OmarBradley

4 hours ago, Download said:

Pro shot of the Hammerstein Ballroom shows in NYC 2006 would be the shiiit. 

Preferably the 5/17 show 

Fixed. 

4 hours ago, Live Like a Suicide said:

Still prefer this to generic SMKC shit. At least Duff sings better than he used to, and has put out something unique and interesting. I think it's actually a good song.

It's Duff singing over a few piano chords with a strings background. There is absolutely nothing unique about this and I don't find it that interesting. It is a decent song, but I don't envision many people listening to it past the first or second listen. I hope the album is genuinely punky.

10 hours ago, DeadSlash said:

Yeah, I really crawled through the last portion too, it was about 9 hours.  I think I might have missed something on the second to last area, it seemed way to short.  

One of the pleasant surprises that you only really get when sneaking around is the amount of care that went into the unimportant chatter between enemies, they have some legit conversations that make sense and are sometimes funny af.  I was in one section where it was really entertaining and I was waiting for the conversation to start repeating... 7 minutes later and they were still saying all new things.  There must be hours and hours of background dialogue between NPCs.  The conversations are unique to the area too, so it's not even generic "bad guy" talking.  It's really ambitious, I've never seen a game nail that part down so well.

The first two games were very good at ambient dialogue, but this one does seem to improve upon that by quite a bit. I probably spent 30 minutes just listening to the Spartan crew of the Aurora when it hit that bridge/barrier before the cult. Then there were cultist conversations too!

I haven't gotten much further than that, I just found Anna in a ditch/nuclear vault of some sort. Three things (aside from a desire to take it slow) have stunted my play. One of those is Anthem: it's just a faster paced experience and it's a brand new IP/thing so it's getting a disproportionate amount of my attention at the moment, I have started to encounter more frequent crashing as well in Metro (though a new patch was pushed out recently and I haven't tried it yet), and some fuck on reddit made a thread title with a major plot spoiler that really upset me. Not the plot point itself (although it is sad in its own way), but the fact that I will see it coming before it happens.

21 hours ago, DeadSlash said:

I passed Metro a few minutes ago, I'll have to play through again because it is my understanding that you get different endings based on how many people you kill, and I knocked just about everyone out instead of killing them.  I'll do a second play through as a blood bath + I don't think I would have the patience to sneak around and knock people out a second time through.

 

I really enjoyed the last 2 areas immensely over the first 2.  I'd rate the last 2 a 10/10 vs a 7/10- for the first 2.   Very few games have a clearly better second half, most of them pack all the good stuff in early.  This bucks that trend for sure, imo.

I'll have to check out anthem, I'm not keen on the onlineness of it, but you're right, it looks really pretty.

I missed this post somehow. Wait, you finished the entire game? How many hours did you put in? So far I've been taking it slow, listening to every conversation and combing the environments, etc. Also trying to go for "the good ending" - I have only knocked people out so far. But I hope to at least to kill some Nazis. I don't think I got "the good ending" with either of the first two games, though I watched them on YouTube. 

Also, let me know if you want the digital artbook and/or soundtrack. I just realized I get both since I pre-ordered. They're just files, don't think they're tied to my account at all.

On 2/19/2019 at 2:51 PM, OmarBradley said:

EDIT: So I've been having issues using Photo Mode to take photos in Metro. I can get into Photo Mode, but I can't seem to take any photos. It appears as though this is due to Epic. Apparently, Photo Mode relied on Steam's screenshot service, and Epic doesn't have one. If this is true and I can't take screenshots in photo mode, that just about seals the deal in me permanently hating Epic, and Deep Silver. It looks like this may be a PC-wide issue, not just Epic.

Confirmed with 4A Games, the Photo Mode was built to use Steam's system. So they recommended I use additional third party software for Epic. I think MSI Afterburner can take screenshots. Minor annoyance, but so far those two words sum up my experience with Epic.

