Simplygames "shipped/dispatched" date, dont believe their lies. For GTAV NG they sent mass "shipped" emails to people on the friday (i assume so people couldn't cancel their order), but didnt actaully dispatch until the following monday. They told me it was due to Rockstar, although they had no excuse for the false dispatch emails.
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The Order: 1886 |OT| Gears of Yore
- Thread starter Skux
- Start date
Simplygames "shipped/dispatched" date, dont believe their lies. For GTAV NG they sent mass "shipped" emails to people on the friday (i assume so people couldn't cancel their order), but didnt actaully dispatch until the following monday. They told me it was due to Rockstar, although they had no excuse for the false dispatch emails.
I can't speak for the mass here but IMHO there is a solid foundation here for a brilliant sequel if the games sell well and if RAD is willing to give the players more "control time" with it.
The tech is there. RAD simply needs to muscle more the gameplay and fine tune some other aspects (AI for example)
The tech is there. RAD simply needs to muscle more the gameplay and fine tune some other aspects (AI for example)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEJrXo8FZ74
I'm not into tech much, but Is it really hard to do reflections of a character? Duke Nukem 3D has them..
serenewarfare
Banned
Bought this on a whim. Played about three straight hours. Just finished
. Really enjoying so far. I can totally see why someone with different tastes wouldn't like it, but I am finding it to be quite enjoyable.
the airship
Savantcore
Unconfirmed Member
Ourgh I've had something quite major spoiled for me, which has really ruined the last couple of hours. Just got past the bit where you find the
.
vampires in the boxes
DOWN
Banned
Just finished The Order. Took me about 7 hours and I definitely enjoyed it. It was so great looking, almost certainly setting the bar graphically, that I can't say I totally understood or was even that aware of elements that stood out as negatives. The original guns were very neat, the music was excellent, and the gameplay was maybe 70% Gears of War inspired but wrapped in sophisticated production aims, and 30% Beyond/ Heavy Rain strict vision. I suppose for negatives I'd say the fantasy portions of the overall rebellion story weren't alive enough and that made it seem like the story took itself too seriously in some elements where the inherent concern of all the characters wasn't that clear in the scope shown of the source of conflict.
If there's one thing you need to do with your main characters in any drama narrative game, it's have us believe there's more to them than the immediate concern by having scenes or notable beats where they breathe freely and hint at their own mind and not just their fight or flight, or squad dynamic mentalities. The Order gave a squad that was easily alluring, but never more than a team with a problem. And perhaps that is a hint at the lack of original life that critics complain of here. The linearity is a structure that, personally, I can't knock it for. I was happy with getting a movie and special agent fantasy hybrid, which has pulled off the scripted presentation better than any others attempting similar styles. I love a cinematic game in most respects. It's the parts of the script we as people might attach to that were too rare, but there was thankfully no shortage of thrilling conflict and scenery.
Anyway, I sure hope there's either a sequel or similarly brutal and mysterious game using the engine and aspect ratio from Ready at Dawn. There's potential for The Order, but more importantly there's a new standard for me when it comes to presentation.
8/10
If there's one thing you need to do with your main characters in any drama narrative game, it's have us believe there's more to them than the immediate concern by having scenes or notable beats where they breathe freely and hint at their own mind and not just their fight or flight, or squad dynamic mentalities. The Order gave a squad that was easily alluring, but never more than a team with a problem. And perhaps that is a hint at the lack of original life that critics complain of here. The linearity is a structure that, personally, I can't knock it for. I was happy with getting a movie and special agent fantasy hybrid, which has pulled off the scripted presentation better than any others attempting similar styles. I love a cinematic game in most respects. It's the parts of the script we as people might attach to that were too rare, but there was thankfully no shortage of thrilling conflict and scenery.
Anyway, I sure hope there's either a sequel or similarly brutal and mysterious game using the engine and aspect ratio from Ready at Dawn. There's potential for The Order, but more importantly there's a new standard for me when it comes to presentation.
8/10
Triggerhappytel
Member
I honestly thought there was going to be a twist where
The Order were vampires and the Blackwater was blood but, well, that doesn't seem to be the case
I really don't know how the mechanics of this game got through playtesting. The game only lets you run when it wants you to, only lets you shoot when it wants you to, and only lets you shoot specific guns when it wants you too at that. The QTEs are really annoying and the stealth missions are the worst designed that I've ever played. Indeed, the missions don't really seem to have much thought put into them. Combat scenarios are just wave after wave of the same enemies which gets pretty dull, and the game has sections where its impossible to take cover and limits you to only a freaking pistol - in a cover-based shooter ffs.
The world is incredibly beautiful, but the game makes it really tedious/impossible to explore it. The Order could have easily have been a great game, but it drops the ball in the execution of basically everything it tries to do. I did find moments of enjoyment in the game, but they were quickly replaced with flashes of frustration.
