You know, I didn’t think about framerate or resolution once when I got to play The Order 1886 yesterday. What I did think was that it felt like playing through an old Cinemascope movie. With at least one very cool signature weapon.
I played through the Inequalities chapter that’s been previously shown, huddling behind cover and blasting away at human enemies across the streets of an alternate-reality London. Shooters live and die by the ingenuity of their weapon design and The Order‘s thermite rifle was the first thing to make me think that there might be some spark to the thought going into the game. It’s a dual-action firearm that fires a long-range burst of combustible thermite particles that can be set aflame by a flare.
So, as two or three enemies scrambled on a roof across the street, I could fire the thermite cloud first and then shoot the flare to instantly explode the air around them. Follow-up clouds keep the fire going, too. Players can also fire the complementary payloads in a different order, going flare first and thermite next for a delayed reaction. I also used a pistol during a sequence where I had to drag a fallen friendly to safety but didn’t note anything remarkable about the gun during my brief time with it.
Later on in the demo, I used the game’s Blacksight power to slow down time and down enemies with deadly precision. A corollary of drinking a mysterious fluid called Blackwater, the ability was reminiscent of the Deadeye mechanic in Red Dead Redemption.
Much has been made of the framerate for Ready At Dawn’s upcoming PS4 exclusive, which is 30 frames per second. The game’s also going to live inside a 1920×900 window on-screen, instead of the more common 1920×1080 resolution, to better approximate a cinematic experience.
Those choices about how to present the game have been made in the service of creating a specific effect and I can say that The Order does generate a very specific Victorian-era, everyone-has-blacklung mood. The world looks bleak and dank but is also sharply detailed and impressively lit. The steampunk detailing on the gear doesn’t jump out as overly egregious — it’s not gears everywhere from what I can remember — but does underscore the idea that technological development took a very different path in the game’s fictional universe.
The demo I played was short, ending with a cliffhanger encounter with a masked enemy using the same thermite weaponry that the game’s protagonists use. Despite the quickness of my first taste of The Order, my level of curiosity about the game definitely increased. It feels like the 2015 game has a clear vision that it’s trying to execute. We’ll see how well it does that when it hits PS4 next February.
Comments
34 responses to “Playing The Order 1886 Feels Like Shooting Through An Old Movie”
It just looks boring.
Aka “to better compensate for the lack of power of the console”.
Nope, I definitely think it is a style over power thing.
Must be cold way up there on that horse though.
No high horse here, I just think people are incredibly gullible if they think these are ‘artistic’ decisions.
The currently available evidence is that first gen games on the PS4 are not capable of hitting 1080p, 60fps with any consistency. So while these guys can wax lyrical about how arty is all looks, the truth is that didn’t have any choice in the matter.
I also think that anyone who has played games at 30ish fps or 60-100ish fps on a PC will know which is more pleasant.
the 1080 thing is moot here, as the game is letterboxed 1.85:1 instead of 16:9. it’s not upscaling a 900p render, technically it is a 1080p with black bars.
Thank you. Saved me typing it. Was getting frustrated reading the complaining of people who don’t understand what they are complaining about.
Yes, I realise that. Nevertheless, those black bars are saving the machine a lot of extra processing work.
a PC that can hit 60-100fps in a game with that kinda graphics will set you down atleast 1500$ thats 3 times the price of a frikin ps4. Don’t get me wrong.. ive spent 2900$ on my pc 2 years ago and had to put a 900$ graphics card to get a decent fps on watchdogs ( custom build pc not off the shelf crap)
Id say 90% of these PCs you keep mentioning would be hitting less than 30 in ANY modern game..
So PC Masterace is bullshit.. Just pick what you can afford or like and enjoy it.. without this fanboy bullshit
You know that’s bullshit right? 1500 bucks? Really?
I’m not denying that technical limitations don’t play a part, but I don’t think it’s gullibility of consumers either. Aesthetics are so subjective, people know waht they like, and why. I’m happy to look at something overall and consider how much I like it on it’s own merits. My yard stick I keep coming back to is how nice The Last of Us looked on PS3, and I can’t help but expect that any PS4 game could look at least as good as that.
