What Ready at Dawn have done is raise the bar, from a purely technical perspective, for videogame design, engineering and quality. The Order is a fucking technical marvel, and for that alone the game should have a place in video game history. The Order made nearly all other "next gen" games look like freshman year at Digipen.
Clearly Sony did NOT pay for reviews to get a lower average for The Order, putting RAD in a weaker position when Sony wants to buy them. The reviewers were played like a fiddle by Shu.]
What Ready at Dawn have done is raise the bar, from a purely technical perspective, for videogame design, engineering and quality. The Order is a fucking technical marvel, and for that alone the game should have a place in video game history. The Order made nearly all other "next gen" games look like freshman year at Digipen.
Honestly, sometimes I think that RAD wanted to be bought by Sony, and was counting on TO to do well critically to justify the purchase.
I doubt a sequel will happen unless SCE takes a risk and funds it. After the first title has been deemed mediocre by critics, and sales are impacted, I really doubt they would invest in a sequel.
Well on this point I agree with him. You can be entertained by a dramatic or scary without necessarily having fun.I usually get fun out of entertainment. What's yours?
In fact, why don't I redirect you a synonym of "entertainment"?
Oh, look, what do we have here? Fun, play and game!
Well, well. Looks like Miyamoto isn't as "archaic" as you put it?
Well on this point I agree with him. You can be entertained by a dramatic or scary without necessarily having fun.
The linear nature of the game is very PS2 era, even PS1 era structure of games in 3rd person genre it something I am fond of and probably why I like the old RE's over the newNeither you nor the writer for The Verge make a good case for the game being "old school" though, perhaps it would help if you gave examples of games from the past which are similar. From the outside looking in, The Order is only "old school" if you started playing games when Sony entered the market.
The linear nature of the game is very PS2 era,
The whole point is "if you are entertained you are, indeed, having fun".
People trying to differentiate the two words are condescendingly trying to push their tastes above what the masses like.
by that logic? It's not logic it's how it isBy that logic it's very NES era too, because you can only go right in contra.
The walking dead doesn't have nearly as many unexplained plot threads, it also has closure, and the characters most definitely to not have anywhere near as much depth, there are also plenty of legitimate reasons for the reviews, the short length being at the last of the list of issues, like the awful AI, the overly linear level design and lack of any kind of gameplay variety, the misleading advertising since we spend not even 5% of the fights fighting lycans, lack of any replay value, the awful instafail stealth where the guards can apparently easily overpower an ancient order of knights extremely easily until the story deems that it's not necessary anymore, the overabundance of cutscenes for every menial action, no way of tracking collectibles, no way to turn off tutorials with the game even somehow thinking that you forgot how to sprint at some points and teaching you the same mechanics over and over again, baffling design decisions like not being able to take cover while holding a lantern<---all of these are valid criticisms of the game. It's a long list of criticisms, and all of these are worse issues than the fact that the game is short.From what I can see, the professional reviews have judged the game too harshly. It does not get credit as a cinematic game because the plot is too conventional and it does not get credit as a third-person shooter because the gameplay is too simplistic. However, a cinematic game does not need to have a complex plot to be a memorable experience. The Order does not have a plot of the same quality as say The Walking Dead (to name a cinematic game that was widely praised in professional reviews), but it was a better cinematic experience for me due to the superior cinematic presentation and the use of third person shooting gameplay to keep me engaged. It seems like the game may be a victim of an assembly line review process where a cinematic game with a conventional plot is discarded as "dysfunctional".
Personally, I can see The Order ending up on my GOTY list this year. I highly recommend it.
The whole point is "if you are entertained you are, indeed, having fun".
People trying to differentiate the two words are condescendingly trying to push their tastes above what the masses like.
Hah! I think Miyamoto and Nintendo's games are boring now. "Fun" is no longer the only factor in a player's motivation to play a game.
I can't get through Nintendo games or anything similar without a strong narrative or an established goal to give me a reason to finish. Fun is not enough to make me want to play.
