Gaming Dishonored review

Where's the cheapest to get this?

 

No, the later set pieces and "upgraded powers" are completely irrelevant to a game which looks and feels samey and dated.

Dishonored brings nothing new to the table; the gameplay is merely OK, but there's nothing truly exciting or innovative about it. You get the feeling it's been done so many times before. At least Thief had the stealth indicator, which allowed you to avoid enemies using some skill, and with a sense of impending doom, should you be discovered. As another user posted, what's the use of employing stealth elements if you can simply bash your way out of trouble when discovered?

The supposed stealth elements in Dishonored are completely arbitrary, simplified and dumbed down. There's no variation, no subtle nuance involved, it's either on or off, and it's of no consequence anyway 'cause your characture is so comparatively overpowered.

And getting back to the graphics... So, you rip some guys head off in a pretty weak animation, then pick it up. There's no arm reaching out, holding it by it's bloody, clumped hair, as you might expect. The head simply appears as a free floating, completely static, one dimensional image in front of you, near the middle of the screen. Looks like a pasted on .bmp, impervious even to light sources. Wow, mind blowing graphics! GotY! This is 2012, isn't it? Clearly, others are impressed by this garbage, but some of us have expectations of real technical advances with such massively hyped releases.

Hey, wait a sec, the author said, "Dishonored might be one of the best games I've played in the last ten years." Well, I've played the many of major PC releases from the past 20 years, and I'd suggest there's nothing special - at all - about Dishonored, perhaps the most over hyped game in the same period.

He also said, "It's tempting to go into excessive detail about the features and plot." What? The plot doesn't even warrant a description, it's so banal and one dimensional.

He also states, "This isn't a game which holds your hand all the way through or forces you to solve things in a certain way." Well, actually, yeah it is. In fact, that's exactly what it does. It employs every conceivable noob assist borrowed from so many other samey titles.

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time on Dishonored.

 

I've completed this game twice since it released. Once in a blood soaked rampage and again with a non lethal approach. The second play through was the most rewarding. Its just fantastic, really replayable. There's no question as to whether you should buy or rent this game, with so few others of its ilk, its a no brainer. It's not perfect for sure, buts its possibly one of the finest and well made games out there at the moment. A must for fans of the Thief series and Bethesda games in general. There's no argument against it, its a really good, simply enjoyable game and that what us Gamers like isn't it...really good games!

 

Not sure if serious..... Skill comes from stealth indicator?

 

I'll take a bite at this as well.

The purpose of a stealth/detection indicator is simply to provide feedback to the player regarding how their actions are affecting the stealth mechanics of the game. Historically this indicator has been some type of icon or meter displayed to show how easy it is to detect the player but that is by no means the only way of implementing such a feature. Dishonored does have a stealth indicator. With the ability to see enemy lines of sight and even one's own noise made players are made aware of how their actions are interacting with the stealth mechanics. Additionally, detection has a separate indicator in the form of icons around NPC's heads when they're more or less aware of your presence. God forbid developers innovate and create something less artificial and unoriginal than a stealth meter!

So now that we've covered Dishonored having a stealth indicator, what's the real reason for having one and does it increase or reduce skill? As I said earlier: indicators merely provide feedback to players regarding mechanics which would otherwise be transparent. They're courtesy features to make games more enjoyable and involved by making players spend less time wondering what the game will and won't allow and more time actually playing. The actual mechanics involved don't change because of the presence or lack of an indicator so there's little impact on skill involved. One could argue that having an indicator allows players to push the limits more, but another could argue that no indicator is removing a crutch and requiring players to truly understand the game. It's just a difference on how the developer intends the player's stealth to behave.

 

Plus, I would like to point out that the incentive to use stealth and not kill everyone is that the ending is supposed to be different if you choose the stealth approach.

 

OK, I relented, bought it, finished it. I give it 90%; great effort, impaired by poor plot and dumbed-down gameplay; it's also very short - 24 hours for me, fairly complete exploration (knocked out about 80% of guards, found almost all ways in and out), but only one playthrough (low chaos ending).