On 2/11/2019 at 8:57 AM, DieselDaisy said:

Fury is actually a reasonably good war film and fairly historically accurate. They used a bona fide German Tiger I, the only surviving operational one in the world which they borrowed from The Tank Museum in Bovington. It was captured by the 48th Royal Tank Regiment in Tunisia in 1943 and shipped to England. It is the first time a genuine Tiger I has been used in a movie since 1950. Here she is today, in her museum,

Compare this to Saving Private Ryan which used some Czech Cold War era tank dressed up as a Tiger. In most war films the tanks are dodgy as hell (one exception is Cross of Iron).

I haven't seen it, but my issue is Brad Pitt is far too old to believably be a Staff Sergeant. I suppose it was technically possible, maybe? I don't know what protocol was like at this time, but if it's anything like it is today, his character should have been half his age to be decently accurate.

On 2/18/2019 at 5:01 PM, lame ass security said:

Those disaster scenario movies of the 70s were awesome and cheesy.  Have you seen Earthquake?  Ava Gardner plays Lorne Green's daughter, yes daughter,  they're like the same age in real life.

China Syndrome was good.

12 hours ago, DeadSlash said:

Yes, it's the loading into game screen that hangs for me, like when you first load up the game to continue or change areas.  

I got to a new area I really like compared to the ones I've been through so far.  It's just better visuals and a nicer setting, I won't say what it is because spoilers. 

I have Origin, I have the up sized, so I can play all of their games, but I haven't tried Anthem yet.  I'll probably fire it up after I finish with Metro.  I tried that game Apex something or other that is supposed to be the greatest shit since the dawn of man, but I didn't care for it.

Apex looks interesting and is getting great reviews, but yeah it's not for me. And I'm only playing Anthem because it's BioWare. I feel strongly that Anthem would be a better game if it were a regular single-player action-adventure RPG from BioWare. The forced online nature really doesn't add anything to the experience and it really seems to have limited the game design. If they nail post-release content and keep it steady and interesting for a long time (not just a few months), that would make this worth it IMO. But at the moment, I see no reason why this shouldn't be a single-player experience like ME or DA. I suppose EA wanted BioWare to do something live service, but I really hope they don't ruin Dragon Age with this fad.

Does look pretty nice though (but the lighting in Exodus is probably the best I've ever seen in a game). 

1 hour ago, DeadSlash said:

Just FYI, Epic literally copied Steam's refund policy.  Meaning the Epic policy is under 2 hours played 14 days, no questions asked.  That jargon about "we reserve the right to refuse refunds for any reason at any time." Is literally on every TOS ever, not just Steam and Epic.  

https://www.vg247.com/2019/01/12/epic-games-store-return-policy-updated/

 

I haven't had any lock-ups, I've had to restart my rig a few times because the FPS degrades over time, so If I play for like an hour, I probably need to restart once in that time.

 

One thing with "freezes" on the loading screen, by dumb luck, I found out it's not "frozen" but taking it's sweet ass time to load.   I was about to restart because I thought I had hung up on the loading screen, it just wasn't popping up that "Press E to Start" message, and seemed to be in perpetual load.  I got a call and took it and when I came back it had loaded.  Now I just leave it and it loads every time, but sometimes it takes 3-5 min for wtf ever reason.

Didn't know that about Epic. Fair enough, I've heard their customer service doesn't honor that, but to be fair everything I've heard is from secondary sources. 

I'm managing a steady framerate, without V Sync (so far, fingers crossed). Have you tried enabling V Sync? A frame lock or dynamic/adaptive frame rate option would be nice, but I don't think the game has that.

Are you talking about the intro loading screen? If so, that confused me as well. For me, the intro cinematic is unskippable until it is about to end and I have sit through basically the whole thing, but otherwise I'd say my loading times are pretty reasonable.