Storywise, it had the potential to be pretty interesting, but the reasons the characters do things seem pretty poor. Moreover, Galahad doesn't come off as a duty-bound centuries old knight but a hard-headed fool. He was/is supposedly the best in his time, but he comes off a incompetent often - though I suppose compared to the NPC knights who don't do shit, Galahad looks decent.
I'd like for them to have the opportunity to do a sequel as the game could have easily been really great. However, seeing all the simple things RaD fucked up here, I don't really have a reason to trust them outside of blind optimism.
The world is incredibly beautiful, but the game makes it really tedious/impossible to explore it. The Order could have easily have been a great game, but it drops the ball in the execution of basically everything it tries to do. I did find moments of enjoyment in the game, but they were quickly replaced with flashes of frustration.
Storywise, it had the potential to be pretty interesting, but the reasons the characters do things seem pretty poor. Moreover, Galahad doesn't come off as a duty-bound centuries old knight but a hard-headed fool. He was/is supposedly the best in his time, but he comes off a incompetent often - though I suppose compared to the NPC knights who don't do shit, Galahad looks decent.
I'd like for them to have the opportunity to do a sequel as the game could have easily been really great. However, seeing all the simple things RaD fucked up here, I don't really have a reason to trust them outside of blind optimism.
Shit this game is weak. The gameplay is very basic, generally unexciting and the dumb AI doesn't help. I don't mind a cinematic game, in fact I absolutely love them, but this game feels like it makes no effort at all to feel exciting save for a very few select moments. The graphics are absolutely stunning (albeit too blurry for my tastes), the sound work is gorgeous, the voice acting is movie-level stuff but.... the gameplay feels stale since the very beginning. I am still early, only played about two hours to try and have more meat for the weekend but damn do I feel disappointed at the moment.
It went like this...
"Sex noises? cool and realistic"
...
"Oooooo boob....with physics"
....
"What the fuuuuuuuuuuck......."
*turns around to see if the missus saw it*
FallenGrace
Member
So this game is really polarizing...
I am only at chapter VI but I am quite enjoying it, mainly for the Victorian atmosphere and visual spectacle. The gameplay when it happens is ok, more freedom to run, aim and items to collect see would improve it no ends though.
I am only at chapter VI but I am quite enjoying it, mainly for the Victorian atmosphere and visual spectacle. The gameplay when it happens is ok, more freedom to run, aim and items to collect see would improve it no ends though.
I noticed that the dude didn't have an erection - so I'm not really sure what those two were doing.
ReplacementPelican
Member
Is this our first AAA penis? There have been breasts in loads of games but I'm pretty sure I've never seen a dick before.
GTA IV I think.
Always-honest
Banned
This is a good point. I even think there was a pount where i couldn't melee all of a sudden. So i stood there like an idiot before a guy who just shot me
Before i started playing the Order i was playing Wolfenstein. That game does sooooooo many things right. It is sooo much FUN to play.
Now i don't want the Order to be Wolfenstein, but they sure could learn from certain aspects of the game. Same for TLoU.
Also, have more stuff happen by CHOICE. Crouch by choice, jump, melee, etc. I don't mind qte-s at all. In fact i prefer them for really tense moments.
We as a player should be more in control.
Edit: fuck, completely forgot about blacksight.. Used it only once....
Galahad doesn't seem like the sort of character who'd run around the halls of The Order or jump around incessantly, so the limitations make sense when you look at it in terms of story/character. In terms of a traditional game, of course it doesn't make sense, but this is far from a traditional game.
The way I look at it is that the game is very much a modern day Dragons Lair, we are just taking part in a cinematic story that Ready at Dawn want to tell, and get to have occasional gameplay inbetween movie sequences.
HappenstanceUK
Member
My copy arrived from SimplyGames now as well. Still not planning on using them again though, really dont like the fact that they lied about the dispatch date.
Dragons lair is an awful "game" but your comparisons are a good point. You nailed the impressions I get from the game.
Always-honest
Banned
Yeah, difficult. I have a feeling that in the current form it won't be much of a succes. But i appreciate the direction they are trying to go.
I also think there is room for cinematic story driven linear games. I don't think qte-s are always a weakness. I think they are a very valid gamemechanic. And i also think that certain limitations can be good sometimes, if they serve the game or the story.
I don't know. There is so much potential for this to become a great series
The gameplay is nothing more than servicible and I think this path was delibrately chosen so they could get the game out sooner. I think this game is just for RAD and Sony to test the waters and all the cool gameplay ideas were held back for the sequel. For instance there is a lot of potential with the primary and secondary fire combinations and the dynamic melee. Seeing as how Uncharted 2 was able to change opinions from just being another TPS, i dont see why the same cant happen with the Order.
The important think is that the framework is all there allowing them to focus on adding content and expanding the gameplay for the inevitible sequels. This franchise is a long term investment and I think both RAD and Sony see the value in it and are devoted to continuing it.