I think people like you think they know more than they do. People like you put “artistic” in quotations because when they don’t understand something they make it seem foreign. Your evidence is the perspective of an uneducated, ignorant consumer. It’s also not evidence, in fact, i could call it “evidence”. And no, I don’t agree that 60 is always more pleasant. Not that it isn’t but there have been many occasions where it didn’t matter. I’m a PC gamer and I always have been but the role of a TV to a console is wildly different to the role of a monitor to a PC. I play Rome 2 on my PC at 100+fps and just the other day I finished Burial at Sea on my PS3 (which was not 60fps) and didn’t find my way to the internet to whine with the expectation people believe your non-evidence.
You’re ignorant, plain and simple. There is NOTHING behind anything you say. You also clearly have a gross misunderstanding of certain words, such as; artistic, arty, evidence and truth. Read those definitions then read your stupid post again.
I dunno if I would say its a lack of power from the console, I mean its clearly not lacking power (for a console). But you are correct, the platform itself still has clear technical limitations.
Yes just like Tarantino made the Showdown at House of Blue Leaves scene black and white because of the gore instead of the cinematic experience he was going for. Eye rolling intensifies.
Consumers need to learn their place rather than dictating to creators their reasons how and why, if you don’t like it don’t buy it but don’t sit at your computer howling at these people that they are wrong because you think you know so much better. Alternatively get out there and create some actual proof for your assumptions rather than gobbling up every pissing match article about cpu cycles, frame rates and performance bottlenecks.
Unfortunately, thats what armchair critics and keyboard warriors do!
Its like when I go to the footy and hear the idiots who are supposed to be supporting the same team I do mercilessly insult and bag our players for ONE wrong thing, completely ignoring the 30 right things they do for the whole game
One could argue that many of those who make movies (or make video games or play professional organised sport) are meeting a consumer demand for entertainment, and so considering feedback from their target market is in their best interests. If they just do it for the love and don’t give a shit if anyone like its or even watches it, more power to ’em. They don’t have to listen to the feedback, but peole can spout it to whoever cares to listen.
Whilst I agree 100% with your overall point your example of the House of Blue leaves is incorrect. It was shot in color and was changed to black & white to get an acceptable rating from the MPAA rather that being forced to heavily recut the scene. The Japanese got the full color cut on their version of Volume 1 with a few extra moments of gore.
I thought it was in colour for the Japanese release?
addressed below
Er, actually the MPAA demanded either a toning down of the gore, or black’n’white:
http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/222/kill-bill-colour-changes-to-black-and-white
And as gydafud above said, it was shown in colour in Japan…
Whether or not he did it to avoid censorship is debated(he did cut parts of the animated sequence rather than make it B&W) it is still a style choice to make it B&W, and it was still in reference to the way many samurai films were presented in the US. A lot of the early coloured samurai films were still presented B&W to the US because of the gore.
As @gydafud said it was uncut in Japan because they don’t have the same issues with blood and Tarantino said they wouldn’t get the references with the B&W.
Are you seriously suggesting that the public isn’t allowed to form whatever opinion it likes about products offered for public consumption and to express that opinion?
Given this game is already running at a pitiful 30fps, it is hardly surprising if people are cynical about an “artistic” decision to reduce its effective resolution.
What gives you the right to decide when people can or cannot express a view about something? Why not apply your ‘wisdom’ to yourself:
“People replying to comments need to learn their place rather than dictating to OPs their reasons how and why, if you don’t like it don’t read it but don’t sit at your computer howling at these people that they are wrong because you think you know so much better.”
There you go, works for everything. No-one may comment on anything, we must all mutely accept everything. All corporate propaganda must be accepted at face value and no opinion on a video game is valid unless the creators of the game expressly approve that opinion in advance.
You can have an opinion all you want, you can think things are terrible or they are great based on the content. But that is not what you are saying at all, you are determining their creative process from your own knowledge based on technology performance, giving absolutely no proof what so ever of your opinion.
Had you said “I think it will be shit because its 30 fps” that is an opinion based on personal preference. Your was “It will be shit because they couldn’t get it to do what I think it should do because the hardware they are using is inferior based on my knowledge that has been fed to me through internet articles and have no further proof that it is true”
Yeah, that’s not what I said at all. I actually expressed no view about whether the game will be good or bad.
Are you suggesting that there aren’t established cases of games not running at 1080p/60fps on the PS4 because they are too demanding and/or not well enough optimised? It would be a very strange decision to make Watch Dogs, Destiny, etc not run at maximum resolution/frame rate just for the fun of it. Or maybe those were ‘artistic’ choices too?
