Anthem Review: 4 Ups & 9 Downs

3. Flight & Combat Are A Lot Of Fun

The most frustrating thing about this entire game is that, if you boil Anthem down to its most base gameplay components - that is, flying and shooting - it actually can be a lot of fun.

Flying through the air in your Javelin looks and feels fantastic, aside from a wildly unnecessary flight countdown which should clearly be limited to combat-only. Above all else, it's basically the best video game representation of Iron Man to date.

Though combat ultimately proves repetitive due to the nature of the game's story and missions, the moment-to-moment gunplay is a blast, with the player having a wealth of options to dispense with at any moment - be it their two guns, a grenade, a ranged missile or an Ultimate attack, the latter capable of causing devastating damage to countless enemies at once.

While Anthem too often devolves into bullet sponge sameness, it's abundantly clear that the flying and shooting are deserving of a far stronger narrative and gameplay framework. Instead, they're the diamonds in this incredibly rough effort.