• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Order: 1886 |OT| Gears of Yore

scoobs

Member
Just beat it. After all the talk of how short it was I found it just the right length. Story and characters were great, gameplay was good not great. The ending left a bad taste in my mouth, but overall way better than I imagined.
 
I like it so far. It looks beautiful minus terrible small subtitles.
Also, are characters in this game daywalking vampires? So many polishd and reflective items, yet no reflection of main character at all.
I haven't seen it in person but I'm gonna assume this is due to using screenspace reflections. They look awesome, but they are limited in only being able to reflect things which are visible on screen. So if your character is facing away from the camera, you're not going to see his reflection when standing in front of a reflective surface with the camera behind you.
 

Man

Member
It would be a fucking shame if RAD weren't given an opportunity to make a sequel to this.

There's SO much right with the core here and the universe is amazing.
I could easily see a sequel become a 'Dragon Age Inquisition' in where it just lifts the entire IP to a new level.

Basically what's needed is: Bigger gameplay segments & couple of new features to keep players more occupied (upgrading or scavenging) with more interactive environments.
 
Man, the thermite rifle is a beast. The way the enemies smolder and writhe while burning is amazing. This game just keeps on getting better and has some fun as hell shootouts.

I love firing in another metal oxide cloud just as the last spark is about to go out on an enemy huehuehue
 

Dominator

Member
Not sure it matters anymore, but I finished on Normal while only missing one trophy, in 7.5 hours. Got the Platinum 10 minutes after that.
 
I haven't seen it in person but I'm gonna assume this is due to using screenspace reflections. They look awesome, but they are limited in only being able to reflect things which are visible on screen. So if your character is facing away from the camera, you're not going to see his reflection when standing in front of a reflective surface with the camera behind you.

i pointed out how nice the reflections are in driveclub and someone was like oh thats just standard screen space reflections. Maybe, but they included track sky and cars not on the screen..
 
You know, its a shame this game isn't more like DriveClub, where they could patch in features and gradually improve the game over time.

Sadly, I don't think that can be done here.

If there was something you guys would like to see added to the game post-launch, what would it be?

There's a possibility of side stories, like 'The Taxidermist' DLC for Heavy Rain (before they dropped them to put Move controls in :( ) so there's some hope. Doubt it would be free though, but you never know.
 

bosseye

Member
Man, thank fuck I pay little heed to reviews - about 5 hours in and this has been, genuinely, one of the finest gaming experiences I've ever had. And to think so many people will miss out.

Impressions then:

Atmosphere - its incredible, so tactile and detailed and convincing. The environments are something special, incredibly evocative and really create a convicing sense of place

Visuals - astonshing. THe IQ seems pretty stellar, its all so solid and natural looking. Lighting, textures, effects, they're all spectacular. I'm up to around 50 screenshots already, a couple of areas have made me literally exclaim oout loud. The bit where you
first enter the hospital
I spent maybe 10 minutes just looking at the way the light fell. The only minor oddities I can see are some things that are curiously resistant to gunfire when others break (some glass cupboards etc refuse to break) and mirrors don't reflect the character so its odd they're often dotted around in obvious places.

Combat/Gameplay - love it, honestly. The walky bits really help with world building and atmosphere and immersion for me. The shooting is tight and feels very solid and meaty, weapons have real clout and noise. I'm also perfectly happy with the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay; reviews gave the impression you'd be sat for half an hour watching then 5 minutes of play, but its not been the case at all as far as I can see. Cutscenes have been long enough to be of worth, short enough not to intrude and the gamplay sections frequent enough to keep the whole thing flowing

Story/Characters - the story is very interesting, well told and I'm finding it very immersive. Characters are solid, interesting and beautifully acted.

Hhonestly, not getting the hate or poor reviews for this one. I don't care how short it is , the value for me is coming from the experience.
 

LoneWolf780

Neo Member
I played up to chapter 6 tonight and I'm really enjoying the game so far, I was starting to become bored of the typical shoot em up type game and this is a nice change. I had a few death's because I was zoning into it like a movie and all of a sudden a button prompt would pop up and I didn't press it in time.

