Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Game: Valiant Hearts: The Great War
System: PS4 (also on PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC)
Genre: Adventure 
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Release date: June 24, 2014

Pros: Amazing art direction, top-tier production values, engaging and diverse gameplay
Cons: Easy puzzles

In an industry filled with war games that ask players to shoot first and ask questions later, it's refreshing to find a game that takes a moment to meditate on the causes and effects of violence, on its meaning, and on its meaninglessness. Valiant Hearts: The Great War, the latest from acclaimed studio Ubisoft Montpellier, is such a game. 

Set in and around the Western Front during the First World War, Valiant Hearts follows several star-crossed characters whose lives are uprooted by the monumental conflict that engulfed all of Europe from 1914 to 1918. The four main characters, all playable, include a French farmer named Emile, conscripted into the French army; his son-in-law Karl, a German native, drafted into the German military machine; a Belgian nurse named Anna; and Freddie, an American expatriate living in Paris who volunteers to fight for the Allies.

Players must solve a variety of puzzles to advance.

Throughout the game's four chapters, which span the beginning of the war to its waning months, players will control all four characters as they solve puzzles and complete a variety of action events, all of which, while not necessarily difficult, are nonetheless engaging. Puzzles include everything from distracting guards to deciphering codes to ordering a faithful canine companion to retrieve out-of-reach items. The puzzles, which come in many shapes and sizes, are fun and rewarding, but difficult they are not. No adventure game enthusiast would ever confuse the linear and approachable puzzles in Valiant Hearts with the brain-melting riddles in the LucasArts canon, for example. Nevertheless, the puzzles are regularly entertaining. 

Even more entertaining that the game's puzzles are its action events, which include stealth sections, chase sequences, military assaults, and, yes, even boss battles. Avoiding sentries and dodging machine gun fire in real time is thrilling, and it provides a much-needed foil to the methodical puzzle-solving that makes up the rest of the game.

Real-time action sequences add variety to this puzzle adventure.

All of these action and puzzle sequences come to life thanks to the UbiArt Framework, a 2.5D engine developed in house at Ubisoft Montpellier. With gorgeous hand-drawn characters and backgrounds, Valiant Hearts at times plays like a wonderful piece of animation, something out of Les Armateurs. The engine and its artists capture the serene beauty of rural France, the fiery hellscape of no man's land, and everything in between. The end result is one of the most visually arresting video games ever made.

While Valiant Hearts may be shorter and less substantial than other big-budget epics, it still manages to pack a punch, artistically and mechanically. The puzzles, however easy, are fun and involving; the action scenes are thrilling and imaginative; and the whole package is beautifully drawn, scored, and written. It's a testament to the creativity of Ubisoft Montpellier. Moreover, it's a testament to the studio's bravery in making a war game less concerned with winners, losers, and kill count than it is on the heroism of everyday people and on war's devastating human cost. Francois Truffaut is credited with saying that making an anti-war movie is impossible, because all war movies end up making combat look like fun. Valiant Hearts is the rare anti-war piece that, by reflecting on the indignity and insanity of war, achieves its goal.

The Order: 1886

Game: The Order: 1886
System: PS4
Genre: Shooter
Developer: Ready at Dawn
Release date: February 20, 2015

Pros: Amazing graphics, stellar production values, first-rate weapon design
Cons: General lack of interactivity, poor aspect ratio, generic shooting gallery sequences

Last year, Dana Jan, who directed The Order: 1886, made headlines when he stated that storytelling is at the "top of the pyramid" and that everything else, gameplay included, supports that capstone. For some, who enjoy the cinematic intensity of games like Uncharted and Heavy Rain, this news was promising. For others, weaned on early-generation games in which storytelling was an afterthought, the idea of gameplay being subordinate to script was anathema. After playing The Order: 1886 for myself, I can say with confidence that Ready at Dawn achieved its mission of placing story and graphics at the forefront in its newest game. The graphics, physics, textures, and lighting are all spectacular. The story, although derivative and anticlimactic, is genuinely intriguing and presented with gusto by a talented cast of voice actors. But, by committing its workers to story and graphics at the expense of gameplay, Ready at Dawn chipped away at the agency of the player. The end result is a gorgeous, atmospheric, stylish video game in which the player is not trusted to do much of anything at all. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "The Order is like a museum. It's very beautiful and very cold, and you're not allowed to touch anything."

Set in an alternate history London, The Order follows an ancient order of knights who protect the world, or at least the British part of the world, from half-breed monsters like werewolves. In the fall of 1886, four of these knights run afoul of two enemies, half-breeds and anti-government rebels, and, perhaps, a larger and more sinister conspiracy.

The knights of The Order descend a Zeppelin.

The story in The Order held my interest throughout, even if, at times, it relies too heavily on the rhetorical devices, motifs, and archetypes of the genre. The characters are well sketched and superbly acted, and the twists and turns, however predictable, are convincing. By the time the credits rolled, roughly seven hours in, I wanted to know more about this alternate version of Victorian England and more about Sir Galahad, the principal protagonist of The Order.

Supporting the story are some of the most sumptuous graphics on PS4, or any other platform for that matter. The particle effects, dynamic lighting, and especially textures in The Order regularly stun. Ready at Dawn actually scanned and digitized period-accurate textiles into their graphics engine to ensure that the clothes worn by Galahad and his confederates look and move accurately. Adding to that sense of realism is a volumetric lighting and fog system that reproduces Victorian London in all its gritty, industrial glory. London is, as Art Director Nathan Phail-Liff said, "almost another character in our world."

Sir Galahad runs to cover.

The problem is that all these expensive graphics, cloth physics, and effects are merely window dressing. And the areas in which Ready at Dawn should have invested -- level design, enemy artificial intelligence, and tactical gun play -- are all grievously underdeveloped. Much of The Order is spent watching, not playing. There are hours of cut scenes, both interative and non-interactive, which, while luxuriously painted, aren't very fun or engaging. When Ready at Dawn does allow players to interact with the game world, it's often the simplest and most linear of interactions: walk from point A to point B, listening to conversations; or push a cart or open a door with the press of a button. Shooting sequences aren't much better. They came in two forms: duck-and-cover "Whac-A-Mole" shooting galleries with dumb, generic enemies; and dynamic, tactical episodes where Galahad must constantly move and readjust, picking up guns and ammo on the move, and generally improvise. This latter form is the rarer of the two, but by far the more enjoyable. More importantly, it points to the huge, and arguably wasted, potential of The Order.

When Ready at Dawn returns to make a sequel to The Order, it should drop its cinematic pretensions, including the letterbox black bars that reduce visibility in hectic firefights, and focus on gameplay. The shooting mechanics are strong; the weapons, weighty and deadly, have a satisfying pop and crack; and the characters and mythology are intriguing. What's needed is a studio willing to pull all these things into a cohesive video game experience where the most important person isn't the script writer or the art director, but the player.