Miyamoto's ideals are archaic. Gaming has evolved past from just being fun. Current game developers are thinking of the total experience, and I love it.
Wow they say "You and I aren't that different" twice in the game from two different people.
Jesus fuck.
Just finished the game, so figure I can add some of my impressions. In short, it's an alright-to-good game let down by too many headscratchers.
Positives:
+ Best audiovisual experience so far by far. Barely anything to complain about, really. They nailed all the environments as well.
+ The core gameplay/gunplay is really fantastic. All weapons are fun to use, the controls are excellent with great deadzone/sensitivity, the feedback and ragdolls are top-notch and all is topped off with some excellent enemy damage modelling.
+ All the weapons are fun to use, especially the scientific weapons such as the thermite rifle.
+ Pretty much all the characters are good, especially Grayson. The strong voice acting certainly does wonders.
+ The cutscene direction is top-notch.
Negatives:
- The story goes absolutely nowhere, and there are too many dead-ends and unanswered questions which pissed me off. I don't mind game stories that are "in medias res", but I don't like it when many core questions are brushed off or left for sequels. While the final cutscene is badass, the game still manages to end with a whimper, not a bang. The characters, while well-acted and interesting, exist in a vacuum without any context as to why they behave as they do or what they have experienced.
- The balance between cutscenes/QTE's and actual gameplay is off; there are too many sections where control is taken away from the player when it shouldn't, and there are also too many sections where you're simply walking around without much happening, exploring dead-ends with nothing substantial etc.
- The lycan fights are complete bores; they simply act like dog enemies in other games, but with a short timeframe to QTE dodge them. (spoilers)- Following the previous point, while the game's core gameplay is great, the variation is lacking, especially when the universe should be able to allow for much more varying encounters. Additionally, the game restricts use of the more interesting weapons too much, mainly due to the low amount of combat sections in the game. (major spoilers)I didn't mind the elder QTE fights, but I didn't like the fact that the last fight was so similar to the previous one. On top of that, they also tease you with some badass Tesla weapon only for the game to revert back to a QTE.- The game is completely content-starved, with no real reason to go back to it when finished aside from cleaning up trophies (which I've yet to do).Why the fuck didn't they incorporate the vampires at all? Sucks that you only burn them in their coffins.
- The investigation aspect of the game is under-utilized and such a waste of opportunity to add in further gameplay elements (e.g. minor puzzles or proper investigation aspects).
- Too many minor and major design flaws that made me question what Ready at Dawn were thinking; no collectibles tracker, absurdly small subtitle font size, complete randomness to when you're allowed to sprint or not, no NG+'ish mode to allow you to experiment more with the combat (i.e. open up the use of the cooler weapons throughout), and so on.
I probably sound very negative, but it's mainly because the potential is there, but Ready at Dawn fucked them up and lost the opportunity to create one truly great game. If the game sells well and they get a second attempt, I truly hope they take all the criticism to heart and rectify the game's shortcomings in the sequel. Now that they have one hell of an engine ready, and tons of great assets, I pray that they can focus on refining the things that didn't work. Oh, and get a new story writer.
...i don't get it...
This is a cliche? How else should it be written/used? Not at all?cliches are generally frowned upon
This is a cliche? How else should it be written/used? Not at all?
Or maybe they just didn't like the game.I think what happened is that reviewers finally caught on that people hated giving games bloated scores, but then overcorrected by giving this pretty good but flawed game scores that were far too harsh.
That's nice, now is it any fun to actually play?What Ready at Dawn have done is raise the bar, from a purely technical perspective, for videogame design, engineering and quality. The Order is a fucking technical marvel, and for that alone the game should have a place in video game history. The Order made nearly all other "next gen" games look like freshman year at Digipen.
It's a cliche. I love what Full Metal Alchemist had to say about it.This is a cliche? How else should it be written/used? Not at all?