The important think is that the framework is all there allowing them to focus on adding content and expanding the gameplay for the inevitible sequels. This franchise is a long term investment and I think both RAD and Sony see the value in it and are devoted to continuing it.
I just came in here to say I'm VERY impressed with the game's visuals.
The story is pretty decent as well. Couple of hours in, it's really starting to pick up.
What I would like to see for a sequel:
• Refined, simplified controls (LESS buttons to do MORE things)
• The ability to move from cover to cover vertically would be very welcome
• A deeper melee-system
• Ability to customise/upgrade/tweak weapons
• An opened up environment (at least in certain areas) that allows you to explore a bit further
And, of course, with the above in mind, a Versus and Co-op Multiplayer experience would be AMAZING. But I'd rather see they keep it simple, like Gears of War 1, rather than going all out like ND did with Uncharted 3 (too many gimmicks, bloated metagame, etc.).
Overall, I'm really enjoying the game though.
The story is pretty decent as well. Couple of hours in, it's really starting to pick up.
What I would like to see for a sequel:
• Refined, simplified controls (LESS buttons to do MORE things)
• The ability to move from cover to cover vertically would be very welcome
• A deeper melee-system
• Ability to customise/upgrade/tweak weapons
• An opened up environment (at least in certain areas) that allows you to explore a bit further
And, of course, with the above in mind, a Versus and Co-op Multiplayer experience would be AMAZING. But I'd rather see they keep it simple, like Gears of War 1, rather than going all out like ND did with Uncharted 3 (too many gimmicks, bloated metagame, etc.).
Overall, I'm really enjoying the game though.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Okay i played up to chapter 12 and i don't think i am going to finish the game.
The game play has become boring and just not able with it any more.
The story i can see what is coming from a mile away and the last part i saw was stupid .
I would rate it at best a 5 out of 10.
This is such a shame since i was really looking forward to it and i love TPS games.
But the only thing The Order does right is GFX and sound every thing else is sub par compare to other TPS games.
The game play has become boring and just not able with it any more.
The story i can see what is coming from a mile away and the last part i saw was stupid .
I would rate it at best a 5 out of 10.
This is such a shame since i was really looking forward to it and i love TPS games.
But the only thing The Order does right is GFX and sound every thing else is sub par compare to other TPS games.
shinobi602
Member
I don't know...guns just feel smoother to use than in TLOU to me. Not trying to artificially prop up The Order either, TLOU was almost my top game last gen.
plasmawave
Banned
Being able to upgrade your weapon by bringing it to Tesla for exchange of money, or some useful resources or blueprints for him would be the most obvious thing to do in the sequel.
Add more interesting steam punk weapons too because there were not many in this one.
Also add shit tons of unlockable content if you're gonna make a SP only game.
Assign a button to switch between primary and secondary weapon.
Assign a button for evade/roll action.
Not everything has to be QTE. Some makes sense, others not so much.
That morse code thing was pointless.
Don't alternate between gameplay and cutscene sequences frequently.
I really liked the game, but these are some of my criticism of the game.
Add more interesting steam punk weapons too because there were not many in this one.
Also add shit tons of unlockable content if you're gonna make a SP only game.
Assign a button to switch between primary and secondary weapon.
Assign a button for evade/roll action.
Not everything has to be QTE. Some makes sense, others not so much.
That morse code thing was pointless.
Don't alternate between gameplay and cutscene sequences frequently.
I really liked the game, but these are some of my criticism of the game.
I've never written a detailed review for a game, so I'm still feeling my way through it. Forgive me if it isn't professional quality 
MINOR SPOILERS BELOW
Let's cut straight to the chase. The Order 1886 is a missed opportunity on so many levels. Not in the sense that it didn't deliver what I wanted the game to be. It didn't even deliver what RAD promised. Other than their obvious focus on story, setting, sound, graphics and art, here's what we were led to believe when the game was revealed:
Do any of those sound like an unreasonable expectation based on that trailer? When they revealed it, I was fucking hyped by its potential. As time progressed, we were introduced to the "rebels" and the amount of marketing around the half breeds became increasingly scarce. Every piece of media that came out focused on the rebels with the odd werewolf sighting. Every gameplay reveal had lukewarm to cold reception, because it showed nothing that stood out like the original reveal. "Oh RAD is holding so much back because of spoilers", "Oh Sony's marketing sucks. RAD deserves better", "Oh stop hating on the game, wait till it's out". We all found ways to keep that hope alive. Myself included. But it had reached a point where I started being a passive reader on those threads. There was nothing to say because nothing really was being shown. My hype had hit a plateau. Then I got to play it at PSX and found that they had nailed the gunplay, the most criticized aspect of the game. So all hope was not lost. Now that I've played the entire game, I should be hyped for a sequel, right?
Before I answer that, let's explore what the final product does and does not do well. I played it on hard, with aim assist off, vertical stick inverted (like normal people would play) and all sensitivity options cranked up to 8.