Hearing people's completion times made me realize I must be playing this game extremely slow, it took me 4 hours to reach chapter 6, too many screenshots and soaking up the atmosphere I think. The graphics and detail in this game are amazing.
 
That's interesting, that's pretty much how I would describe TLOU's gunplay. I don't see anything in particular that elevates gunplay in TLOU over The Order. In fact guns in TO1886 feel punchier, louder, just smoother to operate in my opinion.

I like The Order a lot and enjoy the gunplay, but I can't agree with this at all.

The guns in TLOU have a LOT more kick to them and feel far more tactile, giving the gunplay a much more visceral feel.

I just can't even begin to see how the two compare in terms of quality.
 

Belldandy

Banned
i wonder if the split attitudes on 1886 fall around mostly age. Many of the posts in this topic are the most mature, reasoned and restrained ones I see on this site and dare I say it probably there are more than the average number of mature players posting here.

I wonder if some of the more negative reviewers are simply aware their demographic skews to teenage males. They know this audience are not as interested in texture, cinematics or slow pacing, and are writing the most negative stuff with that audience in mind.

Maybe there is a market for an cadre of old farts to review games from the perspective of married guys with responsibilites and past their twitch reflex prime. No offense. But it does seem a game more suited to a higher age average than normal.

Excellent points, I was thinking much the same earlier today.
 

Malcolm9

Member
So pretty much from most impressions of the game people are really enjoying it, good news.

I'll probably pick this up once I'm through my current back log.
 
Guys, if you've played this and Beyond: Two Souls, how would you rate 1886?
I really wanna buy this but BTS was the last game I ever pre-ordered and I learned to never do it again afterwards.

Beyond has a terrible (let`s be honest: f***** up) story with more plotholes than actual plot and bad written characters (that`s two dealbreakers for me in a "cinematic" game).
It`s too often just dump imo. But it can be brillant, strong and touching with great atmosphere, good acting and overall the presentation is very nice.
I would give it a 6,5/10.
The Order is more solid in every way without that dramatic ups and downs in quality. It`s got relatively well written characters and a nice plot. Atmosphere is also good, (voice)acting and presentation are outstanding. Regarding the gameplay you got more to do in The Order and the gunplay is really satisfying.
After playing nine chapters of The Order my (not final) rating for 1886 would be 8/10.
 
I platinumed it this afternoon.

I have no idea where those low review scores came from, honestly it's bizarre. (just saw an Engadget article claiming that it's boring!)

The things that stood out for me were the brilliant gun aiming and action sequences in general - when there are bullets wizzing around and pieces of scenery blowing up all around it was magic.

The sound design was fantastic - playing in 5.1 really brought things to life.

I felt connected to the characters and wanted to know how things would play out for them. Story was ok, about as good as an average CSI episode - so room for work there. Although the Voice acting was a notch above your standard video game.

Overall, I really really liked it and will be there day one for a sequel and I'd like to see more studios try things like this
 
I'm up to chapter five so far, amd I'm having a blast. The only complaints I have are minor things (no tracking of collectibles, not many trophies, etc.) The game itself is quite good. I imagine the issue a lot of journalists have is that they become jaded to certain things in games when it's their job to play so damn many of them.
 

Malcolm9

Member
Hopefully if RAD get the green light for a sequel everything will be in place already, and they can concentrate on adding more to the game, I think for their first console title it's a great effort.
 
I like The Order a lot and enjoy the gunplay, but I can't agree with this at all.

The guns in TLOU have a LOT more kick to them and feel far more tactile, giving the gunplay a much more visceral feel.