Also, I think I just saw in my Origin Launcher that I can give 4 links/codes to people with Origin for the 7 day Origin Access free trial (which does include 10 hours of Anthem). If anyone's interested, PM me. 

17 hours ago, DeadSlash said:

So I broke down and bought Metro Exodus, and I have to agree that it is a 7.5 to an 8 out of 10 type of game.  It's not bad but it isn't anything special either.  A lot of people are complaining that it is short, but I think it's their own fault.  The way this one works is you move from place to place and each place has an objective or 2 plus lots of places of interest.  If you skip the places of interest, you can move forward really fast, but it's pointless imo, because you are skipping most of the game.

 

A lot of stuff people are saying about Epic is kinda false or overblown.  It's too much to type, I could if anyone cares, but let's just say using it isn't handing your info to the devil.  The funniest one I've seen is the incessant "Epic reserves the right to refuse any refund for any reason, at any time without explanation!"  That's fine and all, that line is in their disclaimer jargon, but it is in Steams's also.  Epic literally has the exact same return policy as Steam, but there are about 10k posts on Steam marveling at what a draconian stance that is.  10k post unaware, or ignoring the fact that Steam has the exact same legal jargon.

Steam may have that legal jargon, but if you try to return any game purchased on the platform with less than 2 hours of play, you will get a refund no questions asked. And much quicker than Epic will take care of it.

Epic's lack of preload delayed my ability to play the game. Not a huge deal as I could play the next day, but you know the feeling of waiting days/hours for a launch, right? And I did encounter an Epic specific error which prevented me from playing Metro one night. It fixed itself after 15 minutes, but it was a documented bug Epic has that I would not have encountered on Steam. The rest of the stuff, I agree some of it's overblown. But the more I learn about Tencent, the less I like being part of anything having to do with them.

As far as the game goes, it seems I'm liking it slightly more than the crowd, for me it's a 9/9.5 so far. But to each their own. Hopefully you don't run into any major issues. I had my first crash last night and a bug with a quest that caused me to have to load my previous save (only lost 10-15 minutes of play time, so not a huge deal).

EDIT: So I've been having issues using Photo Mode to take photos in Metro. I can get into Photo Mode, but I can't seem to take any photos. It appears as though this is due to Epic. Apparently, Photo Mode relied on Steam's screenshot service, and Epic doesn't have one. If this is true and I can't take screenshots in photo mode, that just about seals the deal in me permanently hating Epic, and Deep Silver. It looks like this may be a PC-wide issue, not just Epic.

12 hours ago, default_ said:

Before joining GNR Frank was also a random drummer with no affiliation with Guns N' Roses. If we look into that direction, Fitz is closer to GNR now being a LA hard rock drummer who plays with, you know, Slash, than Frank was when he joined. 

Frank was a very random choice actually lol

I thought I read Frank either came with Richard or through knowing Richard, so that's the connection. Word of mouth/reputation hires for session musicians is common.

11 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Doesn't really make a difference to my argument that Frank isn't a random drummer with no affiliation to GN'R.

Depends how one defines GNR. 

10 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Irrespective of how one feels about Myles, Slash still produces instrumental music of a very high quality. ''Wicked Stone'', ''The Dissident'' and (if we go back to 2012) ''Anastasia'' are as good as anything Slash has produced for Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver. The burden of proof is on Rose who has only officially released 15 songs between 1992 and today, to I think it's fair to say a ''mixed reception''; indeed Rose hasn't released anything in over a decade.

10 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Subjective! 

But yeah, he is still a good guitarist, at least in the studio (his incessant noodling bored me at my GN'R show last summer and I only endured half a show with SMKC the year before, although that was mostly because I thought I had developed tinnitus but it turned out to just be Myles). 

I think the way DieselDaisy phrases it makes it sound subjective. But objectively, Slash is playing better than he ever has. You can debate whether you like the songs or not, but his playing and writing innovation is at its peak while Axl is out of shape and out of breath. 

