The Order: 1886

Ever since the first gameplay video I'm curious if these pieces of cloth are simulated. Could anybody please shoot them and post the results? Thanks.

ibquaeqk8m7cPQ.jpg
 
I'm on the second part of chapter nine now, about ~8 hours in total. There have been far less QTE's than I was expecting but the way in which the game holds your hand is a little annoying. Some sections, where you have a perfectly good weapon already, you are forced to take out an enemy by melee. I'd much prefer to pick my own method of dispatch! The story is no master piece of subtlety but it very well voiced and supported by quite an exquisite soundtrack.

The visuals are mind blowing for the most part. Some areas (trains!) are just visually lush that they might as well be a film. The IQ ans overall polish is second to none.

I'd give it a 7 or 8/10 based on my experience so far.
 
Excellent summary of the technology and why it's the king in graphics currently.
Lots of masturbatory fluff in that analysis.

Missing shadows in some direct lighting situations. Particles like that of the smoke grenade don't seem to receive any lighting.Also basic explosions drop the framerate substantially though only for a small amount of time. He really oversells the dynamic reflections since they only take into account the shape of the character but not the color at all so they end up looking very simple. No mention of the ever present blur either.

Shadows don't really have variable penumbra. The reason why they look blurrier at a distance is because the shadow map is covering a larger area.
 
The game has quite a lot of problems with gameplay mechanics. A lot of missing highlights: not clear what terrain is traversable, not clear when QTE prompts will show up, very small radius of weapon/ammo pickup, etc.
A lot of problems with feedback: sometimes there is no reaction to hit on some enemies, almost in every QTE it's not clear if you did what's needed, frequently buttons are locked in action sequences and you have no idea when they will become unlocked, lycan fights are just a "lost feedback" fest, because its not clear if you are doing something to the beast, or you just need to spare ammo and do "press x" instead, etc.
Overall the whole thing just screams "noob game designers", unfortunately.
 
Just finished The Order. It's a good cover shooter. It plays like a somewhat second-rate Gears of War or Uncharted, but the shooting is still satisfying and the game works well. I wish RAD had taken it easy with the QTEs though. The story is pretty cool too.

The Order is graphically stunning. It's the best looking game on console, and a solid contender for best looking game period. Negligible aliasing, extreme attention to detail, and superb post-processing make it genuinely look like a CG film. Everyone on this forum should see it in person.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows that The Order looks excellent. It does have some flaws though.

There's an overreliance on prebaked shadowing in a few parts ("The Atrium" in chapter 1 and most of chapter 9), which feels archaic. The standard fire effect looks weak. Reflections are (mostly?) faked, which makes mirrors look awkward. A couple of the running animations look a bit off. Mild shadow aliasing is sometimes visible. Rain looks a touch simple. Finally, AF is low--maybe 2x.

Those are minor issues, though. The graphics are a stellar accomplishment. Here are some screengrabs (which unfortunately suffer from heavy PSN compression):

http://i.imgur.com/3BVmfIE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wYqM8wC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/E5xYiqv.jpg
 
I've just finished. It's been a competent cover shooter with gorgeous visuals lacking in an overall depth. As a sounding board for the tech and as a first entry in a series it has done its job very well. There are lots of gameplay aspects that could be a lot better but it has left me wanting more, in many ways it made me want to go and play Dishonoured again as that was the vibe I was getting from the last few chapters. It did suddenly feel a little on the short side when I reached the end but that is because so many threads were left hanging. It's a perspective issue rather than a physical one though, there was so much left to do and no chance to do it.

I was entertained though and that's what matters!
 
I really didn't expect the game would be so much QTE and cutscenes filled (which really disappoints me). I always thought (wrongly apparently) the scenes shown in the previews were selected because they had particularly high amount of non-interactive cinematic elements.

Because a good deal of negativity on this game was precisely because the game wasn't interactive enough: too much hand holding (mandatory QTE and long cutscenes).

But there is hope for a better reviewed sequel, but only if they remove all (or almost all) the non-interactive elements from their game because otherwise the reviewers will still entirely negatively highlight the intrusive QTEs and custcenes of the... moviegame.
 
Lots of masturbatory fluff in that analysis.

Missing shadows in some direct lighting situations. Particles like that of the smoke grenade don't seem to receive any lighting.Also basic explosions drop the framerate substantially though only for a small amount of time. He really oversells the dynamic reflections since they only take into account the shape of the character but not the color at all so they end up looking very simple. No mention of the ever present blur either.

Shadows don't really have variable penumbra. The reason why they look blurrier at a distance is because the shadow map is covering a larger area.
You're wrong, shadows do have penumbra in this game.
Confirmed by Dark (from Digitalfoundry) as well
 
I really didn't expect the game would be so much QTE and cutscenes filled (which really disappoints me). I always thought (wrongly apparently) the scenes shown in the previews were selected because they had particularly high amount of non-interactive cinematic elements.

Because a good deal of negativity on this game was precisely because the game wasn't interactive enough: too much hand holding (mandatory QTE and long cutscenes).

But there is hope for a better reviewed sequel, but only if they remove all (or almost all) the non-interactive elements from their game because otherwise the reviewers will still entirely negatively highlight the intrusive QTEs and custcenes of the... moviegame.

In the master class Ru said than the approval of a sequel will depend of the sales.
 
Done. It took me 8.5hours to finish the game on hard with just 51% of the trophies collected [i missed several combat ones and all for collectibles].

Overall, I'm quite happy with the game, but it is clear that this game has issues both big and small. Some of those issues can be accepted, some are quite obvious, and I can see that some can easily sour the entire playing experience for some people.
 
You're wrong, shadows do have penumbra in this game.
Confirmed by Dark (from Digitalfoundry) as well
Dark just said the exact same thing as NX Gamer. I didn't see anything about variable penumbra in the DF article. As I said in reponse to NX gamer, when the shadow casting light is close to its target shadows are sharp because the shadowmap covers a small area, when it's far from its target it's blurry because it covers a larger area. Here are a couple of screenshots I took with the Crysis level editor to show off this:

Close:
inYJMQrdl2Y6G.png


Far:
iddkFm9gop1Iv.png


However, if somebody can find a dynamic shadow (and post a picture of that) that looks like this then I'll believe the claims of variable penumbra shadows:

i6tVyGgrpC1iz.jpg


The penumbra starts sharp at the base of the shadow and grows larger at a distance while the light source remains in the same place.
 
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