[PC] [360] [PS3] Dishonored

[David]

http://www.dishonored.com/

Dishonored is a first-person stealth action video game being developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is scheduled to be released in the second quarter of 2012 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Harvey Smith, known for his past work on the Deus Ex franchise as well as Thief: Deadly Shadows, and Raf Colantonio, who worked on Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, are the lead designers on the game.

The player controls Corvo, once a legendary guard for the Empress, who seeks vengeance against the Lord Regent who framed him for the assassination of the Empress. Corvo is not only a fine swordsman, master-at-arms, and cunning infiltrator, but also possesses great supernatural powers. The game is presented in open world format as the player can roam The Isles as well as the distant Pandyssian Continent, though the primary setting for the game is the steampunk-esque city of Dunwall. The game is played in first-person, with an emphasis placed on stealth action and the utilization of gadgets as well as the environment to eliminate opposing forces. In the Game Informer cover story, it was mentioned that every enemy in the game (even bosses) can be neutralized non-lethally, if the player so chooses. Lead designers Harvey Smith and Raf Colantonio have described the game world as a "simulation"; if the player encounters thugs harassing an innocent passerby, they can be fought off, but the thugs themselves exist within the game world prior to the event, rather than simply spawning in at a designated time or place. If the player encounters the thugs ahead of time, they can be defeated and the mugging will never take place at all.

Corvo has access to swords, daggers, and guns, including powerful but slow pistols and muskets. Some of his supernatural powers are the ability to freeze time for a certain period, and possess the bodies of small animals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishonored ... eo_game%29

Q: What is the mission structure for the game? Is Dishonored an open world game?

A: Dishonored is a mission-based game, with each location a living, breathing place in the city. These places have distinct identities, but also feel like part of an integrated world. Each mission will take you to a set of sandbox areas with multiple pathways encouraging exploration, in terms of both physical space, player style and game mechanics powers. The game also features a central hub that you revisit between missions. Incidentally, one of our core values is world cohesion, so we think about who lives in each place and how the area functions, realistically.

Q: What about the gameplay? Is it a stealth game or a “run and gun” FPS?

A: “Play your way” is one of our sayings at Arkane. In Dishonored, you will be able to find and exploit your own play-style. Whether you prefer several flavors of stealth, trickery or direct combat, the player will be able to make gameplay style choices throughout the game, second to second. However, the game is tuned so that direct combat is intense.

Q: Tell us about the game's perspective and the philosophy behind it.

A: The entire game is seen through the player-character's eyes as he moves through the world. (Not sticky cover system or third-person camera cuts.) You have a range of movement options from first-person point of view, including lean, sprint, slide and mantle. In addition, you have the opportunity to gain improved physical abilities throughout the game through one of our three character upgrade systems. Swimming, hiding in shadows and getting up onto rooftops are part of the fun.

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/t ... e-studios/

[icycalm]

Terrible character design -- reminds me of Team Fortress 2, only worse. Otherwise the environments look good and the game sounds at least a little interesting. Bethesda sure is cranking them out these days -- when did they become a publisher? Or have I missed too many memos? Still looking forward to trying out Brink at some point.

[Worm]

CG trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlQ0aV_Iw1k

[Worm]

E3 trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITq0hXCCB0

[Worm]

Using stealth vs. force:

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/24er ... h-gameplay

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/29ol ... t-gameplay

[Worm]

An explanation of the stealth mechanics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKnqBSgxZec

[icycalm]

The latest Scathing Accuracy review:

http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/334-dishonored

Posted: Monday, 11 February 2013 by Shepton in Reviews

Final verdict: B-
Final playtime: 63 hours

Dang it Renegade, makin' me look like a chump, all monopolizin' the entire front page with an assload of reviews. You and your damn dedication to this website, man. Seriously. Fuck you.

Hold up nigga, hold up. B-? Is this actually a good game? And did I play it for over 60 hours and forgot to take screenshots while I was doing it and now I'm gonna have to load up my old save just to quickly snag a few from the spoiler-ridden endgame? Of course, to both of those things I said.