The linear nature of the game is very PS2 era, even PS1 era structure of games in 3rd person genre it something I am fond of and probably why I like the old RE's over the new
I wouldn't say it's old school, but it's not how they make game's these day and it is reminiscent of that era of games, And Son I started playing games when they was black and white.
That's nice, now is it any fun to actually play?
The walking dead doesn't have nearly as many unexplained plot threads, it also has closure, and the characters most definitely to not have anywhere near as much depth, there are also plenty of legitimate reasons for the reviews, the short length being at the last of the list of issues, like the awful AI, the overly linear level design and lack of any kind of gameplay variety, the misleading advertising since we spend not even 5% of the fights fighting lycans, lack of any replay value, the awful instafail stealth where the guards can apparently easily overpower an ancient order of knights extremely easily until the story deems that it's not necessary anymore, the overabundance of cutscenes for every menial action, no way of tracking collectibles, no way to turn off tutorials with the game even somehow thinking that you forgot how to sprint at some points and teaching you the same mechanics over and over again, baffling design decisions like not being able to take cover while holding a lantern<---all of these are valid criticisms of the game. It's a long list of criticisms, and all of these are worse issues than the fact that the game is short.
Resident Evil took place in a single large area with tons of backtracking. How on Earth is the Order like that? If anything, it's closer to the new Resident Evils, especially Resident Evil 5 and 6. Not very retro at all.The linear nature of the game is very PS2 era, even PS1 era structure of games in 3rd person genre it something I am fond of and probably why I like the old RE's over the new
I wouldn't say it's old school, but it's not how they make game's these day and it is reminiscent of that era of games, And Son I started playing games when they was black and white.
What Ready at Dawn have done is raise the bar, from a purely technical perspective, for videogame design, engineering and quality. The Order is a fucking technical marvel, and for that alone the game should have a place in video game history. The Order made nearly all other "next gen" games look like freshman year at Digipen.
i actually like that they do this in the order. they did it the way killzone 2 did where you have to peek in cover to be able to actually see as much as when you're not in cover.
Linearity yes, but there are plenty of cinematic games that have much more gameplay variety than the order, and are longer, with less cutscenes yet still feeling more cinematic. And by awful, I mean that the AI is so simplistic and has no sense of self preservation for themselves or their comrades outside of scripted lines like "damn, shotgunner is down."Well, the linearity, the relative lack of gameplay variety, the lack of replay value, the extensive use of cutscenes and the short length can all be traced back to the decision to make a particular type of cinematic game. I did not have as many issues with this as you did, I guess. The "awful AI" that you noticed mostly seems to be a reflection of the "shooting gallery" style level design (design decision). I agree with you regarding the stealth sections and the lantern sections, but they are a very minor part of the game. I fail to see how they can sour the whole experience for some people. Regarding the Lycan advertisements, I did not watch them, but it was the right decision to mostly cut Lycan encounters from the game considering how awful they were.
What Ready at Dawn have done is raise the bar, from a purely technical perspective, for videogame design, engineering and quality. The Order is a fucking technical marvel, and for that alone the game should have a place in video game history. The Order made nearly all other "next gen" games look like freshman year at Digipen.
Watching Body Shock or a documentary about concentration camps I consider entertainment but if somebody asked me how it was, the last word I would use to describe it is "fun".
Fun is lighthearted. It's from the word Funny (or rather the other way). Entertainment doesn't have to be.
This is a hollow victory for RAD when the game itself sucks and is representative of everything wrong with modern game design.
What games are coming out that 'look' better? Certainly not Uncharted, visual wiseThe Order 1886 has impressive visuals, but nobody will talk about it the next few months. When better looking games come out, it will be nothing more than a litte footnote in video game history, see other good-looking-but-unimpressive-games like Aquanox and bunch of others.
What games are coming out that 'look' better? Certainly not Uncharted, visual wise
What games are coming out that 'look' better? Certainly not Uncharted, visual wise
Probably best not used at all.This is a cliche? How else should it be written/used? Not at all?
It's way too soon to tell other than anecdotal evidence (which isn't worth much)Anyone know how sales are going?