Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The Order: 1886


The Order: 1886
Players: Single-player
Genre: Action Adventure, Third-person Shooter
Distribution: Blu-ray, Download
Platform: Playstation 4
Release Date: February 20, 2014

The Order: 1886 had tons of potential. Since it was announced and the first clips were released I've been excited for the game. The setting and mythology surrounding the game is engaging. The Knights of the Round Table succeeded in their quest for the Holy Grail and have, through its power, gained longevity bordering on immortality. With their guiding hand the world is very different, technology is more advanced than in the world we know; zeppelins rule the air and weapons are much more destructive than their real life counterparts. The Knights are an organization sworn to fight the monsters of the world, of which the player sees Lycans and vampires. They've done all of the groundwork to bring a unique setting to gamers, something that doesn't seem like we've done it a dozen times before.

With the promise of an intense monster-slaying adventure the actual game falls far short. Most notably the player spends most of their time fighting humans, rebels that have some nefarious purpose whom you of course end up joining after seeing what they're fighting against. Not only was it predictable, but it just switched one set of human enemies for another. The player only every sees a vampire and never engages one in combat. There are seven, perhaps eight, encounters versus Lycans that are a whack-a-mole type “which way will it come from” experience, during which you shoot them as much as possible and then dodge out of the way. Two of the Lycan encounters are reduced to quick time events in which the player is armed solely with a knife, so the games interesting weapons don't even come in to play there. This leaves the combat aspect of the game completely unsatisfying.

The graphics are gorgeous, the early Industrial Age London with a futuristic flare looks amazing, if sparsely populated. The main character models vary enough that I never had trouble remembering who a character was or what to expect out of them. The voice acting too is top-notch among all of the heavily used characters. The unfortunate aspect of all of that is that the story that is being told just isn't very interesting.

The game consists of 16 or 17 chapters, several of which consist entirely of cutscene. The game just goes, with absolutely no input from the player. I don't have a problem with story oriented games; I've enjoyed Tell Tale's games for years and they're basically choose your own adventure stories. The difference is that in Tell Tale's games there are decisions to make, outcomes that actually change depending on the way you handle situations. In The Order: 1886 the player is merely along for the ride. There is no dialogue to choose from and only one way through the maps that you actually get to play through. This causes a disconnect from the game world in which the player doesn't feel like they're having much of an impact on the events going on around them. It's more like watching a story, as opposed to playing through one and it just doesn't work. I'd complain about the length of the game, which took me perhaps seven hours, but honestly by the end I just wanted it to be over.

Conclusion: A promising premise for a game got lost in the developers desire to merely tell a story. That story didn't engage the player enough to provide enough entertainment to justify the price tag. The Order: 1886 is the first game I've returned after playing, because of its linear nature there is little desire created for multiple playthroughs. The production quality evident in the graphics and voice work isn't enough to create a compelling experience.

Rating: 5.5/10

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