The Order: 1886

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, what TN said, it's not that the same enemy type was used, it's that it's exactly the same encounter in a QTE, with the same camera angles and animations and everything.

[SomTervo]

Yeah, that is bad ju-ju. Big mistake. I didn't get that from skimming by the pictures/posts.

 

On the topic of game-length, a quote from GAF:

 

 

 

Updated list of GAFer first time completions, including the relevant difficulty levels.

OsirisBlack - 14 hours Hard
Theman2k - 12 hours Hard
Verendus - 10 hours Hard
Periniumlick - 10 hours Hard
Rapier - 9 hours Normal
ReNeGaDe124 - 9 hours Normal
Nbkt - 9 hours Normal

Average is 10 hours 43 minutes.

 

However I've seen three other users say around 6 hours (one said just over 5, one said 6, another said 6-7). At least one of these guys was guestimating – probably very inaccurately. It's impossible to gauge how long you've spent on a game by subjective thought, because the human brain can't really do that when it's being bombarded with information over many hours

 

Who the fuck does one believe

Edited February 18, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

The 5 hour playthrough was admitted to be on Easy.  The times above are more in line with what I would have expected.

[SomTervo]

Sounds like easy-mode fights while running through all non-combat sections. Apparently there's quite a lot to take in during the parts that aren't gunfights. Probably not as much as, say TLoU, but still a substantial amount.

[Thursday Next]

It's not the length that bothers me though. I loved Journey, that was about half an hour long tops. I'm just worried that the gameplay looks a bit uninspiring (the story writing was a bit lame too - I spotted at least one "We're not so different you and I..." and one "I always knew..." in the approximately 5 minutes of footage I ended up watching.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Thursday Next

[TCP]

That seems pretty normal, I can count on one hand the amount of games with writing beyond that level.

[Mr. GOH!]

So the reviews are in: The Order:1886 is terrible. Hope nobody pre-ordered!

 

Never pre-order a non-multiplat AAA game, unless it's from Nintendo.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

Or my rule: never preorder any game if there is any reasonable doubt that it will be fun/good enough to justify the price.  Hasn't let me down yet (I get a fair amount of false negatives, but never a false positive yet).

 

*Edit* - Oh, can I say I called it yet?

Edited February 19, 2015 by TheMightyEthan

[Mr. GOH!]

You totally called it.

[SomTervo]

I wouldn't call 65/100 on MC (which is meaningless anyway) terrible – but definitely not great. You did call it, MEth. I think I was trying to be optimistic about it, but it looked flawed since day one. That said, reviews like this mean that if you're fanatical about Victorian fiction or graphics, it's probably worth a buy (though Kotaku said the graphics weren't all that great, seem to be an outlier).

 

Looking forward to inevitable, drastic price drop then an enjoyable experience for £15

 

It's great how the last half year has been a real kick in the teeth for the highest-budget end of the industry's spectrum. They need to get their shit together. A lot of mismanagement – and plain old wrong priorities – has sabotaged several game launches.

 

Hopefully we'll a sequel which will have plenty of actual, high quality gameplay. Or, y'know, no sequel and the game being a pillar of the "start making good games, not good graphics" message for publishers. Making pure spectacle can only take you so far into success. Like Zack Snyder. At first it was kinda like "okay, yeah, cool, this looks nice even though it's vacuous junk" but four films later it's like "this guy can not get away with this anymore, these films are meaningless"

Edited February 19, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[TCP]

A 65 is terrible now? Right, I forgot we lived in a world where video game reviews exist on a 6 to 10 scale. 

EDIT: Oh and I'll be waiting till it's free on PS+.

Edited February 19, 2015 by The Cowboy Poet

[TheMightyEthan]

65 has always been bad (or at least highly iffy).  Why do people act like a 6 to 10 scale is a problem?  It makes perfect sense, and is a direct analog to school grades, where ~70% is average and <60% is failing.