The prologue of this game when watched on mute on youtube felt like the best introduction this game could possibly get. It was intense, suspenseful and dire. Anyone who had followed the game's story prior to release would immediately be drawn by all the questions that it raised. After spoiling myself on this portion last week, I was really looking forward to playing it. Little did I know that it had the worst introduction to gameplay that I ever imagined a game of this caliber could have. The oncoming barrage of button prompts and QTEs was an assault even to my sensibilities, someone who liked heavy rain. The first 3 buttons you are asked to press are all through button prompts that interrupt an otherwise intense cutscene - tap triangle, mash triangle and hold triangle. The end result of all these 3 button prompts is essentially the same, Galahad forcefully using his hand to do something. So why the redundant variations? Makes you wonder. Once you get full control of Galahad, you would think the game would let you keep it. But surprise, it doesn't. You get about 10-20 seconds of walking around after which you are stuck in another cinematic camera angle. And another. And another. Some were forgivable and others were downright abhorrent. There was one segment where the game asks you to use L2 to aim. So like any normal gamer would, I pressed L2, expecting to aim. Guess what happens? It zooms on to the target automatically. Trying to aim left or right has no effect. I couldn't even move Galahad left, right or backwards. I was walking through a standard room just moments ago. Now I was walking an invisible line with invisible walls in all directions except forward. Failure to comply meant insta-death and a restart. So I complied. This went on for a few minutes of painstakingly choreographed cutscenes that were compromised by distracting button prompts. The analogy that came to mind was a movie that paused every few seconds and forced you to press play, just to make sure you are paying attention. Or a great orator stopping every 5 seconds to confirm that you are still listening. Wouldn't that make you want to judge the orator? The game wasn't just hand holding, it was dragging me like an abusive parent, and punishing me if I resisted. I tried not to judge the game based on this. It was too early for that. The narrative that unfolded made the ordeal worth it.
Fortunately, this was the only section in the game that was so excessively riddled with button prompts. I wouldn't call all of them QTEs, as QTEs are time sensitive. Some of these are just Press-It-or Rot-Here-Forever prompts. It still appears every now and then, but not in such an egregious and offensive way.
The game eventually opens up a lot, with its stunning visuals and atmosphere on full display and nary a hiccup in framerate. And it looks absolutely stunning for the most part. The first chapter and several others that followed let you walk around for quite a bit and take in the atmosphere. The attention to detail is staggering. The textures are all marvelously detailed. You hear sounds that you wouldn't expect them to be put there, like the ticking of a wall clock when you get real close to it. Even the coat tails of random NPCs fluttered realistically in the wind.
But the early exploration also revealed another problem that appears throughout the game. Dead ends. Empty, uninteresting dead ends. At most, you might have a newspaper or pamphlet to read. Some that add substance to the lore, others that don't. But many dead ends had nothing at all. And given that the first "exploratory" section did not allow you to run (the reason is anybody's guess), it started getting a bit boring walking around. Even the game doesn't expect you to roam around for too long. When you do, you will notice the NPC dialogues looping back to the beginning.
Also the writing on the newspapers are too small for someone viewing it ten feet away. After a point, I stopped reading the contents and stuck to the headlines. They really should have had a text only or zoom option.
Despite these niggles, the game started winning me over again. There were barely any idiotic button prompts later. I controlled Galahad for the most part. Cutscenes were very well done, dialogues and banter were enjoyable and all the lead characters showed great chemistry with each other. The story was intriguing. The voice acting was superb, the ambient sounds and background score were impeccable and the game kept blowing my mind from a technical as well aesthetic point of view. The gunplay was solid through and through. Hit detection for the human AI was vastly improved from earlier reveal videos and the AI in general was not bad, though sometimes they scream "grenade" and continue to stand right next to it. The level design during the early stages were mostly fun.
But why would I suggest that I didn't like the game if things got better? It's because other things started happening. Bad things.
Enter the Lycans. The first time I watched this on the spoiler thread, I really enjoyed it. It had such an intimidating atmosphere and it was thrilling to watch. But it was such a chore to play. As enemies, these were the least interesting enemies in the game. They literally had just one attack pattern. Line up, charge, pounce & retreat. Rinse and repeat. It didn't matter if it pounced on you and you were pinned to the ground. It will still retreat. It doesn't matter if you dodged awkwardly and it landed on you with no damage, it will retreat. You can shoot it while it retreats and it won't react. You can shoot it while it charges you and it won't react to that either. Once you pump enough lead into it, it would abruptly collapse and that's that. It felt like something out of a PS2 game and it got old real fast. I found myself going through the motions. You will even notice that there might be 2 or more lycans attacking, but as soon as you kill 3 in total, the other one simply disappeared so that you could move on to the next segment. And they all happen in closed, cramped spaces that look like abandoned warehouses. Just bad level design, bad AI, bad gameplay loop. Bad everything. And to top it off, every time you have such an encounter, you have none of those special weapons shown at the reveal. And that is all you get from the standard Lycans in the ENTIRE game. Yes. Now look back at the reveal trailer and imagine my disappointment. There are the "elders" with their own gameplay loop, but that was an even bigger slap in the face for anyone expecting anything remotely exciting from a gameplay standpoint. They are almost entirely QTE based with an option to throw in attacks haphazardly when said QTEs aren't prompted. RAD was so proud of it that they decided to regurgitate it as-is
. That right there is a deal breaker for me.
