The Order: 1886 Review

The Order: 1886 is a game that has had so much hype surrounding it since the trailer debut at E3 2013. The Order marks developer Ready at Dawn's first Playstation 4 exclusive game. The Order: 1886 is a good game. Visually it's one of the best looking games I have ever seen. The way that it seamlessly blends gameplay and cutscenes is awesome. And sadly, The Order's greatest strengths are also it's weaknesses.

The Order takes place from mid October to the end of December during the year, 1886. It's an alternate history that allows the gamer to experience new technologies thanks to people like Nikola Tesla, who acts as the gadget person for the Order's members. Speaking of which, the Order is the current time period's incarnation of the Knights of the Round Table, started by King Arthur. Each Knight is granted near immortality thanks to the Blackwater, an almost sinister substance that heals wounds and prolongs life. You take on the role of Sir Galahad, an honorable Knight. The Order is seeking to quell a rebellion while also fighting their ancient enemy, the Lycans. That is the basis of the story without giving too much away. The storyline kept me interested with it's various twists and turns but lost me a little bit towards the end. It's only around 7 hours long, which for this game ends up being plenty. If it had been any more I would've wanted it to end already. Everything ends with an obvious sequel set up, which makes it rather disappointing. There is one really great twist that I won't spoil for you, and it definitely held my interest, but they didn't really explore it any further and that left me disappointed as well.

The Order: 1886 is essentially a template of a third-person shooter. If you've played Gears of War, Uncharted, or any third-person cover based shooter then The Order will be very familiar to you. It's not something I necessarily have a problem with, it's just nothing new, and there is nothing that makes it stand out from its predecessors in terms of the shooting mechanics. It runs smoothly, though. Almost everything about the gameplay feels good. It's smooth, it runs nicely, and there was only one time during Chapter 3 where I encountered a pretty bad glitch that had me running through walls and through the air, I just rebooted the game and didn't have a problem after that.

Wow.

When it comes to graphics and presentation, The Order: 1886 shines. The visuals are easily the most appealing aspect of this game and truly show off the power of the PS4. Multiple times during my journey I would just stop and admire my surroundings whether I was looking at a nice vista(shown above), or just examining a room. The character models are great looking right down to the cloth physics on their clothes and the wind running through their hair. Ready at Dawn has created an awesome atmosphere with this game. It really feels like you're in this version of London and it's totally believable. The cutscenes are beautiful, but they're just too long and too frequent. The Order has awful pacing issues. At times you are just walking down a street or through a building for ten minutes or so and then all of the sudden there's a giant firefight. It just doesn't make sense most of the time. The voice acting in the game is really great and the characters become very fleshed out over the course of your journey. In the beginning I thought Galahad was quite boring but I grew to like him and almost everyone else in the game.

Do you like quick time events? Because this game is full of them. Multiple times there was a cutscene going on and apparently I was supposed to interact with it. I would've preferred it if the cutscene had just played out instead of me moving my character or pressing triangle or something. Even the big boss battles with the Lycans are just a giant quick time event fight. It's rather disappointing.

Galahad and Isi.

The Order: 1886 is a good game, don't get me wrong. It is worth playing through, once, but after you've beaten it there is no replay value unless you are going back to get trophies which are easily attainable in a single playthrough. The graphics and visuals of this game are amazing. But that just isn't enough. Gameplay is worth something in this industry and the gameplay of The Order is simply too bland for my taste. The story is good, but ends in an awkward place. All in all this game is worth playing one time. And after that, there just isn't much need to return.

Here is some gameplay from my YouTube channel you can check out:

This is the bad glitch I mentioned from Chapter 3:

7

+Visually incredible

+Storyline isn't TOO bad

+Great cutscenes...

-...but they last too long

-Pacing issues

-Too many quick time events

Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition Review

What if Superman became a dictator? That is the driving idea behind Injustice: Gods Among Us. Now most people know that this game came out in 2013 and the PS4 and Xbox One editions came out later. Well I just now picked it up this past weekend for fun and started playing. In about three hours I was already 64% through the Single-Player portion and was having a blast with it. I'm not that into fighting games but if you combine Mortal Kombat style gameplay and my favorite superheroes with an actually interesting storyline then I am much more inclined to play.

The storyline is that the Joker drugged Superman and made him kill his wife Lois and their unborn child, while simultaneously setting off a nuclear bomb destroying Metropolis. Overcome with grief, Superman kills the Joker and becomes the "High Councilor" of Earth creating the new One Earth Government. Many of the DC heroes choose to join Superman's new regime, and those who go against him are killed. Batman is the one hero leading the Insurgency against Superman. It's a really cool and fairly well written story and it inspired me to read the prequel comic that came out alongside the game.

The graphics are the least standout piece of the game. The cutscenes are cool and everything but they look a little muddled and are hardly an update from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. The in-game fighting graphics actually make the game look better in my opinion. The environments are well produced and diverse enough that nothing ever really feels the same. Interactive environmental objects really spice up the gameplay and make things more interesting.

The controls are easy to use in the beginning but take a long time to master. Trying to learn every character's Special Moves can take a long time and mostly it just comes down to button-mashing. Don't get me wrong, the game is still a ton of fun. This game really is fairly self-explanatory so this doesn't need to be a long review, but the besides the Story mode there are different challenge games to play and practice arenas and online modes.

The Ultimate Edition comes with all of the DLC including new missions, character skins, and six new playable characters. Injustice is a really fun game perfect for casual gamers. The story is interesting, the gameplay is really fun, but the graphics could be better.

Be sure to check out my new YouTube channel here!

Here is some gameplay:

8.5

+Gameplay

+Story mode

-Graphics