@Misty

This was an actual thing apparently.

Even though I've not played The Order 1886, I knew a lot of the story details already and I don't think I'll bother playing it myself. Everything I've seen and heard is just really, really not enticing me to ever spend money on it. Beyond the length and lack of depth in storytelling and world building and super obvious sequel-baiting feeling of the game overall, the actual gameplay doesn't look to be doing anything innovative or better than previous great 3rd-person shooters like the Max Payne series, Dead Space 1 & 2, Resident Evil 4 & Revelations, The Last of Us, etc.

While the setting did interest me at first, the overall art design feels really...bland. Not terrible, but not memorable (which to me is bad.) Like, "here's the second industrial revolution plus some werewolves!" and then they didn't really give their own personal touch outside of the Tesla weapons. Not to sound like a fan boy, but to me, Bloodborne is a great example of borrowing established themes like werewolves and crows and snake monsters and cloaks and Lovecraftian-inspired creatures and some steampunk devices, and twisting them in its own dark manner to a point that I really enjoy the direction.

If a sequel were to come out and improved on the many issues present in the game, I think I'd be interested enough to give it a try. For now, it's just a Redbox rental at best, and I wonder if it's going to be remembered come next year by many...

Mass Effect 1 had a great reception actually, by the way. Even if the core combat is now antiquated, its storytelling and world building are not at all bad, and many people loved it since its release (it sold 3.5 million units...)

I'm pretty excited for the new Dissidia, having played a bunch of 012 Duodecim, though I just want to get my hands on it myself at this point. Team Ninja's affiliation has me really interested too, since I'm a big Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fan. I can't wait to have a DIssidia title on something that isn't a handheld.

Also, in terms of religion I consider myself a Christian Agnostic something or other. Very non-committed, I know, but I like the teachings of Jesus himself and I don't necessarily think you need to follow the rules of a church to believe in some things (I'm all for LGBT and will probably never vote Republican, not that I'm fond of many Democratic choices either)

I'm not entirely sure you need innovation though. The Last of Us does absolutely nothing innovating with it's gameplay but it's still satisfying to play.

I think this is rather an unfair comparison because the two games are going for very different styles. Bloodborne is going after a Lovecratian horror vibe while having very little steampunk present where as The Order kinda goes all out with the steampunk aesthetic. Like, I think stuff like this:

Spoiler

Is stuff that Bloodborne isn't going for at all. I also have to say that I just love the character designs in the game. I don't know really how else to phrase it, but all of them just look badass. There's a lot of things that I think you can fault the game, but it is just oozing with it's own style and atmosphere.

Which is why I said "innovative or better." The Last of Us isn't a very original idea, but rather it has such refined gameplay and storytelling combined that the lack of innovation is accepted. Dead Space isn't exactly original either, but the gameplay in the first two titles were so tight and the worlds were developed enough to give the games their own identity.

Y'see, I know that the game is trying to do steampunk, and the first and third images totally are interesting. Like I said, the Tesla weapons are great. But that second image? I don't get any sense of creativity or especially well-done improvement from what's already existing.

We can agree to disagree about the game having its own style, but we can both agree the Tesla stuff is great.

I'd actually argue the gunplay aspect of The Order is better than the Last of Us tbh. Overall there is more variety and some interesting stuff doing in The Last of Us, which makes me prefer it. But the guns in The Order are really stellar, even the non-unique weapons like the pistol or shotgun just feel really good to use.

The second image was more of trying to get a good image of the skyline with the steampunk-ish war blimps that patrol the area lol.

I hear you and I respect that. If you see it selling for cheap, though, I think it's worth picking up -- not just because there is cool stuff in there, but because it is pretty fast to play through. It's not going to be adding to anyone's backlog when you can finish it in just two or three sittings.

In addition to what @libregkd said (and showed off in screenshots), there's a lot of care and attention in The Order given to camera angles and light that I think deserves some praise. In the case of the latter, it's one of my biggest impressions of the game -- it's not just that the engine does light very well, but they took real advantage of it with windows, lamps, flashlights, etc. Adding to the litany of reasons that I loved the London Hospital segment of the game, the ****ing windows man. I couldn't find any screens online that do it justice so I'll have to grab some when I go back in to play with Photo Mode.

Oh I don't doubt it! I brought it up to illustrate how gameplay can improve wildly between entries. Its combat probably wasn't as offensively bad when it first came out, either -- it's more, after playing ME2, ME3, and other cover-based shooters, ME1 feels awful.