Fighting humans after the initial stages were a mixed bag. Some were good. Others not so much. I can pin the issue on mediocre level design and spawning strategies. So many potentially fun levels devolved into obnoxious 'shotgun specialists' rushing you with no care in the world, then hordes of scrubs filling in from all directions and then more 'shotgun specialists' rushing ad nauseum.
The camera bias felt unintuitive. Not sure why they were trying to reinvent the wheel here. So many games have done shoulder swapping that works well. In any case, this game seemed to do a lot of the swapping automatically, so I never actually needed to use it during gameplay.
Melee was hit or miss. Some cinematic cut scenes were fast and efficient. Others were drawn out and irritating. Melee doesn't work if prompt doesn't appear. There were several times when melee did not register because the game hadn't figured out that the target was near enough.
The lantern sections were so poorly thought out, with enemies casually walking in the open and shooting while you had no way to take cover because holding a lantern is a formidable task that a centuries old knight couldn't figure out. Those levels felt like an insanely pretty remaster of a 1990s game.
So even though the gunplay was good, the level design showed a serious dearth of innovation or inspiration. It felt like "that thing you do in shooters between story segments". And to make things worse, you end up using those futuristic weapons on humans, because RAD thought "fuck werewolves and exciting fast paced action, let's give gamers some exploding heads and dismemberment instead". It was way too inhumane for knights sworn to protect these people to use it on them. The rebels were using them too, so an eye for an eye should be expected, but it felt out of place on both sides. These weapons were so overpowered that after the initial spectacle, they felt like cheat codes to dispatch enemies in a rapid and comical fashion. When I had these, I was breezing through encounters without even having to aim properly. Soon they became boring.
The penultimate gameplay section was the worst designed shooter level I've seen in ages. Remember the travesty that was the final shooting segment in Killzone: Shadowfall? Where every enemy you have ever encountered throughout the game comes pouring in? Now imagine that in a tiny dark room. It was such a clusterfuck of epic proportions that any last vestige of fun from the gunplay was sucked right out.
The mini games were ok. I hated the inspect mechanic as the game refused to move ahead if I didn't look at the same pretty object from every possible angle that didn't involve spraining Galahad's wrist. Sometimes it would pop a triangle and you could do something. Other times it just felt pointless. The morse code was a major letdown. So utterly pointless that calling it a gimmick would be an overstatement. Browsing the audio logs in the archive was a chore. Couldn't they just play it live while I walk around? So many games have done that. And the logs themselves were so loosely connected to the story/lore that they didn't seem to add anything substantive.
The game really lacked spectacle. There were no set pieces whatsoever. They even had the chance to show an exploding/
, but they shied away from it and blacked it out, probably under the pretense of "emotional gravitas". I wonder if they feared the engine was already bursting through the seams. The destructibility was no different than most action games this generation (or the last). We've had real time shattering glass and miscellaneous objects for ages now. I can't believe they boasted so much about it to the press to make it seem like it had any tangible impact on game design, gameplay, or even visuals for that matter. There are just a handful of encounters where it was noticeable. The world, for the most part, was a static you-can-look-but-you-can't-touch object.
Noticed a couple of jarring oversights in the screenplay, but not too significant. When the guy at the brothel demanded that Galahad should deposit his weapons before entering, he totally allowed the giant conspicuous knife he was carrying on his back. Similarly, when Galahad is asked if brutally stealth killing all those guards towards the end was necessary, his response was "there is no time". So everything the man lived to uphold for centuries was thrown right out the window, because gamers could get some satisfying knife-to-throat action. Couldn't they even think about non-lethal takedowns that were just as cool? And later on, Galahad is accused of "incapacitating" the guards. What he did was anything but that. If there were any apt examples of ludonarrative dissonance in games, this would be a top pick.
The story which was quite good for a large portion of the game, started falling apart in the second half, with unclear motivations, insufficient exposition and "twists" that made no sense. Things were happening with no real context on why they were happening, so it became difficult to care after a point. Characters fell off the grid with no closure and the teaser ending that is supposed to hint at things to come was just as confusing as their PR cycles - an empty promise.
Closing thoughts:
RAD has a true gem of an engine built for this game and I hope it serves them well for their future endeavors. But this game is so inundated with questionable design decisions that RAD really needs to take a long and hard look at what separates a great game from the rest. It isn't all about the story, especially when the storytelling falls short, albeit to a lesser extent. At this point, a sequel needs to be so drastically different from the original for me to get excited for this IP again.