6 hours ago, soon said:

Different sites have different methods of processing claims. Metro is maybe the easiest, so its first. Maybe Metro is more like YT and just removes everything thats claimed without investigation? Hopefully others are more rigorous and investigate claims.

***************

I just had an idea: Someone start a lyric site. Wait for the claim from bagel boy, then proceed with due diligence and contact the actual copy holders to ask if bagel is working on their behalf?

It would take 2-3 minutes tops to start a Wix/similar site and paste a few sets of lyrics on it. I'd do it if I cared enough, but I don't. 

Let's take a step back before jumping on this. It seems it's just one website and only lyrics have been affected, right?

1 hour ago, MaskingApathy said:

If/when the GnR record comes out all the naysayers will complain about Frank and Melissa being on it.

Frank is sort of understandable, GNR needs a drummer. Should GNR need a second keyboardist? No.

Have to give a lot of credit to BioWare though. The developers (not just community managers) are actively responding to threads on reddit that criticize the game. They are being very genuine and warm and that is matched in the tone of players reporting issues/design preferences. I don't think I've ever seen developers so blatantly and consistently take part in community discussions for a AAA game. This little bit of effort on their part is generating a lot of goodwill among the players, regardless of Anthem's issues (which do need attention). Other studios should learn from this.

It was only a week or two ago that Bethesda's community managers finally started to participate in the actual community on reddit. It took them 3 months of atrocious PR (not to mention a broken game) to realize they needed more transparent communication. BioWare is staying ahead of the curve.

EDIT: Remembered another complaint about Athem, no photo mode! I believe it's coming though.

10 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Must have been drunk, which thinking about it is highly probably, when he listened to Snakepit and heard ''southern rock''. 

I almost said that too  - "Didn't Duff's pancreas explode like a year after he made those comments?" He could have been listening to Boz Scaggs and thought it was Slash showing him new material, for all we know.

Kidding aside, I slightly hear the southern rock thing in some parts of I5OCS, but overall it is a hard rock album first and foremost. 

Got to play about an hour or two more of Metro. The story/game literally started kicking into high gear at the point I left off at, so it was 100% riveting story and action basically the second I got back into the game.

I'm just getting into the open world, but so far I am incredibly impressed. 4A Games has produced a more cinematic experience with better writing and story than BioWare. I like Anthem, but Metro blows it out of the water in the areas of texture fidelity, NPC design, animations, and most importantly: story/writing. I know this is based on a book series, so the story isn't 100% original to the developers, but they have done an excellent job bringing it to digital life. Looking forward to getting more into the game. And performance is much better than Anthem, steady 60-80FPS no matter the situation.

Playing also reminded me how good those first two games were, because Exodus takes everything from the previous games and pretty much makes it better. It is what I expected from this game, yet I am very impressed at the same time. 4A Games is a tiny developer compared to BioWare, R*, and many AAA developers. 

EDIT: Reading a bit deeper into the Metro communities, it looks like a lot of people (on all platforms) are experiencing issues with varying degrees of significance. I haven't encountered anything yet, but it does look like the game would have benefited from more polishing. 

1 minute ago, History2010 said:

One of the things that's interesting about that record is that both Axl and Duff rejected it. People like to think  it was an Axl decision there was a clear consensus between Duff and Axl that it shouldn't be the kind of sound that GNR would evolve into.

I find that surprising, do you know where/when it was said (about Duff specifically)? 