This is really key for The Order. I hear people decry it for not being original enough in terms of gameplay, but I don't think Ready at Dawn was ever aiming to do The Next Big Thing in Gameplay Mechanics, and what they have is still a good third-person shooter. They definitely weren't as successful as Naughty Dog in using tried and true gameplay mechanics but doing them really, really well, but there's also the matter of Ready at Dawn being a fairly new and inexperienced studio, especially compared to Naughty Dog. I think with a few more years and games under their belt, Ready at Dawn will get much more daring with their gameplay.

I think the gunplay in The Last of Us isn't great for a reason. It all goes into the realism of the title. Guns are scarce so you can't be expecting to have a whole arsenal at your disposal, as are bullets, so there should be some kind of punishment for using them (or at least, dissuading the player from relying on them), not to mention how quickly just one gunshot can backfire on you if you're in a room full of baddies. You're also controlling Joel compared to a knight with hundreds of years of combat training.

When it comes to religion, I see myself as a Christian. I've been raised Catholic and then was Evangelical for a few years. Now, I don’t associate myself with a certain viewpoint on Christianity; I just more follow what is right from what I’ve learned over the years. That includes having some viewpoints that are against traditional Christian doctrine, but I feel that they are the right things to follow. That’s not to say I don’t have doubts; I have plenty. I feel I’ve just experienced enough things to believe that there is something out there.


I’m almost coming up on eight years for this site. I’ve constantly thought about what would happen if this place just disappeared for a long time. Hell, for a year or two, I was away from the site, and I remember just feeling like I had no one to talk to. I feel I made a lot of good friends on this place; friends who actually care about me. I remember the night that I got my transplant call, and the first place I went to was this site to update everyone. I thought that I didn’t matter that much to people outside a handful of members, but I was proven wrong.


If this place does go away one day, I won’t be happy. It’s the place where I grew up in a way. It’s just been such a constant in my life that the void would be very difficult to fill. I’ll still talk to my friends from here, many of whom I’ve met in real life, but it’ll just be different.

This is something that always brightens my heart to hear. Working on KHV can be thankless sometimes -- not that you guys don't say thank you! -- but it's rough to keep motivated and devote so much time and energy to this place without like, making money, sometimes. But knowing how special this place is to some people and seeing how much we all care about each other keeps me goin'.

I point to what Misty said:

I guess I'm kind of tired of playing as really skilled soldier-types, I'd love for more characters like Joel instead, with combat that works but is still awkward and thus less run-of-the-mill.

(that and I have a bias to prefer survival-type scenarios)

I get that. The cinematography is not at all bad in The Order; in fact it's one of the best parts of its artistic design. Just...as I said, I don't personally care for how they decided to fill the world.

Eh, maybe if I see it for $20 or less, but I was never excited for it. Think you know from the game's own thread and my lack of being impressed with the actual gameplay

In terms of inexperienced studios being an argument, I can't help but not care. I've seen Rocksteady do an amazing job with Batman: Arkham Asylum, their second credited game, and Visceral's first original IP, Dead Space, was also amazing, though I can't say they didn't have practice since they did a few OK James Bond and Lord of the Rings titles beforehand.

Maybe it's hard for me to not be disappointed because I really wanted The Order 1886 to surprise me with its quality story and gameplay, but the worst part is that it exactly met my expectations of being neither amazing nor terrible.

I can understand you want that type of game play, but I personally would like if games didn't try to mimic what Naughty Dog did with The Last of Us in regards to gun mechanics. It's less about it being skilled soldiers or something and more of just being, for the lack of a better word, competent. That isn't a knock of The Last of Us or me calling the gunplay in that game bad, but it's not something I would want in more games. (Also you using awkward when describing gameplay in a positive light reads really weird to me lol)

I really wasn't talking about the cinematography in the game with that comment, but was again just trying to show off just stuff within the game that makes the game have such a unique identity with the alternate historical technology and vehicles. I can understand that you don't care for it (tastes and all lol), but I still just find it weird for anyone to consider it bland and uninspired lol.

You misunderstand; I don't want mimics of Naughty Dog; if I could get games that were new and really well-designed in gameplay, I'd love that, but if I can't have something new and good, I'll take old and well-done.

I get that me using "awkward" positively is weird. If I haven't made it obvious, Silent Hill 2 and 3 are some of my favorite games ever, and those games do not have tight combat; they make you struggle to survive encounters, and you never really feel badass: you're simply trying to make it through what's happening to you, which is something I found and enjoyed in The Last of Us. It's not something that's done well often in my opinion...

