The Order: 1886: beautiful, but flawed

It is unlikely we will see a game this polarising for the rest of the year - nor one with such a mix of the stunningly brilliant and the desperately average.

 

The Order: 1886

From: Sony.
For: PlayStation 4
Three stars (out of five)

 

You have, by now, heard of The Order: 1886, arguably the most hyped game of this generation.

You have probably heard much talk of it being very pretty but a little boring, and may be wondering if Signal has the same opinion.

At the risk of being a broken record: yes, we do.

It's a very pretty game, and it's also a little boring.

But how much weight should be given to each opinion?

The Order: 1886 is a steampunk-inspired third-person shooter set in London, but not exactly the city as you picture it in the Victorian era.

It's extremely dark and scary, and lurking around corners are frightening creatures called half-breeds, a combination of man and animal.

Your heroes are King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - yes, seriously - who are mired in a battle with the half-breeds until discovering something called Blackwater, a liquid with magical properties that will assist no end in the fight.

There's your set-up. Now on to the good stuff.

Firstly, The Order is just so beautiful.

Yes, yes, you've heard this about so many games in recent times, thanks to the processing power of modern consoles.

But this takes it to another level.

The setting is exquisite and the production values spectacular.

Games just shouldn't look this good.

Along with the sharp visuals is a soundtrack that is a perfect mix of moody and menacing, and voiceover work that is spot on.

The interactive cutscenes are overdone (more discussion of that to follow), but they are so well edited, and so gritty and so interesting that you don't get too bored of them.

A big part of steampunk is crazy weaponry - and there is plenty to choose from here.

Try the Thermite Rifle, which spews out magnesium shot, or the Arc Gun (electricity) or the triple-barrelled shotgun.

Overall, the idea of The Order is great.

So, here endeth the review. Oh.

The major problem with the game is that you just don't get to play it enough.

The cutscenes are constant and a huge amount of gameplay involves that ''press X when a prompt appears'' style that is fine occasionally but is way overdone here.

There are just too many periods when you are watching the game, not playing it.

There's a bit of exploration, but the main actual gameplay is run-hide-shoot stuff in the style of Gears of War, but not quite as smooth.

The Order: 1886 is a promising but limited first entry in what looks set to be a permanent franchise.

If sequels can maintain the loveliness and inject lots more action, we could be on to something really good.