Wow indeed.
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The Order: 1886 |OT| Gears of Yore
- Thread starter Skux
- Start date
Wow indeed.
The first one...? you need to kill 3....tip that I figured a little late to finally beat it...
Use the R1 on the gun when he is close,then shoot
Urgh, why would you do that?
Reduce the IQ for a few extra pixels. ridiculous
SDCowboy
Member
cyen
Member
The lenght is not the game biggest problem (it´s a problem since the game doenst have any replay value), imo the problem is the little control you have over the game, the forced walking scenes, the QTE´s festival (including bosses), 10 second gameplay interrupted by yet another cutscene. The is little to none exploration, event most of the collectibles are in plain sight, there are corridor shoters and there is the Order 1886.
The story is not bad but not great, it only picks up basically where the game ends.
The shooting part is really solid but it happens with little frequency, specially at the beggining of the game.
The most brilliant aspect of the game is the graphics, the best in the industry without a doubt.
I do hope there is a Order 1887, since the game ended when the story started to pick up but i do hope they re-assess the gameplay since it´s so limited, they should focus in what they have done good (shooting element) and remove or tone down what they have done wrong (lots of QTE, lots of walking then a cutscene or play for 10 seconds and then another cutscene).
Having said that i do agree with the 6/7 out of 10 reviews.
Urgh, why would you do that?
Reduce the IQ for a few extra pixels. ridiculous
I don't have such a monitor, I just know the PS4 can only output 16:9, so it has to be the TV making the correction.
jmaine_ph
Member
I just beat it and this review sums up how I felt about the game....7.5/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQG-3uTb_Eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQG-3uTb_Eg
Your eyes are gonna hate the rest of this generation lol.
JackLongRod
Banned
Only one chapter in and all I can right now is WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW the graphics so are fucking beautiful.
cyen
Member
Funny that i had this problem as well, too much strain on the eyes, dont know if it´s because the processing or the black boarders (most possibly this) but even though i finished the game in two sittings (7 hours) alot of the time i had minor eye straining.
I was playing on hard and failed once. I succeeded by simply
alternating between evade with right stick, then slash once with either L2/R2, repeat. Then at some point you are told to press L1 to do a combo attack.
SDCowboy
Member
I did the slashing, used the pipe, and then from there, it just seems to go on forever. lol
edit: ok I finally figured it out. Had to hit a button I didn't see being prompted.
Yeah it's just too soft and blurry, I see they've also put in chromatic aberration which needs to die in a fire. That bit I wasn't expecting, the AA/grain/borders were expected.
Refreshment.01
Member
Haven't had the pleasure to play the game, i have a question or two.
How much interactive are the environments? In example, are the mayority of the objects given at least a basic physics behavior when applying forces to them either via shooting or touching them. And destructability, not talking about making holes in walls, but for example objects like chairs, furniture, boxes get damaged?
As for the game it has really surprised me the RAD could have the man power to make a game as detailed as this. This is right there with Unity and Rise as the most visually impresive games so far.
How much interactive are the environments? In example, are the mayority of the objects given at least a basic physics behavior when applying forces to them either via shooting or touching them. And destructability, not talking about making holes in walls, but for example objects like chairs, furniture, boxes get damaged?
As for the game it has really surprised me the RAD could have the man power to make a game as detailed as this. This is right there with Unity and Rise as the most visually impresive games so far.
I did the slashing, used the pipe, and then from there, it just seems to go on forever. lol
edit: ok I finally figured it out. Had to hit a button I didn't see being prompted.
L1?
SDCowboy
Member
L1?
No, I knew about the L1 but I had to hit one of the R buttons. Once I used L1 in the beginning of the fight, it wasn't letting me use it again. I started mashing the R buttons in between the dodges and it finally progressed the fight. lol
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
IMHO, you are exaggerating things. Granted I have not beaten the game yet, but I am already far enough to have seen lots of examples of such shallow gameplay if it was that shallow to begin with. While the gameplay sections could be longer, I think they are fun and engaging. Shootouts, QTE's, walking sections, and cutscenesall serve to establish the game's atmosphere and present the game's characters and their story. At this, RAD succeeded.