5 O'clock is definitely a Slash record, but many of the songs would fit GNR quite well given what AFD/UYI sound like.

15 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Okay, because when you wrote this, "it's fine for bands to explore other styles with their releases, but that's a decision that must be made by the band together, not the guy who wrangled the rights to the name and then drove everyone away with his new stylistic pursuit", it really sounded like it was more how it was done that was the problem with GN'R, not that it was done. But from what you wrote now it sounds like you accept experimenting but not any permanent changes to the stylistic pillars (at least when it comes to GN'R), which of course would be a huge problem to many bands and artists who have had their sound evolve far more than what GN'R has. David Bowie springs to mind. Would you say that fans from the early years of David Bowie, who - if they were are editors of Wikipedia - would be in the right to remove Bowie's later albums from his discography because there is a permanence to his change in musical style? Or maybe it is just bands that change style that you seem to object to, and not individual artists. If so we could talk about Beatles. The musical style of Please Please Me with songs like 'Love Me Do' is quite different from the experimental nature of The White Album (with songs like 'Helter Skelter' and "Revolution 9'). How do you handle that cognitive dissonance? You just say it is okay because everybody in Beatles was behind that change in style from be-bop rock to reverse tapes and psychedelics? What I am trying to figure out, which I know you know, is if you are consistent in your objections or if this really only is about GN'R. And what about Artic Monkeys? They started out with a post-punk revival album and with AM it was a mishmash of contemporary rock with hiphop, heavy metal, and desert rock influences. If you had given AM to kids dancing to "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" I bet they'd refuse to accept it was the same band.

Yes, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, etc. are more individual artists than they are bands. And I'd argue they care more about lyrical content and songwriting than they do about music. For me, music is priority #1 in a song (including vocal melody, but not including lyrical content). Despite the fact many people remember bands by song titles/lyrics, it is often (but not always) the music which makes the lasting impression on you, causing you to remember those words. In the case of GNR, I think it's pretty safe to say most of us are attracted to the music primarily and we possibly identify with lyrical content on a secondary level, depending on the song. 

No issue with The Beatles for the following reasons: The Beatles took their stylistic trip together. It's also worth noting the sonic transition you mentioned was partially due to time, the early 60s was the time of 12 bar blues rock (and the 50s of course), the late 60s is when many bands started to experiment. The Beatles were perhaps slightly ahead of the curve in this regard and they almost certainly contributed to future experimentation in the genre, but you can still find blues rocky songs on the later albums. They are a bit more evolved from some of the stuff on the early records, but they're still there alongside the experimental stuff. Although the later Beatles albums are unquestionably different from the early ones, the circumstances and the significance of experimentation are not enough to warrant a name change.

I'm not too familiar with The Arctic Monkeys, I would ask what is their defining content? What other circumstances affected the band that led to stylistic change?

Shinedown is a good example. They were a modernish rock band when they first started ~10+ years ago. Over the course of their existence, every member has left except the singer and a lot of their songs have drifted into the pop rock territory. I would say the current band should not be called Shinedown, due to the extreme personnel change and the music having drifted a bit from the earlier material. This drift is not as drastic as CD, but the personnel component is important, as @DieselDaisy is describing.

21 hours ago, Azifwekare said:

To anyone who thinks that CD is 'too modern' or 'too experimental' or etc etc, genuine question:

Have you actually listened to literally anything released in the last 20 years that wasn't by some bog-standard Led Zep (or, god forbid, Nirvana) wannabes?

I don't think it is too modern or too experimental. I think it is too experimental to be called Guns N' Roses. I have listened to many things released in the last 20 years and very little of it is Zep or Nirvana rip offs. I'm struggling to think of any band I listen to that is derivative of either of those artists (or any major 70s/80s acts in general). I was going to say The Answer for Zepp, but they're really isn't much overlap. I don't listen to Greta or Airborne.

9 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

The two post-Morrison Doors albums also. Some people are not even aware of their existence. 

I did not know of their existence until this post.

23 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

CD isn't that much of a departure from UYI, though. It could be argued that Street Of Dreams, Prostitute, Catcher, and This I Love are fairly natural progressions from the piano-based UYI songs (like November Rain or Estranged), or that Sorry, Madagascar and maybe There Was A Time are progressions of the 'experimental' songs (like The Garden, Coma or My World). CD, Better and IRS are relatively traditional rockers... the only songs that really stick out as 'non-GNR sounding' are Shackler's, If The World, Scraped and Riad.