You've probably heard of Dishonored because the game industry media wouldn't shut up about it for like two months straight a little while ago, but for once, it's deserved praise. But in case you're one of those intelligent people who actually avoids videogame journalism, I'll give you a quick introduction. It's a first-person action game set in a fantasy version of plague-ridden Europe. You play the part of the bodyguard of the empress. She gets killed immediately because you're like... REALLY super bad at your one job. You spend the rest of the game fucking shit up for the people who killed her.

Dishonored is first and foremost a stealth/assassination style of action game. You can play it like a balls-to-the-wall slash and shoot if you like, though. In fact, Dishonored is actually pretty good when it comes down to its options and choices for play style. You can choose to be stealthy or not, or lethal or not, do sidequests for more story exposition or not, and these things genuinely do affect a tangible change in the game. Enemy numbers and locations change, and the more people you kill the more additional enemies you'll have to deal with. The dialogue is also pretty drastically different depending on how you're playing, especially towards the end of the game. In my experience it's fairly rare for a game that touts a dynamic system that changes the game as you play to feel like it's actually making things change. It gets my props for that. Okay, sure, it's not like the game changes completely or anything. You're still in the same places with the same goals. But the way characters behave towards you changes in such a way that everything feels different, and in the last few levels it hits you pretty hard. At least, if you're doing a non-lethal run followed by a lethal run like I did.

The biggest thing the game has going for it, though, is the setting. The game takes place in the city of Dunwall, which is essentially plague-ridden London except set a little later in history, more during the height of the industrial revolution, and it's got a lot of steampunk thrown in. Steampunk has been the new hotness for a long time now, but it's refreshing to see a game do a really good job of making use of it as a theme and blending it well with a setting and story. It feels appropriate and familiar with barely a hint of cliché.

It's got a good cast of characters to boot, all of which are well voice acted. Dishonored is not lacking in heart and soul. This is the kind of game that sucks you in and makes you care about it.

Dishonored's visual style is a cel-shaded comic book type that should also feel pretty familiar to anybody who's played basically anything lately. It's along the lines of Borderlands and that kind of thing, except with more attention to detail in the environments of the game. The world has plenty of detail and makes good use of light and dark, with nicely detailed textures. It manages to highlight the once-opulent and decadent nature of much of the architecture and decoration of the homes of the upper-class characters of Dunwall, and the decay that's affected both rich and poor areas in the game on account of the plague that's causing so much havoc.

But more important than all of those things is that it's straight up fun to play. No fucking around here, it's built on a solid engine and it plays damn well. Movement, aiming, swordplay, gunplay and the powers/abilities all work well together in a way that's extremely smooth to the point of feeling natural, which is something that's always been important to me personally in games, especially first person ones. If you play something like this and then follow it up with something like Far Cry 3, the latter will feel like you're playing it underwater. In a tank. On Jupiter. Dishonored was clearly created and tested by people who give a shit. This is a thing with me. I think a game is only going to be exceptional if the people making it really, genuinely care about what they're making and want it to be entertaining. Just look at Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed. I think they had to whip the developers to make them do anything on those series. It's not funny. They were desperate people who just wanted a job so they could feed their starving families. Even McDonalds didn't have a place for desperate game developers, so they had to scrape straight through the bottom of the barrel and work for Ubisoft and Bioware. Dishonored, though? That's made by Arkane Studios. They're a bunch of people who are in an okay place in life. They still have ideals and dreams. They aren't broken and jaded yet. As a result they made something pretty cool.

And while I'm vaguely on the subject, those shitty games I mentioned? Both planned trilogies. From the start those companies said "Let's do something really cheap that will make us an easy profit." Arkane Studios did not say that. They said "Let's make a really cool game, that people will enjoy playing." And as a result, Dishonored is satisfying and self-contained. What leaves you wanting more isn't some shitty cliffhanger ending, but a simple desire to see more of this world because it's fucking cool. That's what happens when a game is created with care and a genuine passion.

So yeah. I thought Dishonored was fun. I dumped over 60 hours of my life into it without regret. It's sufficiently challenging, fun to play, filled with intriguing plot and entertaining characters, and set in a cool place that I really hope to see more of. Hell, and I never even got around to the DLC. I'll bet that's pretty awesome too.

