The Order: 1886

Welcome back fellow Steemians, it's that time of the week again, time for your weekly game review fix.

We take a bit of a short trip back down gaming memory lane, not too far back only about four years but in the gaming and technology world a lot can happen in such a short amount of time. Just look at the how far the iPhone has come since then, back then we had the iPhone 6 and today we have iPhone XS, not sure what it can do differently and by this point I'm too afraid to ask.

The Order is set in London in the year 1886, but in an alternate time line where an old Order of Knights keep the world safe from half breed monsters. It a kind of a modern day King Arthur tale, not modern in our sense it is 1886 after all, but has a very subtle steam punk feel due the contrast between historical setting and advanced technology. The Order is mostly a cover-based shooting game, which mean is that when a fight breaks out you find some cover and slowly move forward from cover to cover until everything is dead. The game is absolutely gorgeous, and the cut scene cinematics are wonderful to behold, the developers really put a lot of time and probably money into that. This is also where some of the criticism for the game came about, a lot of people felt that the developer put far too much effort into the graphics architecture and not enough into the length of the game and the story. The greatest struggle is the internal balance between telling a beautifully presented story and the interactivity we've come to expect from a game.

Line Break.png

Our story begins during the autumn of 1886 and the city of London is plagued by both attacks from half-breeds and an anti-government insurgency that is trying to take control.

The real story actually starts long before when King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table who started the fight against the half animal and half human hybrids. Through a mysterious turn of fate, the Knights discover a substance called Blackwater, a mystical liquid that significantly extends their lifetimes and gives them remarkable healing abilities. Unfortunately these half-breeds continue to stay one step ahead of the knights and keep winning battles against them, that is until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution which dramatically turns the tide in favor of the knights. The new technology and innovation helps create electricity weapons, thermal energy and wireless communications far more advanced than in our timeline.

After fighting off the rebels, our main protagonist Sir Galahad pursues the survivors in to the London Underground where he encounters a number of werewolf-like half-breeds known as Lycans. Galahad then reports back to one of the Order's most veteran knights, also his mentor Sir Percival, who suspects that there is a correlation between the two and requests permission to investigate the rebel stronghold. His concerns are subsequently dismissed by the Lord Chancellor, who believes that the Order should remain dedicated to fighting half-breeds. Regardless Sir Lucan, the Order's Knight Commander, decides to send Percival and Galahad undertake a mission into Whitechapel to investigate the suspicion.

The Order 04.jpg

^source

The Order 05.jpg

^source

Line Break.png

The Order 09.jpg

^source

"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." - Nikola Tesla

"It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects." - Nikola Tesla

Line Break.png

The Order is thick with detailed environments that show the marvel of London built on top of the slum areas.

When it comes to the characters in the game, they are generally well-developed and believable, I just would have love to have more of it. I have a thing for a generally good historical-fantasy story, and in this you get to run into some great historical figures like legendary inventor Nikola Tesla, who is basically to the Order what Q is to James Bond. I just realized that my James Bond analogy could go over some folks heads, Nikola Tesla is the go to gadget guy in the game, who will supply you with epic Victorian super-weapons. Some of the other historical highlights was dealings with East India Company and hearing rumors of a new serial killer called Jack the Ripper.

The game seamlessly merges between game play and the cinematic cut scenes which at times are maybe just a touch too long and you almost forget you are playing a game. Where the Order lacks, is interaction with the environment around you, this only really happens when you are instructed to do so. To be really honest about half way through this rather short nine hour game, the cover-based shooting started felling way too repetitive, even with all the quick-time events. The rare fights you have against werewolves are absolutely the best part, mostly because of the hit-and-run attacks are less predictable than trading shots with the cookie-cutter guards from behind cover.

All in all it's a visually stunning game which unfortunately prioritized cinematic graphics over game play, however I had fun playing it and that's the whole point of games, even though I wished it was much longer.

The Order 07.png

^source

The Order 13.jpg

^source

The Order: 1886 is a third-person action-adventure video game developed by Ready at Dawn and SCE Santa Monica Studios.

I'm personally not all too familiar with this development company, they did however create or you can say repackage God of War: Origins Collection and then they made some portable games which I have never played. They are essentially former members of Naughty Dog studios, who we know pretty well and The Order is their biggest title to date, in my opinion. Published by Sony Computer Entertainment which means this is unfortunately a PlayStation exclusive and was released back in February of 2015. The great thing is that due to this being so old you could possibly find this for next to nothing, unfortunately the price has been stuck at almost full price on the PlayStation Store, so the best bet would be your local game shop.