The Order 1886, anyone played this? Thoughts?

[kupomogli]

That's big saying you feel the media had made its mind up along with many gamers due to a clip a year in advance about The Order, but the sad truth of it is, it often does happen with stuff that's previewed well in advance and it's sickening and completely unfair especially from the media side of things. If you go into anything thinking it blows in advance it's not going to really help in changing ones mind about it.

I've seen the same about Castlevania LoD2 about the stealth, but other than that and it's probably a fair dig I've heard it's a solid game too so I've just never trusted the reviewers on that one either. I haven't bought it yet (if I ever will) because I had the first and it felt like an unrefined god of war clone but I keep thinking I'll go back to it. I imagine one day it'll be on sale on Steam as a package deal and I'll end up with both.

Well if you are interested in it, the game is 15-20 hours long without getting 100% of everything. The game still has the whole Uncharted style traversal although now more limited and it thankfully no longer has the animals that you're forced to use throughout key areas of the game to progress. Instead of the levels being split up in the first, the world and all the levels are seemless with "masked" loading times which are similar in style to Dead Space load times. The only major issue with the game imo is that the whip has an auto aim tied to it. The original Lords of Shadow it had an auto aim, but you could override the auto aim by holding the opposite direction. You can't do so on this game, sometimes you might be trying to aim at an enemy but the game might force you to aim at another because the stupid auto aim. Anyways, here's some gameplay videos from the start of the game that I recorded. The first video is the very beginning which you can play if you download the demo(aside from the very end part with the boss, if you click on the third video, it'll take you past all the storyline to the beginning of the game where you'll go to the first area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...KFOaLzDT#t=190

[Tanooki]

Yes I am interested, it's just a matter of priority of things at this point. I've got unfinished games I want to take a true shot at finishing, others on the list somewhere in the middle on, and I also have a steam account with a few things I got in a humble bundle I may or may not want to mess with that were included. I watch for sales really, so if I see that game at 50+ % off I'll probably snap it up.

[duffmanth]

I've never played the game so I'm not saying it's good or bad, but how many games now days are $60 that you can't beat in less than 10 hours? Resident Evil 5, Uncharted, Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate, Heavy Rain, Binary Domain, Devil May Cry series, Infamous Second Son, Tomb Raider, etc. What determines whether a game is good or not isn't the time you spend with it, it's not whether the game has multiplayer or not, it's whether the game has great gameplay as that's really all that matters.

The Walking Dead from Tell Tale games is a bit under 10 hours with your choices barely effecting the story, but that games received praises of endless 9s and 10s, game of the year, etc. Final Fantasy 13 is an RPG that was ~20 hours, terrible storyline and gameplay, unlikeable characters, and what was a hallway for the first 12 hours, yet it was praised by journalists and given 9s and 10s across the board. Are you really going to put your faith in journalists when the majority of them gave super high ratings to a game almost everyone hated?

The Order 1866 was getting hated on by gamers ever since the day it received a short gameplay clip less than five minutes long, and this continued on until its release. This game was never going to get higher than a 7/10 from journalists because they already had their mind made up over a year before it launched.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 actually had something similar happen to it. The game was hated by the public before launch because of the games setting and hearing about the stealth sections, so just about every single poor review that the game received was either talking about the games setting or the few and far between stealth parts sections the entire review and pretty much crucified the game. Was the stealth sections a flaw within the game? Yeah, but they weren't very frequent, they were actually fairly well done for the most part so that softens the blow a bit, and the storyline gives a good reason on why Dracula can't kill these enemies. The majority of people I know who've played it liked it and the user reviews for the game on metacritic are pretty high on average.

Your first sentence here, finally someone points this out!!!!! There are boat loads of games that are $60 that can be beaten in 10 hours or less. I don't know why everyone is pigeon holing this game?!

[duffmanth]

I'm only on chapter 5 maybe 6 I think? It's a good game, graphics like everyone else seems to agree on are probably the best looking on any console right now, some of the weapons like the thermite gun are ingenious and totally fit the whole Victorian/steampunk aesthetic.

However my main complaint and one that I don't believe I've seen being mentioned yet is impact of bullets. The gunplay while not quite living up to Titans like mass effect and gears of war is competent enough, but the damage I put out with bullets carry no weight. It doesn't feel satisfying to me. Like there isn't enough response or feedback. When I shoot someone they don't seem to recoil or in anyway give an indication that they've been shot. There isn't some cue in the sound or rumble in the controller that would signify I've got a clean hit. Many times I'll kill someone and keep shooting not realizing he's basically dead because the dude is locked in some death animation before he keels over and isn't reacting to my bullets at all.