I think Corvo would have worked better as a voiced character like Thief's Garrett or Deus Ex's JC Denton, than a dumb reactive protagonist like Half-Life's Gordon Freeman. It didn't really work for me in Half-Life either - why did a PhD physicist need all these eggheads talking condescendingly to him, with Gordon acting like little more than a hazard suit of muscle?

The plot was unsatisfying. Way too many books and notes - if these had been used far more sparsely with useful info, I may have read more than 5% of them. And on the other hand, your "todo list" in the form of the mission objectives don't elaborate at all on why you're doing what you're doing, it's just go here and (optional) go there. It's all or nothing, and I fell on the nothing side. Twist very predictable - almost de riguer these days - and very late, almost like an afterthought.

But the biggest problem was the gameplay. Corvo is overpowered, and the terrain offers too many ways to navigate, so there's no challenge. Blink removes most of the tension from creeping around, while Dark Vision completes the job. I felt more like Batman than Garrett: blink-shuffle-blink, spot a victim, blink-throttle-grab-blink, hide body where it won't be found, rinse and repeat. There's no difficulty aspect, even when being non-lethal and ghosting, until Tall Boys came in, an enemy you can't knock out non-lethally - but still not a huge bother. I had a surfeit of runes, so I eventually got Shadow Kill and Bend Time and played the last mission killing everything I could, and it got even easier.

Whereas I remember playing single Thief levels for a whole evening; parked up in a shadowy corner of a room, looking at a spot on the far side of the room I wanted to get to, looking at guard patterns, observing the floor and ceiling surfacing for suitability for running / jumping / rope arrows. Laying down some moss, planting a rope arrow in the right spot, then timing a dash and jump to climb out of sight while the guards' backs were turned. And this was only knowing the objectives and a (very) rough map; Dishonored has mission and powerup breadcrumbs visible across the whole map, so you always know where to go.

IMO the game could have gotten a lot better if The Outsider had decided to take a disliking to you 40% of the way in, and started taking back his powers; and if it had more enemies that couldn't be knocked out, but could still be sneaked around. Oh, and nighttime. Someone should have told Samuel or "master strategist" Martin that covert missions work better in the dark.

So overall, like I said, great effort, but a sad indictment of the game purchasing public if this is the hardest core of sneakery they're willing to buy.

 

But, would you agree that Dishonored does combat better than Thief? Once I've completed by ghost/no kills run, I'm going to re-do it for a high-chaos run and kill everyone in as bloody manor as possible. It seems to me the point of Dishonored is the choice of how you choose to play it.

Two questions though:

1) If you didn't like the objective markers, why not turn them off?

2) What's wrong with feeling more like Batman than Garrett? It's almost as if you were expecting to play Thief.

 

Completed this last night, and I agree with a lot of what you guys said - to start with. The first hour of gameplay I wasn't very impressed, without any powers and still being new to everything it didn't gel very well... Something just didn't quite hook me in, but I persisted.

Then once the missions started it suddenly clicked, and I loved it. I started with a fair amount of killing and chaos, but later switched to a ghost/kill-free stream, which was more fun (although I'm looking forward to a chaos-free kill allowance in a mod at some point).

One thing that strikes me is how adjustable everything is. You could play the whole game (almost) without using a single power and find it incredibly difficult, especially with the difficulty ramped up to Very Hard. On the other hand you could just use one or two powers as you choose for increased challenge. Blink makes it pretty easy in parts, as does the vision power, and the scope of the levels lets you do a lot of things without even touching an enemy if you want.

 

I've just finished it, i've enjoyed it from the beginning and only really used two powers, blink and the sight one, didn't really want to use the others. I only used them near the end because i'd unlocked them.

I started like i do with these type of games to not kill if i can but by the end of the game that went out the window, next time i'll "try" not to kill anyone. Might open up the tarot card set i got with it now to see what they're like.

 

I just started this a couple of nights ago, only just out of prison so only a short way in. I wonder whether I'll form as strong a set opinions about the gave/devs as m0ngy

Seems decent so far, but still a way to go before I start to see the mechanics unfold...

 

I've played it three times not a long game at all overall I thought it was pretty good although a little short

 

Yeah but you've got the luxury of time - you got kids out of the way years ago!!