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Hey all you bloody little blighters, I'm Bill Bower and this is what I think of the game
Dishonored!
Dishonored is a game about stealth. You play as Corvo the empresses’ personal
guard who's framed for the her assassination mere minutes after the game begins.
You're thrown in prison and six months later some blighter has a use for you, so he gets
you the tools to break out. You then set about stealthily getting revenge
on the conspirators as well as finding the late empresses daughter so she can ascend
to the throne. Now if only the story went somewhere interesting
from there, but every event from there on out is painfully obvious and predictable.
The big story twist that occurs 2/3 of the way through the game is the worst though.
If Dishonored was a book the page with the twist would have a big red marker on it, and
the exact event would be highlighted. Something so obvious you'd have to be brain
dead to not see it coming. To add insult to injury all the game's endings
are cookie cutter and offer no closure whatsoever. Each one wraps up a decently long game in
less than two minutes, makes a poor attempt at sounding philosophical, and doesn't try
at all to tie up loose ends. The worst part about Dishonored’s story
though is how it completely fails to say why the *** you should even care about anything
that happens! Ok, you're the royal protector and you get
to experience your own utter failure do just that, protect royalty.
And yes, it's obvious that Crovo has some special attachment to the late empresses daughter
Emily. But nothing beyond a shadow of a hint is ever
made to explain why Corvo, or more importantly you, should care so much.
Hunt your enemies down for revenge, and save Emily because it's your job. If that was enough
to motivate me to do a job I'd still be working at the five and dime, because my boss liked
to yell at me, shut up and get back to work! But I digress, the point is Dishonored has
*** for story motivation. It's a shame too, as the rest of the game holds up much better.
Dishonored is a bit of a paradox, because for everything that it does wrong when telling
it's story and trying to get the player to care, it does just about everything else in
regards to gameplay right. The controls are extremely tight and responsive,
allowing you to have pin point accuracy when executing split second assassinations.
The only thing missing is the ability to shove your arm all the way up a guard's ***, and
puppet him around his mates to talk about having chips and a pint down at the pub later...
Oh wait you almost can do that with the possession skill!
The game also relies on is a nearly lost first person control mechanic, the ability to lean
around corners. It's nice to see the feature return, but remaining
hidden while you're doing it pretty well breaks immersion.
On several occasions I could have had chatted with several guards, and discussed with them
the pros and cons of being an assassin vs working for the city watch.
All while looking them in the eye, but remaining invisible just because I was leaning around
a corner. There's also one major drawback to the controls,
the bloody context sensitive features. I can't tell you how many times I was silently
slipping in for a quiet kill or choke hold, only to not get the option to strangle the
hopeless sod in front of me. Do you know how frustrating that is?
Ok just one more stupid guard here and I can go to the next area, wait why can't I kill
him? No, don't turn around!
*** he's going for the alarm! *** *** ***! This brings me to another thing about Dishonored,
it has really *** good AI. And I don’t' mean good as in it searches
the god damn corner when you need to sneak by.
No, I mean first it'll see you when you least expect.
Then when it knows you're there It'll call in a forensics team to analyse evidence and
figure out what corner you're hiding in. And finally when it catches you it'll gang
up to *** the *** out of you when you're cornered.
The type of AI that you love from a technical standpoint, but loathe as a gamer because
it's not as stupid as what you deal with in most games.
And speaking of most games there's something else that Dishonored does different from the
mass, have a real uncorked type of visual style.
Lots of games today strive for some sort of graphical realism, but Dishonored looked at
that convention, snorted deep and hard, then spat a moster sized lugie in the face of common
art design. Instead it goes off in it's own direction
using gawky and cartoonishly proportioned characters, with gritty high rez textures.
Some schmucks may hate the flavour, but it's no like it ruins the game.
If anything the art style and disproportionate character design is at it's worst feeling
like it was copied from Bioshock. It was a pretty big nuisance to be thinking
of splicers every time I saw a plague victim, even though they came off more as zombies
than psychotic addicts. It didn't' matter much though, cause they
all died just the same as all the city guards.
Really if you want me to tell you weather or not to get Dishonored first I'll say this.
Why the *** are askin me?! The game has been out for months now, and
if you're still trying to figure out if it's worth your time you're due to be promoted
to the the rank of captin indecisive. If you still need to hear my opinion though
I say give it a shot, but don’t' expect miracle.
In fact you'd probably be better off renting it.
All the good gameplay be damned it didn’t' make me give a flying *** about the story,
and I had to push my way through it for that very reason.
Dishonored is a game with rock solid design but no heart in it's story, which might be
because you're holding it most of the time looking for power-ups!