Killzone I feel did this best, you always know when you're hitting someone,it's deeply satisfying seeing a helghast reeling back and forth, whole body jerking in sync to my gunfire, bullet sounds changing as well, easily distinguishable from hitting or missing anything else, bullets make a certain sound when connect.

Anyway back to what the order does right, it has great atmosphere, really good voice acting and the plot so far seems interesting if not a bit cliched but wtf isn't cliche these days. I wish exploring was more rewarding and there was more actual lore present within the game. You do get a taste with newspapers you occasionally find scattered around but honestly I don't even read them anymore, text is to small and the articles seem boring and long winded.

Is this game a must own? Probably not but it's certainly worth playing and a good choice for a rental if I ever saw one. 40 seems a more reasonable price so far but again im not finished playing so that could change depending on how the game plays out. I don't know where the fuck these game sites are justifying 5's and 6's tho. I don't really remember the order overhyping like destiny and titanfall did so expectations should be more manageable. This game is a 6.5 at its lowest if you're feeling burnt out in the shooter genre and at least a solid 7 to maybe 8 for everyone else. 8 would probably be the limit of what it deserves based on what I've seen so far, but giving this a 5 or 6 is absurd when you consider some of the fucking turds out there with near 80 and 90 metacritic scores from much larger publishers and developers that didn't come anywhere close to living up to the hype and either sucked or were flat out broken at launch but got a pass. (looking at you evolve and destiny)

The order just works day 1. No real glitches, good gameplay overall, a new setting that doesn't have us killing Russians or brown people. Excellent voice acting and art direction, cool interesting weapons, guess it's not enough to live up the greatness that is watchdogs or wateva overhyped garbage is next to pay off these review sites

The one thing you pointed out here that I didn't really notice, now that I think back, is that I didn't notice a single glitch or hiccup with this game. There was just a small software update at the beginning and that was it.

[duffmanth]

Yeah, but you know they wouldn't sell it for only $19.99. They put way too much money into the development of that game. One thing everybody agrees on is the great graphics. That graphical detail was very expensive. Too bad the game was mediocre, but they spent crazy money on it, but yeah, I think they could have realized the situation with the game and priced it at $39.99

At $39.99, I think the game would have sold enough to break even, and I don't think it would get this bad rap. Although I will say this, any game that is caught up in this much controversy is going to become a hot game regardless. People want to know if it's really crap or not. Hell, I'm a super cheap gamer, that normally waits for games to hit the bargain bin, and I'm actually trying to find this game locally on Craigslist for about 40 bucks, just because I'm so intrigued by just how bad (or maybe not so bad) this game is. I listen to a number of podcasts, and it's absolutely amazing to me the number of people I've listened to, that have ranted on both sides of this game. I've heard some people tear the Order a new one, and I've heard other people that genuinely really like the thing.

And these are guys that I really trust their opinions... Yet they have completely opposite opinions. It's weird... and intrigue like this does drive sales. Any press is good press.

The guys at Ready at Dawn are probably welcoming all of the media attention, I've never played such a polarizing game.

[duffmanth]

That is especially troubling..

You know when you're in danger, and you know when you're not in danger.


The other thing that I heard about this game a lot, is the fact that in certain areas, you can't run... you have to walk. And it takes forever, and you're just walking and walking. In other words, they were saying that those parts might as well been a cutscene, because all you could do is walk.










One nice thing about it though, if you finish it right away, just Ebay the thing, you'll only take about a $15 loss, and I'm talking about fees. One huge advantage to finishing a game super fast, is selling it right back. You could take it to GameStop, but you'll get more on Ebay. Heck, you could probably sell it quickly on Craigslist for $50 or at least $45, and no ebay or paypal fees if you're doing the Craigslist thing.

So, while the game might be relatively short, it only cost you a mere $15.

Of course, I'd rather rent the game, if there were places where you could rent PS4 games locally. All my redboxes don't have any PS4 or XB1 games.

Honestly this was the shittiest thing about this game, the pacing. There's just too much walking around aimlessly and examining useless items.

