I hope to start it tomorrow. For anyone interested I'll report back here on my findings. Some slam it for shortness and supposedly being a QTE centric experience. I read a suggestion on playing it on Hard difficulty settings. As the older I get, I need more of a rich story experience in my games. I also knew ahead of time what to expect and what I was getting with games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls.(Basically interactive storybook gaming)

Gameplay-wise I'm not sure what to expect. What I have been expecting since I heard about it was the setting and atmosphere and impressive visuals coupled with story-centric presentation. As a guy who loved the drawn out cut scenes and production value of games like the Metal Gear Solid games I'm sure I'll enjoy this but I'm still uncertain of how much "gameplay" is actually present.

I'll be happy to let you all know my experience though.

I'm curious! My wife saw a commercial for this and actually said that maybe she should try video games and get a console. Never thought I'd hear that. LOL

I thought the commercial looked awesome. However, Gamespot only gave it a 5 out of 10 and called it the worst thing you can call a video game....BORING. Ugh. What a shame.

Yeah let us know how you like it Coot, it sounds like it's one of those scripted, on rails games like the single player portion of the recent Battlefield games.

I'll be interested to hear if it turns out to be better than the reviews, I enjoyed Last of Us and even L.A. Confidential which had heavy scripting, if nothing else, I hope that they expand on the game because the setting and lore for 1886 is really cool.

Raw that sounds like an opportunity to take the wife's suggestion and buy a new console

She'll have to do that, I just bought a fish finder for the kayak. Her turn for a new toy. LOL

I really fancied getting this but the reviews have put me off. I liked The Last of Us and this seems more along the same kind of game and as Kludger says it has a cool sounding storyline.

My first report and first impressions: Damn good.

Now lets get a few things out of the way. I've only played the intro and first chapter. Be patient however. I repeat, be ye patient fellow potential knights of her majesties' royal guard. The game intro starts in such a way that it elicits concerns that this will play like Beyond Two Souls because it has you pressing certain buttons to do certain things. Its very, very atmospheric but very slow to start as well. Do not worry, however but take heart. At least from what I experienced in the subsequent first chapter there is plenty of gameplay peppered into the story.

The graphics are absolutely beautiful. And this is one of those magical games that I find myself amazed at how it seamlessly transitions from a cut scene to gameplay and then slips from gameplay right back into a story directed cinematic.

I love the gunplay. Plays like a solid third person/cover shooter. I'm seeing lots of variation as well. Blind firing can be fun and sloppy but still useful. Eventually they teach you about a secondary fire feature on your weapon that is sort of a stunning, sonic concussion blast. I've used this many times now. In one instance I was able to just blast that at an enemy in cover until he had to move where upon which my lady friend promptly snuffed him out. There appears to be this "black vision" feature that I haven't fully figured out how to use. I realize now it is something I witnessed in a preview of the game that had me concerned about the game's gameplay as it appeared like and auto-targeting thing that to me in the video looked bad, like some sort of gun mechanic from a late 90s Resident Evil type game. That perception was incorrect. You don't have to use it, and though I haven't fully figured out how to use it, it seems more akin to Red Dead Redemptions Dead Eye. A slow-mo, multi-enemy targeting feature.

The intro like I said doesn't take long but it feels slow because it is holding you by both hands and pushing you. I also felt claustrophobic but that mainly had to do with the setting and sounds. The first chapter plays out like a tutorial but once again, I had what I perceived as far as the time frame of the level goes, half cinematic and half action. I do not know how much time this game will afford the customer. I can't see any time stamp feature on my PS4 but I would estimate that I spent at least 1.5 to 2 hours just on the intro and first chapter alone.

From what I've seen so far, my initial impressions of the game do not warrant some of the negative reviews its getting. I've gamed for over twenty years and I can tell a lot of love went into this project. The voice acting is wonderful, character models are exquisitely detailed, graphics are unreal at times, production value appears to be way up there and the animations are really slick. I even hung back and listened to NPCs chatting and they, even though npc decoration, were not only voice acted well but the facial animation and lip-syncing was great.(And they were only non-relevant, npcs)


I will report back again after I've spent more time with it to add to this discussion whether it be good or bad. I think there must be just a lot of impatient gamers out there. The older I get the more story I want. I'm the kind of guy who loved the long cutscenes in the MGS games and likes to just walk around and read books to soak up the lore in a game like Dishonored to get the most out of it and for the immersion. Take your time. I found that in The Order you can look around areas and pick up objects and notes and examine them similar to The Last of Us or L.A. Noir.

