I picked this up a few weeks ago at Gamestop because it's been recommended by a few people here along with a few of my personal friends. The word was that it was actually a decent third person shooter with great graphics and was vastly underrated and didn't deserve all the shit it got when it launched.

After playing for about seven minutes, I disagree.

This game has the single worst opening to any video game I've ever played. If you're going to open your game with a section where my character crawls around and stumbles all over the place . . . screw you. Why the hell would you waste my time like that? This is such a bullshit way to open a game, and I immediately lost interest, to the point where I'm never playing it again. It's going back to Gamestop the next time I make a trip to town.

This has been cheapLEY's off-topic post of the day. You may now returned to you regularly scheduled programming.

Only a matter of time now before Korny shows up.

Jimmies = potentially rustled.

This game has the single worst opening to any video game I've ever played. If you're going to open your game with a section where my character crawls around and stumbles all over the place . . . screw you. Why the hell would you waste my time like that? This is such a bullshit way to open a game, and I immediately lost interest, to the point where I'm never playing it again.

I do not recommend MGSV.

- No text -

MGSV is good, but man, that opening drags...

I've been waiting for months for an excuse to post this, seems like I might not get a better time:

MGSV is good, but man, that opening drags...

I've been waiting for months for an excuse to post this, seems like I might not get a better time:

Okay, that was dumb. (I never played the game, but that was dumb.)

Guy sees you on the bridge (he WAVES at you!), sees you get back in the truck, sees you drive towards him... doesn't open the truck door?

WTF

Okay, that was dumb. (I never played the game, but that was dumb.)

Guy sees you on the bridge (he WAVES at you!), sees you get back in the truck, sees you drive towards him... doesn't open the truck door?

WTF

He didn't see me on the bridge. That "wave" was just an idle animation. You can tell if an Enemy is suspicious/alerted if the red waypoint over them is flashing.

There's a button to "hide" when you're inside a vehicle. When I pressed it, the truck's engine turned off and coasted into the concrete barrier.

I suspect that the AI just doesn't have an animation/case for inspecting vehicle interiors while you are hiding in them, but I never did any testing after this. This could have just been an edge-case.

I suspect that the AI just doesn't have an animation/case for inspecting vehicle interiors while you are hiding in them, but I never did any testing after this. This could have just been an edge-case.

Probably. Hiding in a dumpster, if you make any noise (such as sneezing or coughing) they will open it and kill you. I always wondered what the cold medicine did, and it keeps you from sneezing when it gets chilly.

Heh, never played MGSV but that truck looks a lot like the trucks you hide under/around in Metal Gear: Snakes Revenge! I think I'd love this game.

- No text -

I picked this up a few weeks ago at Gamestop because it's been recommended by a few people here along with a few of my personal friends. The word was that it was actually a decent third person shooter with great graphics and was vastly underrated and didn't deserve all the shit it got when it launched.

After playing for about seven minutes, I disagree.

This game has the single worst opening to any video game I've ever played. If you're going to open your game with a section where my character crawls around and stumbles all over the place . . . screw you. Why the hell would you waste my time like that? This is such a bullshit way to open a game, and I immediately lost interest, to the point where I'm never playing it again. It's going back to Gamestop the next time I make a trip to town.

This has been cheapLEY's off-topic post of the day. You may now returned to you regularly scheduled programming.

I've heard some say it got a bad rap, and it does some things right. There are too many other games out there to play that have done more things right. My time is limited.

I picked this up a few weeks ago at Gamestop because it's been recommended by a few people here along with a few of my personal friends. The word was that it was actually a decent third person shooter with great graphics and was vastly underrated and didn't deserve all the shit it got when it launched.

After playing for about seven minutes, I disagree.

This game has the single worst opening to any video game I've ever played. If you're going to open your game with a section where my character crawls around and stumbles all over the place . . . screw you. Why the hell would you waste my time like that? This is such a bullshit way to open a game, and I immediately lost interest, to the point where I'm never playing it again. It's going back to Gamestop the next time I make a trip to town.

