WARNING: MAY CONTAIN A FEW SPOILERS FOR THE GAME. THIS IS ONLY MY FIRST IMPRESSION AND I’VE ONLY PLAYED ABOUT THE FIRST 2 HOURS SO I DON’T KNOW ANY OF THE MAIN PLOT POINTS BUT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR FIRST 2 HOURS OF GAME PLAY. THANK YOU.
Within the first five seconds what I mostly thought was, “Wow, this game is so beautiful. I think it’s hurting my eyes it’s so beautiful. I love this. I love that games can be so damn beautiful.”
Within the first five minutes I started to wonder when the real game play was going to happen. Here and there would be button prompts for me to press and I would wander around a bit, but it was mostly just cutscene after cutscene. By the time the intro to the game was over, I’d been playing for about 10 minutes and had actually PLAYED about one minute. But who cares, it’s the beginning of the game, there’s bound to be a lot of cutscenes at the beginning of a game, right? Wrong. After the intro is over the game takes a whole new light, it’s bright and (still) beautiful but there’s more cutscenes, and more painfully, long segments of slow walking. At this point I was asking myself whether or not I could put the controller down and get a snack, and the answer was yes, I could run to the fridge and take a quick look, grab a pudding, and sit back down and still have plenty of time to pick up the controller before there was a prompt to look at another object or open another door. That’s all the beginning of this game is. BUTTON PROMPTS. Now, I of all people (and a lover of telltale games) can understand what’s fun about having a few button prompts. I mean Telltale’s game are basically just button prompts, but the difference is, that those button prompts don’t take away the game from you. In The Order, every time you have a button prompt there another short (or more accurately) long cut scene following the prompt. It was driving me absolutely crazy.
After the first hour of the game we were finally starting to get somewhere. The controls are really easy to pick up, which is good because you’re pretty much just thrown into the fray (after long, seemingly endless bouts of slow walking), and it pretty much controls like every other third person shooter out there. The guns are fun, and very steam punk looking. I’m a big fan of the steam punk look. (By the way Galahad is a fantastic name for a character. Is he supposed to be like Sir Galahad from the round table? Like King Arthur’s round table? I have no idea. And Igraine/Isabeau/Isi? Please pick one name and stick with it. PEOPLE (me) ARE EASILY CONFUSED) Speaking of Igraine, I loved her ’empowered female’ mentality during one of the looooong cut scenes at the beginning. GIRL POWER, and all that jazz. And do I sense a little bit of sexual tension between ole’ Isi and Galahad? Bow chicka wow wow.
Basically, once you get past all of the cut scenes and you get into the core action/fighting sequences, the game starts to be not that half bad. With that in mind though, the action sequences are not nearly long enough. You shoot a rebel here, shoot a dude there, and then there’s another (big surprise) PAINFULLY LONG CUT SCENE. I found myself groaning and twisting around on my couch begging to be able to shoot more people. PLEASE.
I will take one minute to say that the design of the lycans during the first lycan action sequence, are FANTASTIC. I was so scared. The game calls then, “Half-breeds” and they’re basically sphinx hairless cats, but big werewolf-like men. I will admit that when I first encountered them, I ran into a corner and let them kill me because I was so frozen in fear. They are truly beautiful. I WANT MORE OF THAT READY AT DAWN AND SCE SANTA MONICO STUDIO. I like to imagine that there is definitely more of that later on in the game, but not within the rest that I played.
Overall, my first impression of The Order: 1886 is that it is an absolutely beautiful game with so much wonderful potential. But that’s it. It has potential. The beginning is very very slow and it might get better, but my very first impression of those first couple of hours is that good god I was so bored. There is way too many cut scenes and not enough real game play. I might have more to report later when I finish it (if I finish it) and I’ll be sure to change my mind if it gets better with age. I mean, who doesn’t get better with age, right?
‘Til next time.
-Bec
(P.S props on the boobies and wee wee lady and gentleman in the brothel, I am quite impressed.)
Last Issue: Renew it or Lose it 
The game is pretty because it clearly took most of the budget to make them, to the point I often don’t care about some details because they are so out of the way and uneventful.
I agree. The game is really beautiful. And now that I’ve played more of it, I do really appreciate all of the work that went into it. Like I said in my post, it was really just my first impression that much of the game is just long cutscenes. More definitely could have been done to make a more ‘playable’ experience at the beginning of the game and not just button prompts and slow walking.
I’ve now played about 5 hours of the game and I’m totally addicted. I plan to update my opinion on it once I’ve completed the whole game. 🙂