Well, I finally beat the game today. I have no idea how long it took. But with all the dying, maybe close to 10 hours? I played about 5 days at a couple hours per day, so that seems about right. The length felt about like what I experienced with Alan Wake which I loved and didn't find necessarily short.
I'll try to give it a review in a similar format to JinCa's guy.
Visuals
Let's start off with the obvious, visuals.
I'll be honest. At first I wasn't completely blown away. Obviously the graphics were good. But the softness of the environments and objects in it because of the filter and depth of field gave it a look that is unique but one hat you have to adjust to.
By the end of the game, I learned to appreciate the subtle approach they used to texture their world. Things that are supposed to be shiny are shiny. Things that aren't, aren't. Even for material like wood. Wooden book shelves with a high level of gloss shined. Floorboard that were weather beaten did shine, but were appropriately dull.
The fabric materials are second to none. Character clothing is just stupidly detailed. My favorite part regarding materials though was on the airship as our heroes repelled down the side of the ship/blimp. The canvas, or whatever material they use on blimps would crumple under their feet when they landed. Something simple that makes you smile for the detail put into the game.
Interior designs were pretty immaculate. Dinning rooms, kitchens, mansions, whatever were just incredible to looks at. Capcom needs to see what RAD did and emulate that for future Resident Evil games. Games can look RE Remake in full 3D. Not everything is destructible. But things that aren't necessary for cover seems to be shot up pretty good.
Characters are nearly perfect. The Lycan transformations looked really good.
Ok, enough babbling about visuals...there's so much to point out, but I give the visuals a 5 out of 5. Enough said.
Story
The underrated aspect of the game imo. I won't spoil or even try to explain what is going on. But I'll just say that I thought the story was great. I've seen big budget movies with less of a plot.
I'm not saying it's Oscar worthy or anything, or even as gripping or thought provoking as The Last of Us. But it was good.
There was a missed opportunity for choice at the end.
4 out of 5
Gameplay
Gameplay was an up and down experience for me. Most of the game is very linear and feels like a shooting gallery. AI is not great for the most part. Grunts will hide behind cover and stay there and pop their little heads out on occasion. Also, when you do take one out, another will run to the same spot and behave the same way.
RAD increased the difficulty by employing others guys ( I'm terrible at remembering exact names for enemies) that have better weapons and they will run at you, well... they will run to the sides of you, to give the impression of being flanked. Then the next level baddie are the shotgun guys. They will advance on you, sometimes armored sometimes not. They can be pesky little b****es.
Then we have the big weapon guys. They primarily stand back and shoot grenades or thermite at you. Other lesser guys will sprinkle in hand tossed grenades as well.
overall the gunplay is fun. But feels cheapned in the way AI behaves. Also you pretty much always have cover. It never gets destroyed unless you advance further up into the playfield.
The dreaded QTE's lol. This was a mixed bag as well. I loved the qte boss fights. But I hated opening doors or overriding electrical circuits. But I understand why those things are there.
Some of the branching qte's were cool, but confusing as you have to focus on where it is you're supposed to line up the reticule to trigger the button prompt. Overall QTE's immersed me in the story and didn't get in the way as suggested from reviews and whatnot.
There are a few sneaking missions that are cool but undercooked. I would have liked more of those scenes and more fleshed out. Enemy AI in these were bad though. I practically just shot everyone without me or the dead bodies being noticed.
The Lycan battles ( Non QTE's) were just kind of there. No need to explain further.
3 out of 5
Fun.
There was a stretch in the game where I wasn't having a lot of fun. But after Chapter 12, things picked up a lot. The story was coming together at that point, and enemy AI was better as your foe was more heavily trained. I won't spoil it.
3 out of 5
Overall I'm glad that I got to experience the game. Just the amount of detail and work put into it is amazing.
The game has flaws as do many games that we enjoy. Watching the enemies react to being shot never got old. They did a great job with that.
Replay Value
I probably shouldn't give a score on replay value since I probably won't play it more than once. But I'll give it a score to round out my final score. 2 out of 5. I think it's time for some Majora's Mask via trade-in-value.
17 out of 25 is 68%. But I would say that I enjoyed it more than that number would suggest, at least the last part of the game.