Yes, it makes sense that those four songs feel more UYI because they revolve around Axl singing over a piano. But the rest of the album, that isn't based on piano melodies, doesn't sound like UYI. I was going to systemically go through each one, but this forum is just taking up too much of my time and I have two brand new games I need to play.
Things like Scraped, Riad, Better, IRS, Shackler's, Sorry, and TWAT are not things any musician from the UYI lineup (aside Axl) would have explored on their own. The guitars use scales Slash/Izzy have probably never heard of, and syncopation and abstract dynamics are utilized. Slash is very much about straight up Eb 4/4 guitar riff-based rock music, the "rockers" on CD are not really riff based and the tunings seem to vary depending on song.

22 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

I can see why people think it's too far removed - it's a different band and a different sound. The production is very different from the other albums. But the themes/ideas/styles are at least somewhat comparable, the sounds are different but the artist behind them (Axl) is recognizable.

Aside from the intro/outro of Better, it's basically the kind of song I would expect to hear from Axl Rose in the mid-2000's. It's a rocker with modern elements, that retains some classic characteristics (the vocals, the guitar solo, etc). Same with IRS, at it's core it's a bluesy hard rock song with modern elements (though the final version suffers a lot from over-production). If Slash and Duff can keep the 'Axl-isms' to a minimum then I can imagine an album of similar rockers. Is the song Chinese Democracy, aside from the intro, really that far removed from say, Garden of Eden? Slash doing 'heavier' (I don't want to say 'metal') stuff like Nothing To Say, or some stuff from Contraband, makes me think he'd fit songs similar to Better or CD quite well in the studio.

So the first half of your post seems to confirm what I'm saying? Some of CD sounds like Axl because Axl is the only holdover from the UYI days? Simply containing a guitar solo is not a significant overlapping quality between the music, IMO. I agree that CD is probably the closest rocker on CD to AFD/UYI. It's a short, simple riff-based song that doesn't really take any stylistic liberties. 

21 hours ago, Sydney Fan said:

Slash did mention in interviews and his book that he was prepared try some industrial stuff into guns as long as there was an overall approval within the rest of the band of moving to what sort of music axl wanted guns to represent. What killed this was the inertia of axl not knowing where guns needed to go and the communication between axl and slash was now becoming non existant.

I did read Slash's book, and while I don't remember that part, I believe you. Appreciate you bringing it up. I do recall though it's said that It's 5 O'clock is what Slash would have brought to the table for the next Guns record. It's pretty standard Slash hard rock. Meshing that with Axl's new interests would have still yielded a fairly GNRish sound.

21 hours ago, Azifwekare said:

Except it's not though, is it? What CD was rumoured to be and what we eventually heard are two completely different things. To anyone who didn't bother listening, it would be easy to assume it would be some kind of industrial/hip hop/electronica/whatever the fuck thing, but what we actually got was basically UYI III.

The only genuine difference in sound is that Robin's choppier riffs and Bucket's shredding are in place of Slash's sleazier style. Everything else is just down to a more modern production, which classic Guns would no doubt have also used had they stayed together and released albums in the 2000's. They would have followed through with the 95/96 'lost album' so Slash could get all the bluesy stuff out of his system, then experimented with industrial à la Oh My God, then released a CD-style album.

I disagree. Modern production is not the only difference, nor is it really the issue. Modern production shouldn't = overproduction. Plenty of bare-bones modern rock acts have crisp and fresh sounding records.

The songwriting (especially on the rockers) and production style, is what makes this album so different from past GNR releases.