This has been cheapLEY's off-topic post of the day. You may now returned to you regularly scheduled programming.

That's fine.
A thought process like yours is one that I'm thankful not to have (no offense). There are plenty of great things that I've experienced that I didn't like at first, such as the first two episodes of Bojack Horseman (which are really bad), but sitting through the short bits that I don't like really only strengthens what I do like about the bigger picture. Sure, sometimes I end up playing Dark Souls 2 for six hours, and the game is garbage the entire time, but other times I'll end up with something like the aforementioned Bojack, which is one of the most honest, outstanding shows around.

I know many people who think Breaking Bad sucks, because the first few episodes were really "boring". Those of us who kept watching witnessed a show that pretty much perfected storytelling by its end.
On the flip-side, I know plenty of people who think Rick and Morty is anywhere close to resembling "good", and it really isn't. It doesn't ever get better, so sometimes tastes differ.

If the first five minutes of the game are enough for you to deem the entire package as "garbage" enough to shout it from the rooftops, then that's fine. I really hope you don't end up playing The Last of Us, which is pretty terrible, since you start out by playing as a little girl just walking around a house for five minutes. ;)

I know many people who think Breaking Bad sucks, because the first few episodes were really "boring". Those of us who kept watching witnessed a show that pretty much perfected storytelling by its end.

I'm that person. I gave Breaking Bad three episodes and it did nothing for me. I've been told to power through the first season. I'm not watching ten hours of a show before there's any chance of finding enjoyment in it. Life's too short.

If the first five minutes of the game are enough for you to deem the entire package as "garbage" enough to shout it from the rooftops, then that's fine. I really hope you don't end up playing The Last of Us, which is pretty terrible, since you start out by playing as a little girl just walking around a house for five minutes. ;)

The thing is, I love The Last of Us, and I think the beginning is perfect. It's intriguing and makes me want to explore the house. The Order makes the fundamental act of controlling your character unbearable. Every time he stumbles and wrests control from me it's annoying. It's not dramatic or tense. It's just bad design.

I hate segments like that in the middle of games, but I forgive them because I've already been shown the strengths of the game. Starting a game like that is ridiculous and is basically starting a game on an extremely weak note. It'd be like if Halo had started with the level The Library, except far worse than that, because The Library can still be fun.

If The Order had opened with basically the same scene except as a cutscene, if have happily watched it and possibly be enjoying the rest of the game. But trying to control an unresponsive character is an almost unforgivable way to open a game for me. It tells me immediately that the game doesn't respect my time and isn't giving me what I want. I'm a firm believer that games should open on strong points that highlight the good things about the gameplay.

I fully recognize that I've missed out on a ton of great games by making snap judgments made on first impressions. I've also given bad games way too many chances to win me over for weird reasons. I've talked before about my problems feeling like I'm always missing some great game I should be playing. But I'm getting better at that, and this is part of that. Life is too short and there too many other games to play.

For what it's worth, my first post was supposed to come off as more sarcastic and light hearted than it actually did. I'm trying to be better about that too, but clearly it needs more work. Really I was just flabbergasted that anyone would open a game in such an awful way.

I know many people who think Breaking Bad sucks, because the first few episodes were really "boring". Those of us who kept watching witnessed a show that pretty much perfected storytelling by its end.

I'm that person. I gave Breaking Bad three episodes and it did nothing for me. I've been told to power through the first season. I'm not watching ten hours of a show before there's any chance of finding enjoyment in it. Life's too short.

There's nothing wrong with being this person. Life is short, and we have an embarrassment of riches in terms of good art to digest.

I didn't love early Breaking Bad either. It seemed too cute and kind of gimmicky. I also was kind of bored with the first season of Justified. It seemed formulaic. Both these shows I ended up loving. One thing about TV is that rarely does a good show start out as good as it gets. Characters come into focus--the show runners realize what the show's strengths are. Watch early Seinfeld. George Castanza, Elaine, and Kramer were not yet what they became.