Wildarmsjecht
Member
I previously stated how much I love reading the newspapers in this game.
That's still true, but one annoyance I have is its a bit too small. I wish there was a way to press a button after holding the paper that essentially turns it into a full screen shot image of the text, or even a transparent over box with the text written out. Hopefully this is implemented in a hopeful sequel.
Also, does Gallahad curse when he runs out of ammo a la drake? I could swear I heard him do so but it could also be because I was about to get royally fucked by a shotgunner in just a few seconds.
That's still true, but one annoyance I have is its a bit too small. I wish there was a way to press a button after holding the paper that essentially turns it into a full screen shot image of the text, or even a transparent over box with the text written out. Hopefully this is implemented in a hopeful sequel.
Also, does Gallahad curse when he runs out of ammo a la drake? I could swear I heard him do so but it could also be because I was about to get royally fucked by a shotgunner in just a few seconds.
It's only usable when your focus meter is full
cyen
Member
That´s a matter of opinion i guess, i would prefer a more Gears of War aproach were you have defined segments for gameplay and cutscenes, i dont mind cutscenes, i like them alot, but in there own place, not when they appear out of nowhere alot of time like it happens in the game.
I can see people enjoying it but imo i do hope they cut down a little in the sequel.
You can read the newspaper...? not all of them for sure...I am playing on a 55'' HDTV and could not read a few.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I played it last night up until the
in chapter 1. It's the very beginning, but I think the game is good (so far). It's super-poilshed, and free of any kind of jank, which is a big plus in my book. It's very mechanically competent in that moving around and shooting feels really great. Character movement reminds me a lot of TLOU in that it just feels so solid and realistic. It's been said over and over, but it needs repeating - it's the best looking game you can play right now, regardless of platform. I mean, it's seriously insane how much like CG the whole thing looks. Scenes have depth and presence to that that I've never seen in anything before, save for maybe P.T. (but it's even better here). Characters to me are not immediately likeable like they were in TLOU and Uncharted, and I don't know what to make of the story so far, but I hope both will grow on me. Voice acting is great. The atmosphere is unmatched, and worth experiencing even if someone has no interest in any other aspect of the game.
underground
Me neither. I really, completely forgot that they were there, and was never reminded of it for even a moment while playing the game last night. Basically the same experience I had with Beyond. Funny how that works.
I've ran into one newspaper and one flyer so far, and was able to read both just fine (50" TV)
I had the same problem, I think they expect people to read them but I'd have to get up and stand in front of the TV to read the whole thing. I imagine I'm missing a fair amount of back story by skipping them but they're impossible to read!
SDCowboy
Member
Ok, I don't remember that in detail, but you figured it out
I'm not sure if it's the R or the L bottoms that did it as I was hitting both, but I started feeling like an idiot. I was like WTF am I missing? Sometimes mashing buttons works.
Wildarmsjecht
Member
Yea I can read them, but its not easy. 40" TV and I'm about 5 feet or so away from the screen. Some I have to get up and move closer, to be sure. But I think an overlay that pops up could work nicely here.
LookAtMeGo
Member
Thats an issue I was having too. Granted, my eyes are shit but after having to move closer to the tv every time to read anything but a headline, I just gave up and started skipping them.
Savantcore
Unconfirmed Member
I liked it! Maybe not the lack of gunplay in the final few chapters, but tonally and in terms of narrative I thought it ended strongly.
VeryGooster
Banned
:lol Count me in as having been bumrushed by the shotgun guy in the dining room like three times.
I am just hoping they will make sequel. If they sort out the problems with the game this could be my fave series.