The Good:
+ Mindblowing graphics, sound and art
+ Solid gunplay for traditional weapons
+ Exceptional performance and predominantly bug free experience
+ Load times
+ Intriguing characters
+ Fluid movement
The Bad:
- Mediocre level design
- Obscenely excessive button prompts, instructions and QTEs
- Under utilized and overpowered exotic weapons
- Lycan combat (all variants)
- Weak story conclusion
- Lack of set pieces
- Inconsistent melee performance
- Unrewarding exploration
Final Verdict: out of 10
MINOR SPOILERS BELOW
Let's cut straight to the chase. The Order 1886 is a missed opportunity on so many levels. Not in the sense that it didn't deliver what I wanted the game to be. It didn't even deliver what RAD promised. Other than their obvious focus on story, setting, sound, graphics and art, here's what we were led to believe when the game was revealed:
- Awesome futuristic weapons
- Shoot werewolves in the face with a lightning gun
- Experience overwhelming numbers of these aggressive creatures in open/semi-open arenas where they would surround & flank you and your squad and use their ability to climb as an advantage against you
- Crowd-control them with the thermite rifle
- Did I mention shooting werewolves in the face with a lightning gun? Yeah...
Do any of those sound like an unreasonable expectation based on that trailer? When they revealed it, I was fucking hyped by its potential. As time progressed, we were introduced to the "rebels" and the amount of marketing around the half breeds became increasingly scarce. Every piece of media that came out focused on the rebels with the odd werewolf sighting. Every gameplay reveal had lukewarm to cold reception, because it showed nothing that stood out like the original reveal. "Oh RAD is holding so much back because of spoilers", "Oh Sony's marketing sucks. RAD deserves better", "Oh stop hating on the game, wait till it's out". We all found ways to keep that hope alive. Myself included. But it had reached a point where I started being a passive reader on those threads. There was nothing to say because nothing really was being shown. My hype had hit a plateau. Then I got to play it at PSX and found that they had nailed the gunplay, the most criticized aspect of the game. So all hope was not lost. Now that I've played the entire game, I should be hyped for a sequel, right?
Before I answer that, let's explore what the final product does and does not do well. I played it on hard, with aim assist off, vertical stick inverted (like normal people would play) and all sensitivity options cranked up to 8.
The prologue of this game when watched on mute on youtube felt like the best introduction this game could possibly get. It was intense, suspenseful and dire. Anyone who had followed the game's story prior to release would immediately be drawn by all the questions that it raised. After spoiling myself on this portion last week, I was really looking forward to playing it. Little did I know that it had the worst introduction to gameplay that I ever imagined a game of this caliber could have. The oncoming barrage of button prompts and QTEs was an assault even to my sensibilities, someone who liked heavy rain. The first 3 buttons you are asked to press are all through button prompts that interrupt an otherwise intense cutscene - tap triangle, mash triangle and hold triangle. The end result of all these 3 button prompts is essentially the same, Galahad forcefully using his hand to do something. So why the redundant variations? Makes you wonder. Once you get full control of Galahad, you would think the game would let you keep it. But surprise, it doesn't. You get about 10-20 seconds of walking around after which you are stuck in another cinematic camera angle. And another. And another. Some were forgivable and others were downright abhorrent. There was one segment where the game asks you to use L2 to aim. So like any normal gamer would, I pressed L2, expecting to aim. Guess what happens? It zooms on to the target automatically. Trying to aim left or right has no effect. I couldn't even move Galahad left, right or backwards. I was walking through a standard room just moments ago. Now I was walking an invisible line with invisible walls in all directions except forward. Failure to comply meant insta-death and a restart. So I complied. This went on for a few minutes of painstakingly choreographed cutscenes that were compromised by distracting button prompts. The analogy that came to mind was a movie that paused every few seconds and forced you to press play, just to make sure you are paying attention. Or a great orator stopping every 5 seconds to confirm that you are still listening. Wouldn't that make you want to judge the orator? The game wasn't just hand holding, it was dragging me like an abusive parent, and punishing me if I resisted. I tried not to judge the game based on this. It was too early for that. The narrative that unfolded made the ordeal worth it.
Fortunately, this was the only section in the game that was so excessively riddled with button prompts. I wouldn't call all of them QTEs, as QTEs are time sensitive. Some of these are just Press-It-or Rot-Here-Forever prompts. It still appears every now and then, but not in such an egregious and offensive way.
The game eventually opens up a lot, with its stunning visuals and atmosphere on full display and nary a hiccup in framerate. And it looks absolutely stunning for the most part. The first chapter and several others that followed let you walk around for quite a bit and take in the atmosphere. The attention to detail is staggering. The textures are all marvelously detailed. You hear sounds that you wouldn't expect them to be put there, like the ticking of a wall clock when you get real close to it. Even the coat tails of random NPCs fluttered realistically in the wind.