On 2/15/2019 at 5:12 PM, DeadSlash said:

While it's true that the rigs they have are ridiculous, that isn't the reason for the bullshot.  A lot of times the screens are just airbrushed, or completely false (EA got busted because they f'd up the airbrush and left like 2 basketballs in an NBA live bullsot (or something like that.)  Since the games are in early stages, but have been planned, they know what they "want" the end game to look like, and they render a game to look like that.  Most times they fall way short of that goal.  No Man's Sky is a good example.  They just ran out of time to implement all of the things they wanted to implement, but they keep working on it, and it's 1000% closer to what they promised.  Sadly, this kind of follow up is very rare.     Essentially, early release trailers are a "guess" as to what the final product should look like, almost an artists interpretation.  (Think Atari 2600 game cover art)  They often justify it as showing "what the engine can do" but some companies like EA or Gearbox just lie for the sake of selling more games.  Aliens Colonial Marines is a perfect example of a lie, because the demo was rendered on a DX11 engine, and the game was built on a DX9 engine.  The released product never had a chance at looking like the demo and GBX knew that.

Good points, thanks for explaining.

18 hours ago, DeadSlash said:

Looks like Metro Exodous is a 8/8.5 out of 10 range.  No "amazing" but certainly not bad, or the disaster I was afraid of by any means.  I haven't read any of the reviews, just the scores, trying to avoid spoilers of any kind.  Plus, those scores might be artificially LOW given the backlash over incorporating denuvo and using the Epic store.  Either way, good news!

I know there is a pretty large review-bombing campaign going on, mostly due to Steam  Epic and maybe a tiny bit due to Denuvo. At this point, most people seem to accept Denuvo and most games institute it without harming performance. At least, that's what I've gathered from reading about it.

I only got to play 20 minutes or so last night and I haven't really gotten into the game yet. Still very much in the intro - which other than a few short moments, is pretty boring so far. However, of the little I've read in review, they do note the game really kicks into gear once you get out of the metro and into the open world. So far, it does feel like a Metro game in that there is environmental story telling/listening to conversations. But I'm hoping for a fairly mixed experience once I get into it.

____

I did get to play Anthem for about two hours last night. It was a lot of fun and I am probably going to buy it, but there are issues. As far as stability goes, this is probably one of the best multiplayer launches in recent memory. I had one crash to desktop, one several minute instance of lag/frame dropping, and one bug where I got stuck under some textures. Overall, not terrible for a brand new IP/game.

It does not look as good as I hoped, though it looks good. Shame the 2017 build isn't what we got (although, who knows if that was a real build), but it's still a good looking game. There are a lot of long loading screens, even for things like just customizing your suit. And menus are atrocious. But the things that matter: shooting, flying, story, etc. are all very good. The combat is essentially ME:A without the cover system. I'd prefer to have the cover system, but I'm assuming since the player has incredible versatility with travel via flying, they didn't find the cover necessary. The flying feels pretty good and presents a fairly unique experience in gaming, but I haven't mentioned the biggest problem yet: the entire game is a ubiquitous gameplay loop of "get mission," "shoot things and maybe hold a key to turn on a generator", "return to base" and repeat. Hopefully they shake things up at midgame and endgame levels somehow, because this entire game is essentially based around the sole mechanic of flying through the world. I am unsure how varied the environments are, as I'm just starting. I hope my concern about the gameplay loop ends up being unfounded, because I am having a lot of fun overall.

MTX are genuinely cosmetic only, though I haven't looked too much into them. My only other complaint is the lack of a FoV slider. The default FoV is weird, you can't see your character's feet and the model is slightly offset to the left of the screen for some reason. The latter issue won't be solved by a FoV slider, but I'd at least like to expand what my camera is seeing, especially considering this is supposed to be a very visual and aesthetically-pleasing game.

The story is pretty good and intriguing. Not BioWare's best, but much better writing/story than recent RPGs I've played. Also, all dialogue choices (so far at least) are binary, so that's a bit of a head-scratching downgrade from past BioWare games.