I just can't even begin to see how the two compare in terms of quality.

there are guns in tlou? I remember some in my inventory but mostly i had no ammo. It was all about bricks, and the bow. Based on what I see of the 1886 videos, the guns look act and sound a lot more brutal. Like everything is a blunderbus with smoke sparks and a giant kick.
 

galvenize

Member
That's the thing now that there are people who have seen how average the review scores are: they can't overrate The Order thus enjoying the game more than they think they will.
 

baphomet

Member
So after a stupidly long attempt to Redbox this I ended up with it as well as 8 free game rental codes. I'm about 2 1/2 hours in and this is really bad. It looks gorgeous in parts, but a lot of parts are also really ugly. The worst part is the lack of any real gameplay, and what is there is extremely mediocre. Unless it just absolutely turns around in the next 4 hours or so, this game is very deserving of a 4/10.

I really do hope that this helps show developers that when gameplay doesn't come first, your game is going to suck.
 

SHEF

Member
Glad I'm not the only one.
My copy was shipped on Wednesday so I did expect it to show up yesterday.

Well it was sent first class from checking the envelope but I don't believe they sent it Wednesday or even Thursday as some would have got it yesterday.

I think they sent them Friday but wanted to lock orders in and take the money early.
 
So pretty much from most impressions of the game people are really enjoying it, good news.

I'll probably pick this up once I'm through my current back log.
Yeah some decisions they made are a bit weird. But for a first console game by a small team, they don't deserve to be slaughtered like this.
It's as if the new kid in town got picked on because the other kids are jealous of his good looks.

Ofcourse others will say i sound like i'm defending the game like a fanboy, but some journalists gave this game a 2. A 2!!!! Now play the game and say that is reasonable. It's not. Not even from a subjective point of view. It's instantly making that person a clickbait whore without any integrity.
 

Schryver

Member
2.5 hours in and I just started chapter 4 lol. Enjoying it so far but definitely not a lot of actual shooting yet. What there has been felt great. Without a doubt the best looking console game ever. Love it
 
I went with hard and died so many times during the first lycan encounter and in the ambush after the
"whore house"
.
The regular combat is pretty great but the lycan one is so messy. Especially during chapter 5 in
the hospital
where you fight an
elder crossbreed
. QTE meele fight so far my biggest gripe with the game.
The other problem is lack of action. The nice shoot-outs just don't get enough show time in this game.

Can't complain about the story though. I'm enjoying it.

All in all, quelle joie! Lafayette is my favourite. lol
 
I went with hard and died so many times during the first lycan encounter and in the ambush after the
"whore house"
.
The regular combat is pretty great but the lycan one is so messy. Especially during chapter 5 in
the hospital
where you fight an
elder crossbreed
.
QTE meele fight so far my biggest gripe with the game.
The other problem is lack of action. The nice shoot-outs just don't get enough show time in this game.

Can't complain about the story though. I'm enjoying it.

All in all, quelle joie! Lafayette is my favourite. lol
Oh i loved that second fight. It was tense. Like qte fights should be imo.
First one was really lame though.
 

Rymuth

Member
So pretty much from most impressions of the game people are really enjoying it, good news.

I'll probably pick this up once I'm through my current back log.
Yeah, pretty much what I was thinking. Lot of good feedback in this thread.

Just stay away from the Review thread. :p
 

scoobs

Member
2.5 hours in and I just started chapter 4 lol. Enjoying it so far but definitely not a lot of actual shooting yet. What there has been felt great. Without a doubt the best looking console game ever. Love it

Some chapters are shorter than others. I beat the game in about 8.5 hours on hard difficulty, probably died 10 times total... its longer than people are making it out to be, or I just suck
 

Plasma

Banned
Played up to chapter 10 last night the gameplay is okay but it is a bit repetitive I can see where most of the reviews are coming from. Really enjoying just walking through some of the environments though still blows me away that this game is running in real time.
 

benzy

Member
So I beat it at around 15 hours. I spent a bit of time doing senseless things like taking pics and messing around with stuff like this. The gifs don't have any story spoilers, but there are some of later levels in the game.