[SomTervo]

Sony will milk this for all it's worth. It was an expensive game. I don't think we'll be seeing it on PS+ for at least a year, possibly longer – like Second Son but more so.

 

Plenty of people on various forums seems to be having a blast with it. 65 is fine if it's something which appeals to you enough that you can forgive shortcomings. But hey. I'm not biting. Plenty of other junk going on.

 

EDIT:

 

 

65 has always been bad (or at least highly iffy).  Why do people act like a 6 to 10 scale is a problem?  It makes perfect sense, and is a direct analog to school grades, where ~70% is average and <60% is failing.

 

That just ain't true, and it's subjective. I've had a lot of fun with plenty of games which scored around 65.

 

This also isn't how it works elsewhere.

 

In Scottish high school - 50% is okay. 60% is good. 70% is great. 80-100% are varying degrees of excellent

 

In UK universities - you're aiming for mid-60s. Mid-60s is considered a totally good degree score for your entire three/four-year degree (a 2:2 or 2:1). 70 and above is excellent. 80 and above is phenomenal, borderline unheard of.

Edited February 19, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[TCP]

Because if we're going to rate games on a 10/100 point scale, anything over a 5/50 would, actually, technically, be a passing grade, so in that sense, not bad, just, kind of mediocre. Think of it like this, if gaming was reviewed on a 5 point star scale like films (RIP Joystiq), The Order would be a 3 star film, NOT bad just not great. 

This is the Remember Me thread all over again, dammit Ethan!! 

 

Kenshi: I think it will be a PS+ game before the year is out, just because Sony is starting to want to put big budget PS4 games up there, so something like Knack or The Order will make sense, it all depends on sales of course but I can't see The Order selling many copies come autumn. Either way, if it's not free, it'll be 10 dollars or something fairly quick.

[SomTervo]

I'd agree with you if it weren't for Second Son and (the absence of) Knack totally throwing your prediction out of whack. But I wouldn't fully disagree either.

 

It would be likely in terms of them wanting to promote Uncharted 4/other exclusives, though...

 

I'm keen for TO: 1886 once it hits £10-15. I can even trade in Wolfenstein: NO for it and get it half price at that range.

Edited February 19, 2015 by kenshi_ryden

[toxicitizen]

Or my rule: never preorder any game if there is any reasonable doubt that it will be fun/good enough to justify the price.  Hasn't let me down yet (I get a fair amount of false negatives, but never a false positive yet).

You mean to say using basic common sense is working for you? Who would've thought?!

 

 

As for the scores, they seem kinda mixed to me. Nothing terribly low but very few high ones. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a 6-7 game isn't bad by any means. I still think The Order looks interesting but yeah, I wouldn't have pre-ordered it even if I did own a PS4.

 

65 has always been bad (or at least highly iffy).  Why do people act like a 6 to 10 scale is a problem?  It makes perfect sense, and is a direct analog to school grades, where ~70% is average and <60% is failing.

...why should it be analogous to school grades? That makes no sense whatsoever. Scoring games is highly subjective, grading students isn't. The 6-10 scale is a problem in the sense that morons attribute entirely too much value to a numerical score without giving any thought to that score's context. Two reviewers could give the same game a 6/10 and it wouldn't necessarily be the same 6.

 

I love Jim Sterling's approach to it. He gave the order a 6.5 but his review is still rather positive. He criticizes the game for its failing but still shows a lot of enthusiasm for a potential sequel. And to go back to your flawed analogy, if 65 is a passing grade then why is 6.5/10 bad? Wouldn't a bad score/grade be a failing one?

[Mister Jack]

65 may be a passing grade, but I wouldn't want to show a 65 to my parents.  Just sayin'.

[toxicitizen]

I'm not sure what that has to do with the point I was making...

 

I'm not saying a 65 is amazing, I'm saying it's not terrible. i.e. a 65 game can still be worth playing.

[Mister Jack]

I'm saying 65 is passable, but not worth 60 bucks.  Maybe after a price drop or when it inevitably ends up on PS+ like we all know it will sooner or later. 