I'm not at all calling it uninspired, as I can clearly see the inspirations the game takes from, but bland is more fitting to what I feel about the game (I'm sure those two terms are supposed to be interchangeable but I see them differently.) Take out the Tesla weapons and Lycans and I don't find The Order 1886 doing much of anything to differentiate itself from steampunk stories.

The game looks amazing due to its effects and texture resolutions and physics, but I don't think it would have nearly as much positivity (yes realizing it did get tons of backlash and I'm one giving it some but there still are definitely many fans) if the game came out, say, early in the Xbox 360's lifespan.

Ah, that makes more sense. It also makes sense I'm not entirely agreeing with you on this point because I think the controls in SIlent Hill being awful is just ****** game design and makes me not want to play them ever again lol. Unlike you, I don't think there is any redeeming qualities about having to fight the controls to get what you want done done. I feel largely the same way about the earlier Resident Evil games. But the comparison to TLoU sort of falls apart there because, despite some of my complaints about the gunplay, I don't really agree with your sentiment about it being "awkward." Joel still felt like a damn badass throughout that entire game and and the combat was really tight and controlled very well.

That seems a weird thing to do though, particularly since this is a setting and aesthetic is something that really isn't done at all in video games (If you have some suggestions btw, I'd love to hear them because I really love this style of game and would like to play more. Same with cyberpunk tbh but those are atleast seem to be in vogue lately). But if you take out stuff from a game that makes it unique, then yeah it'll seem like any other game. Like if you took out the Lovecraft-inspired enemies/setting and trick weapons from Bloodborne, the game starts to have a blander aesthetic and not differentiating itself from an established series.

I don't have an issue at all with the controls of Silent Hill, but the combat itself. Harry and James and Heather don't fight like experts; they flail their weapons around haphazardly, they can't aim firearms quickly nor that well, they slow down after running for a while, etc. I'm honestly a little surprised that you don't enjoy the former Silent Hill and Resident Evil titles, but that's fine; not everything is going to jive for everyone.

Joel to me didn't feel like a badass, because I kind of equate badass with people who seem to be without stress while undertaking monumental tasks, a la (usually) Dante from Devil May Cry 3/4, Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, Batman from Arkham Asylum/City, etc. While I do like those characters, I also liked Joel particularly because I empathized with him through the struggles both emotionally and physically that The Last of Us put him through. He got angry and he cried and there were so many moments where I knew a straight firefight was not going to end up with my win: not because I struggled with controls, but because the enemies posed so much of a threat to me.

Dishonored did steampunk really well in my opinion. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Metal Gear Rising are prime examples pf cyberpunk. But I do agree that I want to see more of those settings in good games.

I brought up how stripping Lycans and Tesla weapons out of The Order 1886 makes the game pretty bland because, to be honest, those are the only two things I can remember being interested about the game for and the only things I find unique about it. Bloodborne's interest for me isn't only the world and creatures, but the core gameplay of parries and quicksteps and combos and transforming strategies and rallying crowds of enemies or picking them off one-by-one, along with the way the multiplayer is done, the actually beneficial chromatic abberation, etc.

I should just say at the time I thought the controls weren't amazing or anything, but still thought they were fun to play through. It was only on recent attempts to replay stuff where I wondered how the hell I even put up with that they decided to throw at me. I still have fond memories of the games, but I feel like I would more readily give them praise if I decided to not try and replay them after years have gone by and just remain blissfully unaware of how they've aged lol.

I guess we just have differing ideas of what being a badass is. Joel was always in control and knew how to handle a situation and was always ready to just **** someone up. And quite often did just that. He was really the type of tough, no non-sense guy that really gives off that "I play by my own rules, so **** you" vibe to me.

I have mixed feelings on Dishonored tbh. I want to like it but I have a really tough time actually liking it. I've been meaning to replace it honestly hoping it'll click this time. As for the Cyberpunk thing, yeah I absolutely adore Deus Ex and am really looking forward to Mankind Divided and Cyberpunk 2077 (I mean...only a CG trailer atm but with the Witcher devs behind it, it's hard not for me to be excited). I actually have a hard time considering Metal Gear Rising to be cyberpunk tbh. I can see the argument for it, but stylistically it's missing a bunch of what I consider 'core' components. Still a good game though.

See that I understand, but at this point we are diverging away from the, I suppose "feel" of the game in regards to setting, design, etc. and going more into gameplay which, while I have not played the full game yet (hopefully soon!) I will agree that it is mechanically far more interesting. But I also prefer 3rd person action than 3rd person shooting hah.