Here are some screenshots I took of my game time today on the PS4. I also will post a short video I made. Its only part of the first chapter and please excuse some of the bumbling around. Once again, this was my tutorial mission so I was learning my controls and what they can do as well as admiring the environment and details. At around 4:57 I have a nice little blind fire shot that I'm proud of lol. You will not see in this video the concussion shot I previously described, the cool way grenades are thrown or my first encounter with Lycons.(and there was some trial and error AND strategy involved.

My settings suggestions for those who are going to try it are as follows:

Play from the get go on "Hard"
Turn off auto-aim help (This is SimHQ boys and girls) Also makes the blind firing more trial and error and thus satisfying
Be as patient as you can be for the intro(it doesn't really last that long) Use the time to start taking in the atmosphere.

That's all I got right now.

Today as Sir Galahad had some fire fights in a bad part of London, walked through a whore house, examined a smoking pipe still lit, shot the Bowler hat off a bad guy, lit up another half dozen with a weapon that shoots thermite dust into the surrounding area and then is ignited by a flare, sent Morse Code to an airship and then had said airship deploy a line guided sonar buoy into the ground near a hospital with several lycans coming from it.

Now they've just sent me underground with a lantern and friend to infiltrate the hospital from beneath.

I've just finished that underground level. Has to be visually one of, if not the best looking console game I've played. I'm enjoying it for what it is, a story driven shooter I suppose you could call it. It may not be the most 'fun' game I've played, and can be rather slow paced, but I would easily recommend it.

That thermite gun is pretty cool, and the effects are well done. When I bought the game I got the code for the khaki uniform and something else.

edited for explanation from Amazon" if you pre-order, you’ll also receive the Knight’s Endurance DLC which includes the "Desert Khaki" infiltration field uniform, plus "Endless Blackwater" and "Blacksight Regeneration" upgrades.

No idea what those last two are.

Is it a shooter or is it a stealth game like Dishonored?

Never played Dishonored mate, sorry. It plays a little like Last of Us, but only a little.

No not Dishonored. I'd love to see a third person Dishonored myself. Its a shooter. Sometimes there are stealth elements.

Firefights to me are satisfyingly harsh and violent. A shotgun feels and looks like a shotgun.

If it's only 5 hours long of which a large portion is cut scenes then it's not worth $60.

Is The Order: 1886 more action orientated than The Last of Us? I was hoping for something a cross between say TLOU and Gears of War, I'm really tempted and have some funds in my wallet that I was saving for Battlefield Hardline but fancy giving this a go if its got more combat in it than TLOU.

Inspecting a pipe and messing about with it. Just showing the item viewing which is almost the same as in games like L.A. Noir. Simple but cool feature that helps with immersion.



I'm going to play some more today. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm too early in it to tell, but I thought TLOU had plenty of action vs. story. Still trying to get a feel for this with respects to that. When I last played, and I was playing on hard, I had to restart a big firefight that was horde-like several times because I kept dying. There was a balance I had to discover by not just staying in one spot but moving around dynamically because the enemies would keep coming and then try to flank. You had to persevere until you wore them down and finally reached a point where they ran out of forces and you could finish them off to proceed.

After playing some more, I would say there is not as much actual gameplay action as TLOU afforded. It is heavily scripted and pushes you through a story. That being said its a really cool, well thought out story with its own lore and the visuals are consistently outstanding. Its very well crafted for what it is but I think they should have done a better job alluding to potential customers what the actual gameplay is and that they could expect. That would be more considerate and polite.

There was one scene in the hospital where there was a very long, unnecessarily difficult QTE interaction. I had to fail it and replay it a half dozen times before I learned the pattern and got it right. I personally do not like this kind of thing in a game. Simple and gimmicky ones added to a game for extra immersion if and only if the actual gameplay is there and solid I don't have a problem with. This one, though once again the environment and theme is very, very impressive, was just annoying in the long run.

A couple of the "chapters" were actually very short and some were almost all story. So I'm not sure where I'm at in the game. Honestly it started with more balanced action with story but the action seems to have been more restricted in this part I'm at now. Once again it still looks and feels great, has a great story and is still peppered with some cool gameplay like using a silenced sniper rifle on the dirigible and so forth but its very heavy handed right now in pushing the story. I traded in some older games and really only spent about twenty dollars on the game.

Its still worth every penny In my opinion, but I would not hazard in recommending that you all at least wait until its about $30 dollars. And that is not to degrade at all the game or its quality. Its very good, but until I see more action and less hand holding I'd recommend saving yourselves a chunk of change until the price comes down.

Too late bought it earlier this evening

Enjoy it. Take your time and look for things to examine in rooms. I also forgot to say: 007 has Q, Batman has Lucius, The Knights of the Order have Tesla.

Will do, curiosity got the better of me and with funds burning a hole in my PSN wallet I decided to go for it.