Some of you will play the game multiple times. So that score will go up if you do.
Nice write-up! Very comprehensive, covered everything I was curious about. Glad you liked the story. You gave me a good sense of what the gameplay and QTEs are like, both the pluses and minuses. Thanks for taking the time to detail your impressions. It's not far off from a full review, really.
Even though I already gave the visuals a perfect score, I feel like I should have mentioned the lighting. It's the best i've ever seen and really brings everything to life. Every object looks authentic. I do think that interiors are a better example of their lighting system. But outdoors was really nice as well with different weather and different times of day being displayed convincingly.
Anderson, if this next part is a spoiler, could you fix it? I don't think it is though as it's my guess.
Also in the story, they talk a lot about this India company making shipments to the Americas. America in the 1880's would be an amazing setting for a sequel.
Man I had an awesome moment playing this. I had 3 allied AI with me and I was flanking an enemy and I got behind him. I rushed him for the melee kill and just before I could kill him, that chick AI vaporizes him into a pink mist with that lighting gun. Fvcking insane seeing that s*** right in front of my face.
Watched this game on Twitch. Visually amazing, cool gameplay, intriguing storyline, but a lame ending. They went Halo 2 ending for the very first game. You never go full Halo 2 ending.
Watched this game on Twitch. Visually amazing, cool gameplay, intriguing storyline, but a lame ending. They went Halo 2 ending for the very first game. You never go full Halo 2 ending.
So true, probably my biggest gripe with the game.
I will say though, before I traded the game in yesterday, I went back and played a number of my fav chapters multiple times... it's only made me appreciate the game more. The voice acting and it's translation to the on screen characters is superb. Also, from a gunplay perspective I mixed it up in terms of weapon selection(the 3 round shotgun is devestating) and the battles played out differently. Nothing dramatic, but different scenarios none the less.
Anyway, I grew more invested in the characters and plot from these additional playthroughs.
As I stated before, the framework is there for a promising franchise.
I didn't have a problem with the ending of the game. Sony's developers are known for actually making the endings of their games intriguing. Like Resistance 2's ending. I never saw that coming.
I didn't have a problem with the ending of the game. Sony's developers are known for actually making the endings of their games intriguing. Like Resistance 2's ending. I never saw that coming.
but as people have pointed out 4/10 is very harsh. i put it at 6/10. at the same time i bought it at launch, finished day after, tried playing again on that sunday, couldnt do it and never touched it since
maybe i am more generous cause i only got it for ÂŁ25
It's kind of weird though that even though the AI was bad and artificially cheapened with the shotgun guys, I still enjoyed it because it kind of had that old school frustration. That Ghouls N Ghosts, fukc this game, but I can't stop playing thing going for it.
Yeah the AI is pretty much brain dead, I didn't see it at first but after playing through most of the game there are definitely games on PS2 and original xbox with better AI, which is fvcking absurd.
Well, I just got a copy from a friend that was finished the game and I quickly wanted to see all the fuss about the graphics in this game.
It took me no longer than about 15 minutes to make my assessment of this games graphics. Even though I'm a hardcore PC fan, I have to give credit where it is due. The game is the graphics king right now. Period. The quality of the materials, lighting and environments are staggering. They indeed nudge up one on Ryse and AC:Unity. It's not that this game has more tech than the aforementioned games, it's the talented *use* of the tech that brings this game above those two. Everything is so consistently well made.
One last thought though.. while the game is clearly the graphics king (at least IMO) for now, it's far far away from being seen as a CGI movie. There are just too many flaws with it compared to offline rendering that I can see. Overall presentation though is Ace!
It will be interesting to see if Batman:AK, Witcher 3, UC4, StarWars Battlefront, or The Division will best this games' presentation.
Well, I just got a copy from a friend that was finished the game and I quickly wanted to see all the fuss about the graphics in this game.
It took me no longer than about 15 minutes to make my assessment of this games graphics. Even though I'm a hardcore PC fan, I have to give credit where it is due. The game is the graphics king right now. Period. The quality of the materials, lighting and environments are staggering. They indeed nudge up one on Ryse and AC:Unity. It's not that this game has more tech than the aforementioned games, it's the talented *use* of the tech that brings this game above those two. Everything is so consistently well made.