Not sure if I like the forced online nature of the game. It's not a problem so far, but it doesn't seem to add to the experience. I'd much rather have 2-3 NPC companions who banter with each other and have personalities than have random players from matchmaking every time. There are memorable characters/NPCs outside of combat, and I really have very little to complain about them.

Regarding performance, both games are running at a stable 60FPS on maxed settings at 1440p. I am pleasantly surprised by this and it's making me rethink about doing a new PC build so soon. 

EDIT: I was a bit quick with that performance figure, for Anthem at least. During combat the frame rate drops to 30-40 at times due to the deluge of visual effects and quick movements that come with combat. I wouldn't have noticed unless I checked the frame rate though, not an issue.

3 hours ago, -W.A.R- said:

This reminds me of the Asbha water thread -  I posted whats next? Ashba ashtrays?

Completely joking i googled it - and sure enough Ashba was already selling ashtrays.

He could do with a roadie bringing out one of his signature AshbaSWAG (TM) Ashbatrays, instead of defiling $5,000 guitars.

42 minutes ago, Fashionista said:

At this point, I would honestly take re-recordings of songs from Snakepit and Duff's first solo album with different arrangements and new Axl lyrics and vocals. I'd be happy with that.

22 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

CD isn't that much of a departure from UYI, though. It could be argued that Street Of Dreams, Prostitute, Catcher, and This I Love are fairly natural progressions from the piano-based UYI songs (like November Rain or Estranged), or that Sorry, Madagascar and maybe There Was A Time are progressions of the 'experimental' songs (like The Garden, Coma or My World). CD, Better and IRS are relatively traditional rockers... the only songs that really stick out as 'non-GNR sounding' are Shackler's, If The World, Scraped and Riad.

I'm genuinely interested in addressing this and taking another listen to the songs. I agree, some songs have some qualities of overlap. But my position is when considering the album as a whole, it is too far from the previous content. I should have some time later to listen and see if I either confirm my assertion, or revisit it. 

I do not at all see Better or IRS as "traditional rockers." They are both rockers, but neither are something Slash or Izzy would have written. Slash's versatility has expanded over the years, so maybe today he would explore this musical avenue, but I'm sure Izzy wouldn't. 

Sound engineering is part of this too. CD, due to litany of different musicians/instruments/tunings/sounds/layers on it, is mixed and mastered quite differently from previous GNR releases. I opened up IRS quickly now and right away you can hear it's such a different sound compared to AFD or UY (not just style, but how the music is presented sonically).

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

This interests me. So you are okay with changing the sound of a band, but only when the whole band is behind that decision. Sounds to me your gripe is not with the fact that CD is different, but with how the UIY lineup fell apart, and like you almost punish Axl for it by refusing to accept CD as part of the band's discography. 

And then one could make a strong case for the argument that the UYI lineup didn't disintegrate mainly over disagreements over musical direction, and that the lineup that did release CD was unison in their agreement over that record's sound.

No, my gripe is that CD says "Guns N' Roses" on it, and Guns N' Roses is a hard rock band built on blues and punk. 

I am okay with a band experimenting, but CD and how GNR has conducted itself over the last 20 years are quite a bit further than "experimentation." Axl wasn't experimenting with new stylistic options, he was changing the stylistic pillars of what made GNR, GNR.

And the thought experiment of if Slash/Duff/etc. had stayed in GNR and done Axl's vision the way he wanted, doesn't work for two reasons. #1. Slash (and possibly Duff?) were clear they did not want to investigate this new stylistic territory, so had they remained they would have either been resentful or turned into lackeys - neither are ideal scenarios. #2 If Axl allowed Slash/Duff to creatively contribute to CD, it would sound very different from the album we got and it probably would feel more like GNR. So there would likely be no issue with the album being labeled by GNR.

14 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

You know of the Voltaire quote sir?

I am a student of political philosophy. Legere Voltaire. My Latin is rusty though. I may have just said, "you read Voltaire."