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The Order: 1886, a review

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The Order: 1886, a review

So, over this holiday season, I had received the gift I had wanted all along, a Playstation 4! With this new powerful hardware in my disposal, all I need now are quality first party titles waiting to fill the system.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zM…

Yeah… The PS4 wasn’t exactly known for its abundance of exclusive content that isn’t a remaster of an older game from the PS3 era. However, in February 2015, there was a ray of hope. After previews upon previews of a new title waiting to fill the void. After years of watching E3 presentations of this game’s highly detailed cutscenes, Sony fans were ready to pounce. The Order: 1886 featured a secret order of Werewolf hunters using high tech weaponry, making all the fans salivate and nearly pee their pants in anticipation.

…Then someone with an early review code beat the game in 5 hours and posted it on Youtube, deflating all the hype.

Is the criticism real or unwarranted? Let’s find out in this review of The Order: 1886.

You play as Sir Galahad, one of the Knights of the Order, a secret society formed by King Arthur and aided by Nikola Tesla and use a variety of highly advanced steam punk gadgets and weapons to take down Lycans, horrible half breeds of werewolves. However, Sir Galahad soon uncovers a conspiracy in the works and may find himself fighting the very organization he helped so much.

The game is your basic standard cover based shooter (Gee, I wonder what Sony’s ‘inspiration’ for this game design is). Multiple enemies will descend on you and you shoot at them from cover, using a wide variety of weapons, ranging from your basic pistol and shotguns, to the more creative electric arc throwers and shoulder cannons.

The lycans themselves, hyped by all the trailers, are literally few and far between. The fights to take them down aren’t much difficult either. You can wait for the lycans to attack you and simply press the button prompt to get out of the way. The will continue this tactic until you shoot and kill them, not presenting much challenge.

In an attempt to be ‘cinematic’, the game features lengthy cutscenes and quick time events for Galahad to pass. Most of the button prompts are not difficult to master and the game saves frequently so you aren’t punished too hard if you mess up. Unfortunately, while the graphics and sound track deliver some of the best detail to date, the story is sadly lacking. Just when more and more interesting details are about to be revealed, the game abruptly ends, feeling more like a prologue than a complete tale told. For a game that was originally twice the price of a season of Telltale and half the length, I was a bit unsatisfied. Not even the characters are that engaging. Remove all the European influences and English steampunk and all you have are basic archetypes, very basic ones at that.

For the record, I had beaten the game in 7 hours. While I had difficult with some of the gun fights (there was an annoying shoulder cannon opponent that wouldn’t die), I still didn’t have too much of a tough time. Yet, I felt empty at the end. For all the talk of cinematic experiences and movie like productions, the story left me cold and empty and wanting more (not in a good way, but in a ‘that’s it’ way). I don’t even feel like there’s much replay value. I’m not sure what I would gain from replaying the game again that I wouldn’t get from the first playthrough other than a trophy.

The rest, as they say, is history. Mediocre scores from various review sites, (including the controversial IGN and Polygon, whom many accuse of taking bribes for giving high rating scores) caused the developers to pull TV ads in protest and those who had bought the game on day one were disappointed.  According to VG Chartz, the game hasn’t even broken 2 million units.

www.vgchartz.com/game/73107/th…

I had bought this game for 10 USD at my local Gamespot, brand new. Given all the resources poured into this game, I can’t help feel the developers wanted… more. If you’re thinking about picking it up and if your local Redbox still has it, I think it would be the best method. Still, if the developers want to try their hands at ‘story heavy’ games, they’d first better realize that the story better be up to snuff in the first place.

Verdict: Get it cheap or rent it (Redbox is preferable). 

The Order: 1886 is available through retail or digital purchases at all available outlets.

If you choose to, please support the official release.         
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