'til it goes dark.