I also find it odd that you are attacking someone for commenting on public statements made by someone which are designed to promote a video game. They can make PR type comments about their game, but I can’t comment about the same thing?
And FYI I can have an opinion about whatever I want, not just the approved categories you seem to want to limit me to.
You sound a lot like a PS4 fanatic who thinks I’m ragging on the console. I’m not. I have a PS3 and a PC which outperforms it by about 2000%, and I still enjoy playing games on the PS3 from time to time.
I’m not arguing against this at all, but generally I would be pretty confident in saying that there are many cases where games are released that do not perform to the potential that a given conslose can handle. It may be because of ‘artistic’ choices, but could be due myriad other reasons also. The not well enough optimised (for whatever reason, time, money, know-how)would be my pick for the majority of cases though.
God. This guy doesn’t even know what opinion means. Accusations aren’t opinions. Saying whatever is not an opinion. Opinion actually has a very specific definition, look it up. It actually doesn’t mean “misrepresent the intentions of other people with my discourse whilst lacking any sort of evidence or reasonable argument devoid of gross narcissism and ignorance”. You are continually deciding the intentions of developers when you clearly have no concept or respect for art, narrative or design. Your opinion isn’t that the art is dumb, it’s that the intentions of the developers are not genuine and your main reasoning is writing “artistic” and nothing. You’re trying to assume the intentions of people when you couldn’t possibly know. Your reasoning only works when you can’t conceive of a scenario where you would seemingly downgrade something for creative purposes. Unfortunately for you, people can conceive of these situations; you can’t.
Just generally sick of whingers like you waltzing into any console/pc/board/pen and paper/whatever other type of game forum you can think of and spouting off saying you think you know the real reasons behind other people intentions, because you read online that it can/can’t be done so they must be lying. Yawn.
Notice how I didn’t say there weren’t technical limitations? Sure it probably can’t run at full 60fps and 1080p resolution the way they designed it, that does not mean that their choice to lock it at 30fps and present it in ultrawide is not artistic. They could of by all means lets the fps fluctuate just like second son did at full 1080p frame. They could of sacrificed detail to reach that 60fps full hd mark that seems oh so precious to you. They didn’t, they chose to hit the mark they felt artistically suited their vision within the performance they could achieve.
That is the science behind art, you have to find the mark you want to hit that both expresses your vision and remains within the technical limitations of the medium. You know, like why do people still paint portraits when they can just take a picture? You’ll never create a absolutely perfect copy of the person with your hand and paint but a photo will.
Not to mention without technical proof you can’t claim the PS4 can’t do XYZ, that’s what they said about the PS3 and it still did XYZ. Look at The Last of US, if you showed that to people at the start of the PS3’s life they would of laughed you off.
Response to this post is proof people would prefer to make wild assumptions that suit their ignorance than actually knowing what they’re talking about.
Aka “to compensate for the lack of technical ability Naughty Dogs is doing with TLOU and will wipe the floor with this game when Uncharted 4 is released”.
Anyone who switches between 30 and 60 on the TLOU and doesn’t think 60 blows 30 away will enjoy this game no doubt.
Heck movies are always giving me the shits at 24fps.
I like that they went cinemascope style for this game, I only play on a projector, so the wide format will feel just right. I have no issues with the top and bottom chopped off as a stylistic choice, it really looks the part.
I feel like this should’ve been a launch title like Resistance for PS3. A solid shooter but nothing I’ve seen has made me want it now that there are other games out for the platform. I couldn’t give two cahoots about how the game looks or what style it’s in, it looks like something I’ll be bored by quite quickly
i hate to be beating a dead horse.. but i wish it was coming to PC too ^^;;
I reckon like say Reaistance 3 if you ignore any negative assumptions and actually play The Order and make one’s own opinion it will turn out to be a fantastic game on its own merits.
Holy shit Resistance 3 is a great game.
You, this and +1
I don’t give a shit about the resolution or frame rate, it just looks like a linear as hell corridor shooter. The atmosphere isn’t enough for me. ‘Cinematic’ games are not my thing.
Question: if the frame rate is meant to invoke the cinematic experience, why is this running at 30 and not locked to to 24?
It’s funny, after the current kerfuffle about Youtubers possibly getting paid for favourable content, we now have pretty conclusive evidence Kotaku being paid to do the same. Shame.