The thing is, I love The Last of Us, and I think the beginning is perfect. It's intriguing and makes me want to explore the house. The Order makes the fundamental act of controlling your character unbearable. Every time he stumbles and wrests control from me it's annoying. It's not dramatic or tense. It's just bad design... I'm a firm believer that games should open on strong points that highlight the good things about the gameplay.

But the first five minutes of The Last of Us are just watching a child walk around the house. The next five minutes are a slow car ride that only lets you look around, and the next five minutes are just helplessly running. Given that none of these segments remotely resembles the gameplay of the rest of the game, by your own admission these are three consecutive instances of the game "not respecting your time" and "not giving you what you want".

Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Should we say that the film is garbage after the first ten minutes, because the pacing is slow (doesn't respect your time), and is not representative of the rest of the film (not giving you what you want)? Who are these people? Why should I care? They're not important, so what's the point? 2001 is garbage!

For what it's worth, my first post was supposed to come off as more sarcastic and light hearted than it actually did. I'm trying to be better about that too, but clearly it needs more work. Really I was just flabbergasted that anyone would open a game in such an awful way.

The problem with written statements is that it's never about what you wanted to say, it's what you say. You said "The Order 1886 is garbage", not "I played less than ten minutes of The Order: 1886, and they did something that I don't enjoy in video games". The problem is that you used an absolute statement that people can take at face value, because there is no way to interpret it as "sarcastic and light hearted". If you watch the first ten minutes of Breaking Bad, and you say "Breaking Bad is garbage", then someone who enjoys great storytelling might pass and miss out on the show, because they think that your statement is based on a solid foundation, instead of just an odd pet peeve that you decided overrides every single bit of the rest of the package for you. Sure, you specified within the post about your specific nitpick, but not everyone is going to analyze the context of your initial statements.

Nobody likes people who make exaggerated opinions as if they were the absolute truth; it can skew one's perception of something that they don't know anything about.

I gave Breaking Bad three episodes and it did nothing for me.

Literally the worst mistake in history.

- No text -

The thing is, I love The Last of Us, and I think the beginning is perfect. It's intriguing and makes me want to explore the house. The Order makes the fundamental act of controlling your character unbearable. Every time he stumbles and wrests control from me it's annoying. It's not dramatic or tense. It's just bad design... I'm a firm believer that games should open on strong points that highlight the good things about the gameplay.

But the first five minutes of The Last of Us are just watching a child walk around the house. The next five minutes are a slow car ride that only lets you look around, and the next five minutes are just helplessly running. Given that none of these segments remotely resembles the gameplay of the rest of the game, by your own admission these are three consecutive instances of the game "not respecting your time" and "not giving you what you want".

I can't argue with any of that. It just worked for me in an way that The Order definitely did not. Maybe TLoU caught me on a good day and The Order on a bad. I don't know. I do know that I do not like the way The Order opens, to the point that I nearly actively resent it.

Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Should we say that the film is garbage after the first ten minutes, because the pacing is slow (doesn't respect your time), and is not representative of the rest of the film (not giving you what you want)? Who are these people? Why should I care? They're not important, so what's the point? 2001 is garbage!

I wouldn't call someone wrong for thinking that. 2001 is a great movie, and I think the opening of the film works well in context of the whole. But taken by itself? It's terribly boring and overly long. I wouldn't judge anyone that didn't make it all the way through the opening before turning it off and calling it quits, and I wouldn't argue with someone that says it doesn't respect their time.

Maybe it's the same with The Order. Maybe the opening needs context from or provides context for the greater whole. I don't know, but I instinctively doubt it.

Nobody likes people who make exaggerated opinions as if they were the absolute truth; it can skew one's perception of something that they don't know anything about.

