The Order: 1886 (Shokai Seisan Gentei)

The Good
First of all, I love linear stories because it lets me experience the entire game without having to replay it... okay, I did love linear stories until I started playing games such as The Wolf Among Us or Heavy Rain. Still, I love games that make you feel like controlling a movie or in some, or any, way try to get provide a player of an interactive movie-like feel. This, however, is not that kind of game, not in its entirety, not by a longshot, and while it is linear, it has a rather fine and nicely attuned gameplay, and quite a lot of it.

The story takes place in 19th century which may or may not be so interesting to some players... it isn't for me, but the story is interesting enough to break off the traditional stories with the same setting. Basically it's a supernatural story that involves werewolves and vampires, and knights of the round table hunting them down. Imaginative and interesting enough to keep you going until the very end.

Gameplay runs very smooth, aiming, cursor speed, it is all nicely attuned and works so good you don't have any need to tune it yourself. This is common problem with many shooters, 1st or 3rd-person ones, where aiming just isn't good enough, speed and acceleration doesn't let you properly center on the target, and hence have to rely on aiming help. Here, that is not required. You can also come to your opponent and just use QTE to take him down quickly. The combat works pretty much like in many fine games, such as Uncharted series, and game story is not shorter than in those games either.

Graphics, at least while standing still and nice and sharp and you can hardly find anything wrong with them, often thinking they are as good as a blu-ray movie, though the blur effect when in motion is ever-present which makes the speed and smoothness on the level.

The Bad
When you want to perform quick takedowns you have to face the opponent, and often they run behind you when you reach them and even though they are right next to you, if you don't face them the takedown QTE won't kick in and you'll just get shot to death. Seeing how you can easily die in combat, this sort of execution discourages player from trying to get close and perform more takedowns because they're obviously more fun than the shooting part.

Slow-motion shooting was not really explained well and didn't serve much purpose, so I ended up pretty much not using it or knowing how to use it throughout the game. Too bad they skipped the pointers for that.

While graphics looks the best to date, no doubt, when in motion, either the player or the camera, image blurs and while it may not be so distracting to the eye, it is when you capture screenshots virtually rendering all the screenshots capturing while in motion unusable. Seems they later released camera mode... too bad it wasn't in the game from the very start.

Ending boss battle, while abrupt, was not the final battle... or so I thought. After defeating the last boss the game just waits for you to execute him. Took me several minutes to realise there is no alternative to that. Well, linear story doesn't give you choices, but in the end I really didn't want to pull the trigger. It doesn't diminishes the game's greatness, but leaves many things unresolved... like an intro for a sequel.

The Bottom Line
I couldn't say this game has longer or much more cinematics than Uncharted game series, and even though I was expecting very little gameplay from what I read and saw about the game before getting it, it's all wrong. This game has plenty of gameplay and just enough cutscenes to keep the story going. This game has interesting story and gameplay and graphics are nicely balanced, cutscenes and in-game moments show no different in graphics and level of details, very often, just walking down the streets and enjoying the spooky atmosphere while carrying your oil lamp is enough to appreciate and enjoy this game. Graphics, atmosphere, music and sound effects, gameplay, and the story are all good. I am not a player who likes replaying games and going through known stories over and over again, nor do I care for multiplayer whatsoever, and as such this game is just up my alley. There are many multiplayer-oriented games as well as games with high replayability level, and games like this one are rather rare thing these days. Just a reason more to appreciate it.