But the early exploration also revealed another problem that appears throughout the game. Dead ends. Empty, uninteresting dead ends. At most, you might have a newspaper or pamphlet to read. Some that add substance to the lore, others that don't. But many dead ends had nothing at all. And given that the first "exploratory" section did not allow you to run (the reason is anybody's guess), it started getting a bit boring walking around. Even the game doesn't expect you to roam around for too long. When you do, you will notice the NPC dialogues looping back to the beginning.
Also the writing on the newspapers are too small for someone viewing it ten feet away. After a point, I stopped reading the contents and stuck to the headlines. They really should have had a text only or zoom option.
Despite these niggles, the game started winning me over again. There were barely any idiotic button prompts later. I controlled Galahad for the most part. Cutscenes were very well done, dialogues and banter were enjoyable and all the lead characters showed great chemistry with each other. The story was intriguing. The voice acting was superb, the ambient sounds and background score were impeccable and the game kept blowing my mind from a technical as well aesthetic point of view. The gunplay was solid through and through. Hit detection for the human AI was vastly improved from earlier reveal videos and the AI in general was not bad, though sometimes they scream "grenade" and continue to stand right next to it. The level design during the early stages were mostly fun.
But why would I suggest that I didn't like the game if things got better? It's because other things started happening. Bad things.
Enter the Lycans. The first time I watched this on the spoiler thread, I really enjoyed it. It had such an intimidating atmosphere and it was thrilling to watch. But it was such a chore to play. As enemies, these were the least interesting enemies in the game. They literally had just one attack pattern. Line up, charge, pounce & retreat. Rinse and repeat. It didn't matter if it pounced on you and you were pinned to the ground. It will still retreat. It doesn't matter if you dodged awkwardly and it landed on you with no damage, it will retreat. You can shoot it while it retreats and it won't react. You can shoot it while it charges you and it won't react to that either. Once you pump enough lead into it, it would abruptly collapse and that's that. It felt like something out of a PS2 game and it got old real fast. I found myself going through the motions. You will even notice that there might be 2 or more lycans attacking, but as soon as you kill 3 in total, the other one simply disappeared so that you could move on to the next segment. And they all happen in closed, cramped spaces that look like abandoned warehouses. Just bad level design, bad AI, bad gameplay loop. Bad everything. And to top it off, every time you have such an encounter, you have none of those special weapons shown at the reveal. And that is all you get from the standard Lycans in the ENTIRE game. Yes. Now look back at the reveal trailer and imagine my disappointment. There are the "elders" with their own gameplay loop, but that was an even bigger slap in the face for anyone expecting anything remotely exciting from a gameplay standpoint. They are almost entirely QTE based with an option to throw in attacks haphazardly when said QTEs aren't prompted. RAD was so proud of it that they decided to regurgitate it as-is
for the final boss fight
Fighting humans after the initial stages were a mixed bag. Some were good. Others not so much. I can pin the issue on mediocre level design and spawning strategies. So many potentially fun levels devolved into obnoxious 'shotgun specialists' rushing you with no care in the world, then hordes of scrubs filling in from all directions and then more 'shotgun specialists' rushing ad nauseum.
The camera bias felt unintuitive. Not sure why they were trying to reinvent the wheel here. So many games have done shoulder swapping that works well. In any case, this game seemed to do a lot of the swapping automatically, so I never actually needed to use it during gameplay.
Melee was hit or miss. Some cinematic cut scenes were fast and efficient. Others were drawn out and irritating. Melee doesn't work if prompt doesn't appear. There were several times when melee did not register because the game hadn't figured out that the target was near enough.
The lantern sections were so poorly thought out, with enemies casually walking in the open and shooting while you had no way to take cover because holding a lantern is a formidable task that a centuries old knight couldn't figure out. Those levels felt like an insanely pretty remaster of a 1990s game.
So even though the gunplay was good, the level design showed a serious dearth of innovation or inspiration. It felt like "that thing you do in shooters between story segments". And to make things worse, you end up using those futuristic weapons on humans, because RAD thought "fuck werewolves and exciting fast paced action, let's give gamers some exploding heads and dismemberment instead". It was way too inhumane for knights sworn to protect these people to use it on them. The rebels were using them too, so an eye for an eye should be expected, but it felt out of place on both sides. These weapons were so overpowered that after the initial spectacle, they felt like cheat codes to dispatch enemies in a rapid and comical fashion. When I had these, I was breezing through encounters without even having to aim properly. Soon they became boring.
The penultimate gameplay section was the worst designed shooter level I've seen in ages. Remember the travesty that was the final shooting segment in Killzone: Shadowfall? Where every enemy you have ever encountered throughout the game comes pouring in? Now imagine that in a tiny dark room. It was such a clusterfuck of epic proportions that any last vestige of fun from the gunplay was sucked right out.