[kupomogli]

Angry Joe review. With the journalists repeatedly parroting each other with QTEs and time to finish the game, etc, etc, I just brushed it off as shitty journalism as usual, but after watching Angry Joe's review, I'm certain The Order 1866 is a pos. Massive spoilers in this review, but Angry Joe really pointed pointed out some major issues with the gameplay outside of the commonly mentioned QTE and short game bs from other journalists. The ally AI, the enemy AI on several occassions, cheap bullet sponge enemies, and two identical QTE boss battles being the only bosses in the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6NHKDh-Mo

[CDiablo]

Your first sentence here, finally someone points this out!!!!! There are boat loads of games that are $60 that can be beaten in 10 hours or less. I don't know why everyone is pigeon holing this game?!

I would be shocked if you can name a game that offered less at the $60 price point that wasn't called out for it. Some reviewers gave shit to Wolfenstein: New order because all it had was single player and the first playthrough was 12 or so hours(and I believe you unlock a variation of the campaign after beating it). Main reason it seems "pigeon holed" is because there is an army of Playstation fans that are making a massive campaign to discredit the unfavorable reviews this game has received nearly across the board. This makes it seem like a bigger deal than it actually is. In reality the game isn't that great and would be a massive flop if it were multiplatform.

[kupomogli]

I would be shocked if you can name a game that offered less at the $60 price point that wasn't called out for it.

A lot of great games can be completed and even finished 100% in under 10 hours. Parasite Eve, Castlevania SotN, Chrono Trigger(not 100%,) Mega Man Legends, Mega Man X4, Devil May Cry 1/3, Resident Evil 1-3, Dead Space 1 and 2. The single player on the Uncharted games and Gears of War can also be completed in under 10 hours.

People should get away from the whole short game means it's a bad game. Quality should be determined on the overall game itself, how enjoyable it is to play and how good the gameplay mechanics are. People should focus on those issues rather than focusing on the length it takes to finish the game.

[CDiablo]

A lot of great games can be completed and even finished 100% in under 10 hours. Parasite Eve, Castlevania SotN, Chrono Trigger(not 100%,) Mega Man Legends, Mega Man X4, Devil May Cry 1/3, Resident Evil 1-3, Dead Space 1 and 2. The single player on the Uncharted games and Gears of War can also be completed in under 10 hours.

People should get away from the whole short game means it's a bad game. Quality should be determined on the overall game itself, how enjoyable it is to play and how good the gameplay mechanics are. People should focus on those issues rather than focusing on the length it takes to finish the game.

My reply was because another user felt that Order was being picked on for it's length. I was stating when you offer so little at a premium price you will be judged as so. I have not played all the games on your list but I dont think most people can do everything there is to do in 8 hours(with 2 hours of cutscenes) on most of those in their first playthrough(as reviewers do). Many of those games are 10+ years old and this game will be judged in the context of modern gaming.

[ZP3]

A lot of great games can be completed and even finished 100% in under 10 hours. Parasite Eve, Castlevania SotN, Chrono Trigger(not 100%,) Mega Man Legends, Mega Man X4, Devil May Cry 1/3, Resident Evil 1-3, Dead Space 1 and 2. The single player on the Uncharted games and Gears of War can also be completed in under 10 hours.

People should get away from the whole short game means it's a bad game. Quality should be determined on the overall game itself, how enjoyable it is to play and how good the gameplay mechanics are. People should focus on those issues rather than focusing on the length it takes to finish the game.

What do all those games have in common, though? Great gameplay. The Order is literally cutscenes and walking down a corridor, every once and awhile stopping to take cover and shoot. I'll be damned if that is considered enjoyable.

[The 1 2 P]

The single player on the Uncharted games and Gears of War can also be completed in under 10 hours.

In the case of Gears of War, not only were they good games but their online/co-op multiplayer added near limitless replay value, two things the Order doesn't have going for it.

People should get away from the whole short game means it's a bad game. Quality should be determined on the overall game itself, how enjoyable it is to play and how good the gameplay mechanics are. People should focus on those issues rather than focusing on the length it takes to finish the game.

While I can generally agree with that, the Order has much more going against it than it's length. It's a short mediocre at best game that was released for $60. That's a much bigger deal today than it would have been during the PS1 gen now that we are in the age of online multiplayer. And even if it was a good game(something that I haven't heard from anyone other than a few diehard Sony loyalist), once you are finished theres pretty much no reason to ever play it again. Thats why I said earlier that they should have released it at a budget price since it's pretty much a budget title unconvincingly wrapped in AAA clothing.