http://a.pomf.se/syjztd.gif

From the beginning cutscenes you can pretty much tell RAD wanted to make a game where you controlled what looked like pre-rendered CG cutscenes, but were actually real-time, hence the QTEs. I think that's what was supposed to be the big draw to the "cinematic" gameplay, along with certain forced walks/gameplay segments where it had really nice cinematography that made it look like a cutscene, but you could actually control the character movements - i.e rappelling down the airship and stuff like this:

http://a.pomf.se/apwhis.gif

Some people might hate this, but I thought it was implemented really well here considering what RAD is going for. The camera angle and movements, lighting set up with long shadows, subtle DOF, it was set up to basically show you controlling a cutscene. Had I not been moving Galahad I would have thought it was a spruced up in-engine cinematic, which wouldn't have been anything special to me. Which leads to the graphics, it is damn insane. The amount of lighting and shading fidelity they've reached, the texture and material detail. Almost every chapter where you get to play is pretty much a new looking environment with new details, and each level is as graphically consistent as the last. And it's not just a technical matter, the technical aspects in the end just works really well to support an awesome art style with great artwork. If there's one complaint it's specular aliasing. These are actually pretty difficult to get rid of and 4xMSAA won't fix them. The specular aliasing for the most part actually disappears when you move so the game is either adding some post-process temperal AA or the motion blur just helps hide them when moving. But if you're standing still, you'll notice them on thin specular highlights depending on the lighting set up. There many areas where they don't even show up. The game is incredibly clean with no jagged edges otherwise, it's just a nitpick. They did an incredible job visually though, I don't see any dev topping this one for a while and I'll probably replay the game just to admire the graphics more. Some of the later levels are really fantastic looking and very moody.

http://a.pomf.se/rruxzi.gif

The sound design is really great too, with some great music. Really like the oomph of the guns which had very good clarity and authenticity. The environments also have some lovely ambient sounds to them.

The gunplay is pretty awesome. I hated the feeling of shooting in the Uncharted games and the lack of enough feedback from the guns. Never found the gunfights in Uncharted to be captivating. Completely the opposite feeling I get in 1886. The did a great job designing the weapons and how it feels to shoot. Some people don't use blacksight much but it's been a real life saver for me in taking out guards quicker to save ammo for the armored guys, and it works great to detonate grenades. The AI isn't all that different from Uncharted. Basic, but they get the job done. The AI can flank you, run to cover, pop up and down like how they do in most TPS with cover, and sometimes they'll just run towards you or very slowly try to move away while shooting.

So back to the QTE's, I'm not a fan of QTEs in general but I can live with them. With RAD wanting to make interactive cutscenes that looked like pre-rendered CG, I can see their reasoning for them. But while there were some QTEs that were decently designed, there were other QTEs that were just lame or really annoying and downright bad. The cutscene QTEs aren't too bad (if you missed and died, it quickly restarts and there's not much waiting), but one of the Lycan fight requires you to dodge using QTEs with the analogue stick. The Lycan attacks too fast for you to even read the prompt, so I didn't even know if I had to use the right stick or the left stick. It was annoyling difficult to adjust to at first. There's also no sense of gratification in pulling it off. You press the direction the prompt says, and that's it, I didn't feel like I did much. I really would have preferred if the game relied less on QTEs for dodging (either for the Lycans, or for grenades), and instead just included a dodge mechanic mapped to a button, so I can dodge whenever I want. There's more interaction this way, you decide when and if you want to do it.

Leading in to my gripes. The game has button prompts everywhere, and there's no way to turn them off. When you want to melee, the triangle button always shows up on top of enemies. It's the same button every time, not sure why the prompt even needs to be there after the first time you realize what button to push. Inspecting items, triangle button prompt. And the tip prompt during inspection mode that tells you how the controls work will appear every single time, as if you didn't know the left thumbstick moves the item around by the end of the game. Really takes you out of the "cinematic" aspect when you're inspecting the highly detailed item only to see a wall of text and buttons to the right. Inspecting items itself seems like a cool mechanic, but ultimately pointless. Would have been better if you inspected the items for clues that required some detective work of some sort.

Not being able to go into cover while holding a lamp is stupid.