[TheMightyEthan]

To be clear, I'm not defending numerical ratings.  I really like Eurogamer's new system, and I like PXOD's system even better.  I'm just saying that among numerical scales there is nothing inherently better or worse with having the score for an "average" game be a 7 or a 5, because it's all arbitrary and subjective anyway.

 

*Edit* - @Jack: Yeah, to me a 65 is "on the low side of mediocre."  It's not like it's terrible or anything though.

Edited February 19, 2015 by TheMightyEthan

[toxicitizen]

I'm just saying that among numerical scales there is nothing inherently better or worse with having the score for an "average" game be a 7 or a 5, because it's all arbitrary and subjective anyway.

Right but what's the point of having a 10 point scale if you're only going to be using the upper half, then? I get what you're saying but you're basically describing a rating scale that goes:

 

BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD MEDIOCRE OKAY AMAZING GOTY

 

which seems kinda pointless to me. I mean, we don't need so much room to quantify degrees of shit. Why not have a broader spectrum for the positive aspects instead?

 

 

I'm saying 65 is passable, but not worth 60 bucks.  Maybe after a price drop or when it inevitably ends up on PS+ like we all know it will sooner or later.

Were you even replying to me then? Because that's another thing I never said (that a 65 is worth 60 bucks). I even said the complete opposite in that same post. I wouldn't have pre-ordered The Order nor would I buy it at full price right now.

Edited February 19, 2015 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

I know that there are at least a few people in the process of making new game review aggregator websites as an answer to Metacritic.  Rather than averaging out review scores, they intend to use a Rotten Tomatoes style system where the score is based on the percentage of likes vs dislikes.

 

*Edit* 

 

I was clarifying my point, FLD, not calling out you specifically.  

Edited February 19, 2015 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

@FLD:  It's more like:

 

THE WORST THING EVER - UTTERLY TERRIBLE - REALLY AWFUL - TERRIBAD - EXTREMELY BAD - BAD - NOT VERY GOOD - GOOD - PRETTY GOOD - REALLY GOOD - THE BEST THING EVER

 

[toxicitizen]

See my edit. I accidentally hit the post button early so I had to scramble to get my thoughts in there quickly. Sorry.

 

I feel like "utterly terrible", "really awful" and "terribad" are kinda redundant, don't you think? There comes a point where a shitty game is a shitty game. I mean, if a game has any redeeming factor(s) strong enough to make it worth playing, I kinda feel like it's going to skip over all of those points, anyway.

 

I find it more sensible to have something that goes like:

 

Unredeemable Garbage - Fundamentally broken - Terrible - Mediocre - Average - Good - Some Standout Elements - Overall Solid - Excellent - The Very Best

 

where games scoring as "Unredeemable Garbage" and "The Very Best" are extremely rare occurrences.

 

edit: I just realized that it's kinda funny how I'm procrastinating by discussing this when what I really should be doing is studying for tomorrow's midterm. For class that is specifically about the theory behind coming up with metrics of measures...

Edited February 19, 2015 by FLD

[Eleven]

I'm pretty sure this conversation about ratings has all happened before. What was the last bad game?

 

Games 1-5 don't even deserve to be differentiated, IMO. A 1 star or 2 star game is a game I'd skip over unless there is something very specific I would want in there. It doesn't really matter (and I'd say there's a good chance the majority of the gaming masses would agree). Judging games on 6-10 scale (or 3 to 5 stars) has been, in my experience, a great way of weeding out which games are worthy of my time and money. So, yeah, for me a 65 is a bad game, not an above average one.

 

And Mr.GOH! was the only one really who called the game terrible. We all know he exaggerates, and if he'd give a score himself it'd probably be a 45 to him. He's on a different scale, like I myself am on a different scale (this game will probably be 2 stars to me).

 

Although I think he forgot to include "or it's on PC" to his rule there.