POSTED 6/3/15


THE ORDER: 1886

Sony

Is this the England we want?

Arthurian legend stuff? Check. Steampunky bits and bobs including blimps? Check. Nikola Tesla and his wonderful toys? Big check. Muttonchops and various other beardy-based follicular arrangements that’d make any hipster crumble in tears of envy? You better believe it, check.

So far, so yeah – ‘London Calling’. But that feeling soon subsides and we turn into ‘The Passenger’...

The Order: 1886 ramps the cinematic up to 11. We’re even talking chunky black bars top and bottom to give the classic cinemascope look. We don’t mind that.

It also sticks story to the fore. Great characters – including famed original Arthurian kerniggets many centuries after they should’ve gone all shuffle, shuffle bye-bye miss mortal coil pie. There’s some serious Nivea shit going on here.

Anyway, they’re protecting England for Her Madge, and face a whole new situation of ‘half breeds’. We’re not talking Cher songs either, rather Lycans. Like AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ‘Werewolves of London’. We don’t mind that, either.

Yet ultimately, it’s standard third-person cover shooter stuff with a fun array of weapons but very little player involvement. Yep, they wanted to make a movie so bad that it seems like The Order’s creators resented the need for interaction. As such pissy, entirely unnecessary quicktime events rule, while cutscenes clock up more time than gameplay. To make matters worse, the latter are completely, totally and utterly unskippable! Not so bad on take one, but after that? Fuck. Just fuck.

They are, however, impressively almost seamlessly integrated.

There’s no multiplayer nor online, so replayability’s minimal, save for chasing a handful of bastardly collectibles. Play length’s hardly epic, but that’s bearable if the experience is good.

The story’s good, but overall we felt like a hanger-on rather than a player. Probably because we were.

Sadly, unlike the New Order compilation that it rips its logo from, The Order: 1886 has very little substance.

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