The mini games were ok. I hated the inspect mechanic as the game refused to move ahead if I didn't look at the same pretty object from every possible angle that didn't involve spraining Galahad's wrist. Sometimes it would pop a triangle and you could do something. Other times it just felt pointless. The morse code was a major letdown. So utterly pointless that calling it a gimmick would be an overstatement. Browsing the audio logs in the archive was a chore. Couldn't they just play it live while I walk around? So many games have done that. And the logs themselves were so loosely connected to the story/lore that they didn't seem to add anything substantive.
The game really lacked spectacle. There were no set pieces whatsoever. They even had the chance to show an exploding/
crashing airship
Noticed a couple of jarring oversights in the screenplay, but not too significant. When the guy at the brothel demanded that Galahad should deposit his weapons before entering, he totally allowed the giant conspicuous knife he was carrying on his back. Similarly, when Galahad is asked if brutally stealth killing all those guards towards the end was necessary, his response was "there is no time". So everything the man lived to uphold for centuries was thrown right out the window, because gamers could get some satisfying knife-to-throat action. Couldn't they even think about non-lethal takedowns that were just as cool? And later on, Galahad is accused of "incapacitating" the guards. What he did was anything but that. If there were any apt examples of ludonarrative dissonance in games, this would be a top pick.
The story which was quite good for a large portion of the game, started falling apart in the second half, with unclear motivations, insufficient exposition and "twists" that made no sense. Things were happening with no real context on why they were happening, so it became difficult to care after a point. Characters fell off the grid with no closure and the teaser ending that is supposed to hint at things to come was just as confusing as their PR cycles - an empty promise.
Closing thoughts:
RAD has a true gem of an engine built for this game and I hope it serves them well for their future endeavors. But this game is so inundated with questionable design decisions that RAD really needs to take a long and hard look at what separates a great game from the rest. It isn't all about the story, especially when the storytelling falls short, albeit to a lesser extent. At this point, a sequel needs to be so drastically different from the original for me to get excited for this IP again.
The Good:
+ Mindblowing graphics, sound and art
+ Solid gunplay for traditional weapons
+ Exceptional performance and predominantly bug free experience
+ Load times
+ Intriguing characters
+ Fluid movement
The Bad:
- Mediocre level design
- Obscenely excessive button prompts, instructions and QTEs
- Under utilized and overpowered exotic weapons
- Lycan combat (all variants)
- Weak story conclusion
- Lack of set pieces
- Inconsistent melee performance
- Unrewarding exploration
Final Verdict:
out of 10
Just reached the bridge chapter. So far, quite good! The audio-visual experience is immaculate, the characters are well-acted and quite interesting and the gunplay feels great (the reticule feedback, gun sounds and good ragdoll effects combined works well). Still, there are many smaller details which Ready at Dawn have missed on which impacts the total picture, but I'll probably do a summary/review when I'm finished.
Such visuals...
I'm so glad things like that never happen to me because it would freak me the fuck out haha
Always-honest
Banned
Huh?
The fuck is that? Haha.
Same here. LoU were more punchy thats true, but I feel the Orders gunplay is more accurate and smooth.
Ignorant question time: to get pumped up for this game, I acquired a code for the Mayfair dynamic theme for the PS4. But I entered this code while browsing the PSN store on my computer. How can I actually download the theme on my PS4? I can't see any mention of it in the PS4's Notifications section, and can't find any way to see my purchase history in the PS4 Store application.
Help!
Help!
gundamkyoukai
Member
Also before i forget is it to much to ask for decent size subtitles.
The subs size were so small they were useless .
The subs size were so small they were useless .
Net_Wrecker
Member
Woof. in a review filled with damning statements on the game's design, a comparison to Killzone Shadowfall's encounters might be the harshest of all.
Go to Settings > Themes, it should already be there ready to download.
Yaser Tech
Member
Thank you very much for the write-up. Very interesting read!
The Xtortionist
Member
For The Order: It must depend on what weapon you have. I shotgun'd the fuck out of every enemy in that room with minimal issues on hard. Could be hell with a rifle, though.
echo viveks on regards to that final room. what's worse is how easy is it to cheese it by running back into the hallway and funneling all of them.
the insta fail QTE prompts. why. how did they think this is a good idea. example - while you're traversing a rooftop in the infiltration of the garden, the ledge breaks off and you have to hit triangle to stay alive. why?! its completely unnecessary and USELESS. sneaking up on the sniper at blackwall is another one. completely useless.
this is a terribly designed game. period. I liked the story, I liked the characters, but this gameplay is just... a wreck.
the insta fail QTE prompts. why. how did they think this is a good idea. example - while you're traversing a rooftop in the infiltration of the garden, the ledge breaks off and you have to hit triangle to stay alive. why?! its completely unnecessary and USELESS. sneaking up on the sniper at blackwall is another one. completely useless.
this is a terribly designed game. period. I liked the story, I liked the characters, but this gameplay is just... a wreck.
HappenstanceUK
Member
The real crime of this game is that Patrick Stewart doesnt seem to be voicing any characters. Everytime a new character comes on screen I keep expecting his voice lol