Now I know how Cody feels. (:

But point taken. I've worked pretty hard over the last few years to be less cynical and less of an asshole both in person and online. It's easy to forget that tone is hard to convey in situations like this, and I'll try to do better to keep that in mind.

I don't usually bail on games based on the first bit of gameplay but two recent games had me deleting them right off the bat.

The first was the LEGO Age of Ultron demo. I know there's a lot of love for the LEGO games, but I will probably never try another one because of what this demo did. The darn game basically refused to lift a single finger to teach me how to play it! I started off as Hawkeye and Black Widow and through button mashing managed to fight over to a river that blocked me from continuing onward. I spent 10 minutes trying to cross that river. Did jumping work? Nope! No matter how I tried to jump I only ever landed in the river and died. There were logs flowing down the river so maybe it was a simple jumping puzzle? Nope! Still instant death. This was made 1000% more insanely frustrating by the fact that my other AI controlled character would happily jump across to the other side and back over and over as my active character fell to their deaths a bajillion times. Finally, I got a help dialog box that told me to press something to aim the cursor to activate Hawkeye's special rope arrow... That the game had not show before and certainly not tried to train me to use before.

I made it over the river and promptly deleted the demo never to play it, or any other LEGO games ever again.

Slightly more recently, Telltale's The Wolve Among Us was free on Xbox Live. I gave it a shot and it too was deleted within 10 minutes. Why? Because in the first action sequence they dropped a completely unfamiliar QuickTime event on me which I immediately failed because I couldn't figure out what the game was even asking me to do! I had zero chance of completing the action correctly within the two seconds it gave me to do so. I found that to be completely unacceptable, especially in a game that would feature many more QuickTime events and where my ability to complete them would have a large effect on the story...

Well, now I have no plans to play another Telltale game. Good job guys.

So yeah, while I'd probably give The Order 1886 a chance to get past it's overly dramatic opening and show me it's real gameplay, I can understand saying "Nope. Next, please." to a game that starts out poorly.

World-building good. Gunplay of such absolute 5/10 "not good not bad"-ness it's almost impressive. Visuals great. Obligatory stealth section meh. Exciting new weapons interesting but not that exciting. Werewolves boring. "Boss fights" awful.

Overall it's the epitome of a functional shooter. It's a standard cover-shooter and not a lot more, with the exception of being very pretty. If you have time to kill and find it cheap, it's not a "bad" way to spend 5 hours. But like Kermit said - there are better games; can't blame you for playing those instead.

What exactly do you mean by an "unfamiliar" QTE? It wasn't a button prompt, I assume?

What exactly do you mean by an "unfamiliar" QTE? It wasn't a button prompt, I assume?

I remember. It's a series of fairly easy "Move left thumbstick right/left/down" stuff along with some regular button prompts. It's stuck in my mind because they give you a comically long time to get it right, and my older sister still botched it, to the mocking laughter of my siblings.

The fight sequences don't actually have a huge impact on the story, they tend to end the same way each time, but they're usually plot-relevant, so worrying that failure will affect the story is not a valid concern.

The gameplay feels great and responsive, and the core elements have the potential for excellence, although it gets let down by two things:
1-Most encounters don't do a very good job of moving beyond a cover-shootout. Shotgun dudes seemed like an attempt at breaking things up and putting pressure on the player, but they always wound up feeling orthogonal to the engagement and also just really annoying when used in that role. This is a game where the firefighty engagements shine, and there were nowhere near enough of those.
2-Stealth sections are pretty janky.

Visuals are impressive and sell the alternate 19th-century London really well.

Narratively I actually thought it was't bad. Visualized as a narrative about the whole war that it's taking place in it's terrible, but visualized as a sort of Episode 0 for the setting and Galahad's character it works pretty well. In that sense, I think TO1886 would get looked at somewhat better if it could ever get a decent sequel. It's sad; the pieces are there, and TO1887 could potentially have been stellar.