I said the same about the detail. When I picked up a smoking pipe to look at, the smoke would move and change direction depending how I held it.
willskate4free
Member
So yea played up until white chapel last night and i dug every moment of it... loving the story, setting, and graphics (art style is amazing)... we'll see as the game goes on, but definitely worth a play through so far.
Whoever owns that is probably just using the TV's zoom-in option.
Backlogger
Member
Did you notice when you are repelling the side of the zeppelin you can see where the canvas/material is giving under your weight?
Insane amount of detail in this game. So far the zeppelin chapter has been my favorite in terms of mixed game play and setting
Still not sure how I feel about the game and I'm not done yet, but if all the chapters were equal to the zeppelin level...
Summer Haze
Banned
Ha, yeah, that was my first thought too.
SDCowboy
Member
petethepanda
Member
Screenshot-worthy games like this make me really frustrated that screenshots capture the screenshot notification image itself. I hate waiting for it to disappear and the scene changes before I have a chance to take another.
JackLongRod
Banned
What in the fuck are you talking about ? It's a 21:9 screen
FlutterPuffs
Member
I hope it's just a DLC.
Story feels so unfinished that I think it's better if they made a standalone DLC to wrap up London.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I tried playing FC4 right after playing The Order last night, as I got that free co-op demo.
- FC4 all of a sudden looks like everything is made out of cardboard cutouts.
- It also looks like it runs at much worse framerate than Order, despite being solid 30. The quality of motion blur in Order makes it feel, far, far smoother than a typical 30FPS game, it's actually incredible.
- The quality of antialiasing in FC4 is still very good, and impresses even playing it right after Order.
I have to say Order really is a game changer visually, as it makes FC4, a game generally regarded to have some of the better visuals around, feel woefully dated.
- FC4 all of a sudden looks like everything is made out of cardboard cutouts.
- It also looks like it runs at much worse framerate than Order, despite being solid 30. The quality of motion blur in Order makes it feel, far, far smoother than a typical 30FPS game, it's actually incredible.
- The quality of antialiasing in FC4 is still very good, and impresses even playing it right after Order.
I have to say Order really is a game changer visually, as it makes FC4, a game generally regarded to have some of the better visuals around, feel woefully dated.
But is it a TV with 1920x800 resolution? If not, the picture needs to be zoomed and you won't get 1:1 pixel mapping.
nhlducks35
Member
But the PS4 outputs in 1080P (16:9). If there was no zooming in then there would be black bars on the side as well
Well, just finished and really pleasantly surprised after fearing the worst.
The world is simply stunning with so much detail.. Really made playing time a non-issue for me as I found myself loitering around areas looking at everything in sight and gawping. I can see why people not interested in loitering will find the game short though (other games lack of detail usually has me charging through them)
Really liked the weapons in game and gunplay was solid. Wish there were a few more weapons though, with the ability to carry a favorite loadout a bit longer through the game (too often they were taken away).
Story and characters were decent and above the norm usually found in shooters (nowhere near tlou standards though). Found it a little jarring when Galahad went all Jack Bauer for a chapter.
All in all will leave happy and I would give the game an 8 out of 10
The world is simply stunning with so much detail.. Really made playing time a non-issue for me as I found myself loitering around areas looking at everything in sight and gawping. I can see why people not interested in loitering will find the game short though (other games lack of detail usually has me charging through them)
Really liked the weapons in game and gunplay was solid. Wish there were a few more weapons though, with the ability to carry a favorite loadout a bit longer through the game (too often they were taken away).
Story and characters were decent and above the norm usually found in shooters (nowhere near tlou standards though). Found it a little jarring when Galahad went all Jack Bauer for a chapter.
All in all will leave happy and I would give the game an 8 out of 10
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Couldn't have put it better myself, only thing I felt was missing from this review is that all the mini cutscenes for small actions that would be in-game animations in any other game, like melee attacks, stealth kills, any ladder, etc do the opposite of make the game cinematic, I feel that they do the opposite since they take you out of the game to show you something.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:
- 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.
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.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/, 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.crashing airship
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: