I would not call Watch Dogs a "cynical cash-grab" at all, it felt like the developers of that game truly cared.
With this game it looks as though Ready at Dawn just mish mashed a bunch of things together without consideration for if they would actually fit, and with unskippable cutscenes taking up a third of the game's length it's understandable that people are pissed.
Also Ready at Dawn seem to have a really bad habit of not knowing when to shut the hell up, first they spouted nonsense with their whole "30 FPS looks more cinematic then 60 FPS" spiel, and then they whined about negative reviews calling them "haterade", what a bunch of idiots.
It's said because i actually liked RAD's portable games like Daxter, but Angry Joe's review of this game confirms what many of us were suspecting all along- the devs were so obsessed with graphics that they forgot to put that much thought into the rest of the game.
"and a surprisingly strong female presence"
What? Three women is surprisingly strong? I suppose so, in the unrelenting sausage-fest of todays games. I wish this game had the world building you speak of, or the original, unpredictable story, you say it has...it doesnt. The order is really just a repeat of Destiny and Watch_Dogs.
Zero personality, boring and pointless story...pretty grapics though...
This game is the most perfect example of the adage "Great graphics do not a good game make."
^^What, so the game itself doesn't confirm anything about its design or what was going on during the development process, but rather a review of it does? How does that make sense? I thought this is talking about the game, not reviews of the game.
The gameplay isn\'t even lackluster. It doesn\'t bring anything new to the table, but that\'s not a bad thing. The gameplay is still solid. Seriously, lackluster or bad are when the gameplay isn\'t functional and that can cause you to die (ex. Bubsy 3D). This is not the case here. Destiny wasn\'t even a cash grab. If you want a legitimate cash grab then the new Ghostbusters video game is it. The Order: 1886 isn\'t short. It takes about as long as the devs said. Did you bother trying to get all of the trophies? Also, there\'s two things that few, if any, seem to bother mentioning: the QT Es and the 30 fps framerate are actually positives. The QT Es actually give you something to do during what would otherwise be ordinary cutscenes. Speaking of which, the game mastered seamless cutscene-gameplay integration. If the framerate was 60 fps it would be largely inconsistent.
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Great presentation, lackluster gameplay
By now I'm sure you've heard that The Order: 1886 is herald of the PS4's doom; a testimony to the vanity and unoriginality of the video games of the eighth console generation. Well, this game is not perfect - in fact it gets a lot wrong - but it's nowhere near as bad people have been saying it is.
Let's get the obvious out of the way first: this game has extremely limited gameplay. The singleplayer campaign is the only mode present, something I would normally not take issue with if the singleplayer was long, in depth, and had high replay value (in fact I usually detest the multiplayer in games), but the campaign is uninventive in terms of gameplay. The entire game is third person, cover-based shooting a la Gears of War with occasional stealth segments and some vanilla platforming. Bland and undaring, to say the least. The game is also short, though NOT as short as you've heard it to be (if you complete this game in 5 hours you're rushing, and it took me one weekend to get through the game at a leisurely pace).
This restrictive game world and intermediate length are both disappointing, since the setting and story of The Order are really good. Actually, they're damn great. Ready at Dawn's vision of this Alternate History 1886 is a stunning cross between Steam Punk, gothic horror, and fantasy, rendered with truly marvelous graphics that are by far the best I've seen in the current console generation. The story is original and unpredictable, aided by top-notch voice acting and a surprisingly strong female presence. Again, the shame is that the game is restrictive and short, since this is a setting that deserves to be explored in detail filled with character arcs that you want to see resolved.
Ultimately, The Order: 1886 is at its core bland, functional, and basic, yet it is wrapped up in the kind of world-building we need in video games. Ready at Dawn obviously cared about their game, even if they faltered in terms of gameplay, unlike other eighth-generation, cynical cash grabs like Watch_Dogs and Destiny. I would rate this game 7/10. I bought it at full price, but no one will fault you for waiting until the price falls to, say, $18.86. I will, nevertheless, remain a defender of this flawed but well-crafted game.