The Lycan fights don't provide much of a thrill. I came into the game expecting so much more from the half-breeds considering RAD was so secretive about them and they're a huge draw to the game. They basically just run away then come back to give a one-hit attack, then run away. I was looking forward to a more intense/suspense fight with them, both with the lower and elder Lycans. Although these fights are pretty lame, they only happen twice throughout the whole game. RAD needs to rethink how half-breed fights work and happen if they can do a sequel though.

You don't even get to fight the
vampires
... Highly disappointing. I was imagining we would at least get some Resident Evil 5 Wesker-esque fights when they showed up.

I don't really have a problem with the pacing. I think for most of the cutscenes, individually, they don't drag on for too long. If there are long cutscene segments then it usually contains a variety of cutscenes that moves the story forward and isn't about just one thing (like MGS4's long ass Drebin introduction speech). The story itself starts slow but it did get more interesting near the end. The actual gameplay portion picks up a lot after Chapter 2. You'll also hit some chapters that are really visually moody and makes it seem like you're actually exploring and looking for stuff. The last few chapters go by really quick though. Which leads to the ending; it's abrupt and provides no closure. The boss fight was disappointing too because it's basically an earlier fight you had. It seems like the end was rushed and with no closure as if they just ran out of budget, so they had to make due with what they had. The final ending scene was visually awesome though.

Really would love to see a sequel to let RAD flesh out the gameplay more, and re-do the half-breed fights, make it rely less on button prompts/QTEs, maybe even let us climb on top of them to attack like Dragon's Dogma. I really liked fighting the rebels, both with standard and Tesla's unique guns. Some of the later fights get really heated too. There were some suspense moments where you carry around a lamp in a hospital and the mood and atmosphere of exploring this area was great, didn't mind the slow pace aspect of this chapter at all.

http://a.pomf.se/eerywn.gif
 

KooopaKid

Banned
i wonder if the split attitudes on 1886 fall around mostly age. Many of the posts in this topic are the most mature, reasoned and restrained ones I see on this site and dare I say it probably there are more than the average number of mature players posting here.

I wonder if some of the more negative reviewers are simply aware their demographic skews to teenage males. They know this audience are not as interested in texture, cinematics or slow pacing, and are writing the most negative stuff with that audience in mind.

Maybe there is a market for an cadre of old farts to review games from the perspective of married guys with responsibilites and past their twitch reflex prime. No offense. But it does seem a game more suited to a higher age average than normal.

Are you serious? I'd say it's the other way around. The criticisms against the game in the reviews or otherwise are far more articulate than the positive ones like "I'm having a blast", "I don't understand the reviews, the game is good" and so on.

Impressions

Other than this guy. Thanks!
 
Just beat it. It was fantastic. The ending was ehh but everything else was great including how long it took to complete. Like I said in the review thread, it's a shame people will skip this or say it's bad without playing it for themselves...
 
Who are the rebels?

I'm upto the part just after the airship but I still kinda have no idea whats going on.

What are the rebels fighting for? Who are they fighting for?
 
Are you serious? I'd say it's the other way around. The criticisms against the game in the reviews or otherwise are far more articulate than the positive ones like "I'm having a blast", "I don't understand the reviews, the game is good" and so on.



Other than this guy. Thanks!

yeah i am serious. I have no opinion on whether the reviewers are mature or not - but doubt anyone giving it 5/10 or less is for real, rather than for clicks - but the OT seems to have more than average amounts of maturity minus the drive-bys.

Perhaps thinking this game is a good buy is associated with people who love games, and have since they were young, but have to balance their time now, meaning 8 hours for a good experience, completed, is not considered a catastrophic waste of that months pocket money.

where else can I buy a single player campaign that isnt just a prelude or tutorial for multiplayer, that has next-gen visuals and can be played thru inside a week of evenings on the calendar without waiting on patches? It certainly isnt wolfenstein, or gta5, or destiny or dying light, or far cry or assasins or literally anything else. It isnt indies or do-overs either.
 
Top Bottom