One last thought though.. while the game is clearly the graphics king (at least IMO) for now, it's far far away from being seen as a CGI movie. There are just too many flaws with it compared to offline rendering that I can see. Overall presentation though is Ace!
It will be interesting to see if Batman:AK, Witcher 3, UC4, StarWars Battlefront, or The Division will best this games' presentation.
Well, I just got a copy from a friend that was finished the game and I quickly wanted to see all the fuss about the graphics in this game.
It took me no longer than about 15 minutes to make my assessment of this games graphics. Even though I'm a hardcore PC fan, I have to give credit where it is due. The game is the graphics king right now. Period. The quality of the materials, lighting and environments are staggering. They indeed nudge up one on Ryse and AC:Unity. It's not that this game has more tech than the aforementioned games, it's the talented *use* of the tech that brings this game above those two. Everything is so consistently well made.
One last thought though.. while the game is clearly the graphics king (at least IMO) for now, it's far far away from being seen as a CGI movie. There are just too many flaws with it compared to offline rendering that I can see. Overall presentation though is Ace!
It will be interesting to see if Batman:AK, Witcher 3, UC4, StarWars Battlefront, or The Division will best this games' presentation.
I don't think Batman, W3, SW:BF or the Division will be able to best it (at least not on consoles) simply because of the larger scale they'll all have, UC4 is bigger as well but not fully open world and has one of the best console devs around working on it so that game has a shot. I know one thing, the longer they take to get the witcher 3 out the less impressive that game looks although it's still beautiful. I agree with the rest of your post though, the game is beautiful and high quality all around.
I don't think Batman, W3, SW:BF or the Division will be able to best it (at least not on consoles) simply because of the larger scale they'll all have, UC4 is bigger as well but not fully open world and has one of the best console devs around working on it so that game has a shot. I know one thing, the longer they take to get the witcher 3 out the less impressive that game looks although it's still beautiful. I agree with the rest of your post though, the game is beautiful and high quality all around.
Yea, I'm not sure what the deal there is. W3 looks very unimpressive at this point.
But just because a game is open world, doesn't mean it can't match the fidelity of The Order. And judging by UC4's demo, it has a ways to go. SW:BF does look better though.. at least from the in-game footage that has been floating around. And Batman looks almost as good as the UE Samaritan demo.
When you look at the size and scope of the game, it should be the best looking. Though this fall I think games Tomb Raider, Halo 5 and Uncharted 4 will give it a run for the money.
When you look at the size and scope of the game, it should be the best looking. Though this fall I think games Tomb Raider, Halo 5 and Uncharted 4 will give it a run for the money.
No way Halo matches it, the beta didn't look all that great but I guess that's to be expected since it was so early and they are also targeting 60 fps for it. Tomb Raider will likely look very nice but I highly doubt it'll come close simply because it'll have more open areas to explore, same with UC4 which will probably look better than TR but still not match The Order.
Well, H5 build will be a year old before the actual game comes out, and already looks better than the class leading H4. Considering how large H5 is, yeah it should be pretty sweet. But I suspect Tomb Raider could take the crown, or UC4.
I finally did a full viewing of the game from start to finish. I can definitely see where the issues are. That said, I think I would still buy it if I had a PS4. It looks great, and I could see myself replaying it periodically. I think if you understand what it is, and know it's shortcomings beforehand, then it would be just fine.
The game just suffered the Over-hype effect, and couldn't live up to that level of greatness. It's still an artistic achievement in many ways, and unique enough to warrant a purchase, even if it is on sale. I'd love for people to not buy it used, but wait until it is on sale so that the devs see the money but also get the message that 60 bucks may be asking a bit much for the content.
So who thinks The Order: 1886 is a GOTY contender? This game deserves to be noticed. Ready at Dawn did a great job. 5 hours of greatness. It awaited and it delivered. That's all there is to say about that.
So who thinks The Order: 1886 is a GOTY contender? This game deserves to be noticed. Ready at Dawn did a great job. 5 hours of greatness. It awaited and it delivered. That's all there is to say about that.
But Halo 5 looks like last gen TBH. TR we haven't seen and from what I've seen so far from UC4 -- nah.
