Dishonored

[pershainovitsh]

For so long I have waited for a new stealth game to arrive, and now the wait is over. Dishonored was released in 2012, and it's one of the best games I've played in a while.

Story
In Dishonored you are Corvo, the empress's bodyguard framed for murder. Revenge solves everything, says the tagline. You go on a quest for revenge, but it's not just a journey for a man with a lust for blood. There's some sort of a conspiracy going on and the people are suffering because of their new leader. A small rebellion has started, and you're the one doing all the dirty work. You can learn about the world by reading notes and small quotes from fictional books.

Gameplay
This time you won't be hiding in the shadows or disguising as waiters. Instead, most of the time you just hide behind objects. Much more realistic than being completely hidden in the darkness and even a person right in front of you can't see you, like in Splinter Cell or Thief. But Corvo's head seems to be invisible, so even if you think the guards should see you, they don't. In a way this is a good thing, as you can't crouch really low. It seems that the more chaos you create (mostly by killing) the worse the outcomes. There will be more rats, plague victims and despair, and the ending will be worse, or so I've heard. I have only killed about 15 people in the three levels I've played, and those were just self-defence. I don't think that's much.

Magic
Since the game is set in an alternative universe where the most advanced technology are steam boats (used for whaling and getting oil from them!) and very basic one-shot flintlock pistols, you don't have any high-tech gadgets to help you. This is where the magic comes in. Very early on you get the ability to teleport short distances (the range can be upgraded a little) and from then on you can choose which powers you'd like to have using runes as a way of "buying" the powers. You can stop time, possess animals and even people, teleport as mentioned earlier, create a windblow, call a horde of rats to help you, and some more.

Controls and console roots
I can see this was made as a multiplatform title. After the unskippable logos you get a screen saying "press any button to continue". I don't know why do console games need that, but the pc version surely doesn't. Then it says "This icon means the game is auto-saving. Please don't turn off your computer when you see this icon." What kind of a madman does the game think I am? Are they anticipating that I get so frustrated about the company logos that I'd press the power button? The contols are mostly good, but it's obvious the developers were limited by the console gamepads and their small amount of buttons. Scrolling with the mouse, as well as numbers 1-9 work for selecting the weapon works, which is a good thing, but I should even have to say it. It's a standard thing in pc games. You are always equipped with the sword in your right hand (swing with left mouse button) and a pistol/a crossbow/magic powers/some other gadget in your left hand.

There's also a limited amount of saves available. And you can't name them. Let's compare Dishonored to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory in this department. Amount of saves available: Dishohored: about 20, SC:CT: over a hundred. And you can name them any way you wish. I'm not talking about a limitation per level, like in Hitman for example. It's the total amount of saves you can have in the whole game. Of course you can overwrite previous ones, but still, the saves can't take much space.

What I've done so far
In the seven hours I've played, I've killed some targets (surprisingly there are also non-lethal ways of disposing of them, like selling them to slave traders) I've been sneaking around in various places, completing side-quests and exploring the rather open levels, and of course I climbed to the top of a tall bridge! There even was an achievement for doing that, although it wasn't possible to reach the very top. Also, I've enjoyed every moment.

Verdict
Although I haven't finished it yet, I can safely say that this is worth the purchase. It should be moderately cheap by now. You don't get many stealth games of this type anymore, and this is a very good one. Even if you don't like stealth games, you should still buy it. You can teleport around and shoot everyone in the face with a crossbow, or have a sword fight with every enemy in the game.

*****/***** (five stars)

[sfscriv]

5 Stars... That's serious

[pershainovitsh]

On a five-star scale five stars doesn't mean it's the best game ever made, unlike with a 100/100 score. Dishonored isn't perfect, but it's a very good game, and I can see myself playing through it again at some point in the future, with a different play style. There are many ways of completing missions, many routes, many secrets waiting to be found, many decisions to be made, many side missions to complete and many ways of completing most objectives. That should provide a lot of replayability. Will it become an all-time favourite in my books in the same way as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory? Time will tell.

[pershainovitsh]

It took me 16 hours to play through the game. I only killed a handful of enemies (and even those were mostly just self-defence, and/or a reflex for bumping into an enemy) and either let the others live or choked them until they were unconsicous (in real life it would cause permanent brain damage...). I saved all the innocents I possibly could, and killed some bad people, who didn't necessarily have to die. In the end, I only had "low chaos", so the ending was good, and there weren't as many rats or plague victims. I didn't even set off an alarm once!

Unfortunately, in the last few levels, the level design wasn't as good as in the beginning. They were still good levels, but I ran into a couple of invisible walls and a few times the teleportation power didn't allow me to get to places I should've had based on hours of experience with it. Otherwise the levels were good.

I played the game with objective markers turned off, except at one point where I just couldn't find the way to an optional objective. Even then I just had forgot to check what was behind a door I passed. Halfway through the game I also turned off spotting notifications, meaning the little icon above an enemy's head who has just spotted you or is about to spot you. You can actually turn off a lot of HUD parts individually. That's a very good feature.

I'll probably play through Dishonored again, but this time being much more lethal and not caring about alarms or bodies found. There's some really cool stuff you can do if you go the action route. Like you can stop time just after a bullet is fired, possess the shooter and move him in the way of the bullet. And I could finally use the pistol, the crossbow (with regular and fire arrows, in my first playthrough I only used sleep darts), grenades and the sword, as well as the lethal spells I didn't even purchase.

[pershainovitsh]

I already started my lethal playthrough on hard difficulty. It seems that I can't help but sneak around in games that allow it, so most of the time I'm hiding in the shadows just like in the first playthrough. Several times I've had a big fight with a handful enemies at the same time. Sword fighting is a lot of fun and with enough skill you can survive a big fight like that. It's also a lot of fun and a refreshing change from stalking the guards in the shadows and slipping past them. And since I don't care if the guards live or not, I can dispose of their bodies in many ways, like by throwing them into the ocean.

At the moment Dishonored is 29,99€ on Steam.

[sfscriv]

Al, Have you tried the Assassin Creed games?

[pershainovitsh]

I have played and finished Assassin's Creed 2 on Xbox 360. There are some similiarities. In both games you are an assassin, you can drop from a height and stab someone right as you land, you can climb around, you can have sword fights with guards... But in AC 2, I always had to hastily escape from the scene of assassination, because they happened in broad daylight in front of a few dozen witnesses and guards. And there's no magic at all. You can reach any rooftop in the game, unlike in Dishonored. Assassin's Creed is based in real places and history; AC 2 was set in Firenze (Florence), Italy in the Reneissance times. Many of the characters actually existed, and I think all the buildings were completely real. They even had some history about the landmarks, if you were interested to learn more about them. Dishonored is placed in a fictional steampunk universe where the people look rather cartoony.

I liked both games, but I think Assassin's Creed started to drag at some point. There wasn't really much change. Get to the rooftop, jump down and stab the target on your way down, run away and hide, mission completed. In Dishonored, every level offered something new. There weren't too many people to remember like in AC 2, and they were pretty caricaturic. Dishonored was much shorter, but maybe it was a good thing.