It's basically more impressions masquerading as review. Just when I thought the waffle was out of the way and he was about to start the review, it ends. Nevertheless, I'd take their impressions over most any other blogger's let alone journalist's, so here they are. And by the way, the art direction continues to look ugly to me, fyi.

[icycalm]

Someone called Shepton out in the comments for the lacking quality of the review, and he elaborated at length making the combined text a far more respectable attempt at a review. Maybe some people who've played the game could read over everything and tell me if he got anything wrong and whether it'd be a good idea to post the entire thing on the frontpage now.

http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/334 ... -797298322

Well it's great the game is solid. I also am taken aback by the review more or less agreeing with the general media (thankfully, it's for kinda-different reasons). Just goes to show that-- waitaminute...

*reads review again*

*then a third time*

Um... if this game got a B-, then... what was wrong with it that would hold it back from getting a higher grade?

God tell me about it. This review is terrible. I really wasn't using my whole ass when I wrote this one and for that I apologize.

The reason I gave this game a B- is simply because, though good, it doesn't necessarily excel at any particular thing, or push the envelope in many ways. It's good, and it's fun, but it's not especially imaginative or creative. I'm not saying it needs to be entirely original and do new things - in the majority of my reviews I rave about how a game can be extremely good by simply copying something that is good - but there're a few elements to Dishonored that could have been significantly better and made it a far more well rounded game.

For instance, when I mention that Dishonored is pretty good at giving you different ways to play, stealth or run-and-gun? Yeah, you could blast your way through the levels being loud and obliterating everything, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as rewarding or satisfying as using stealth and being careful.

A part of this problem is caused by the weapon selection. You have only one gun, and it is simply a gun. You point it, you pull the trigger. A family is changed forever. You have a crossbow, but ultimately it's no different from the gun except that it's silent, rendering the gun pointless. There are a bunch of additional sub weapons and traps, but each and every one of them is lethal. There are no non-lethal options. On a non-lethal play through (which I have to assume the majority of people would do, or at the very least a sizable portion of the players) you only have two options: Choke people until they pass out, or use the tranquilizer darts. Tranq darts become a huge crutch as they make a non lethal run extremely easy. What all this means is that, when doing a non-lethal game, it's extremely one-dimensional. You sneak up to a guy and choke him. You sneak up to the next guy and choke him too. Repeat for the entire game (to an extent this may seem to contradict what I said in the previous paragraph about stealth being more rewarding and satisfying, but what I meant by that is that making your way through a level undetected is the satisfying and rewarding part, not the stealth combat).

On top of that, it just isn't Metal Gear Solid. There is no downside to non-lethal methods. Once a guy is unconscious, he will remain so forever, to the point that most of the bodies will actually despawn after a short while once you tranq or choke them. It would have been better if they had the ability to wake up and get back into play, making things more difficult for you and meaning you'd have to pick and choose your way through the levels to more of an extent, conserve ammo, use tranq darts only when absolutely necessary to take out key targets, not backtrack often, etc. As it stands you can just tranq everybody and run around the now-empty zone doing whatever the fuck you want.

That isn't to say that it's not fun, though. I played it for 63 hours and gave it a B- after all. It's still good, it's just that it could be a lot better. They missed a few opportunities to make it really stand out from the crowd. I would guess that they either didn't have the time or resources to put better combat into the game, or they don't have any particularly creative developers/designers on staff when it comes to straight up action/combat and their efforts went primarily towards the universe and characters.

Thanks for calling me out on my bullshit though. This review was terrible and I needed to think about and add this stuff.

[prfirm]

Dishonored ‘The Knife of Dunwall’ DLC announced

http://gematsu.com/2013/03/dishonored-t ... -announced

The second add-on pack for Dishonored, titled ‘The Knife of Dunwall’, will launch for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC worldwide on April 16 for $9.99 / 800 Microsot Points, Bethesda has announced.

In ‘The Knife of Dunwall’, players will take on the role of legendary assassin Daud, and have full access to his weapons, gadgets, allies, and supernatural abilities. After assassinating the Empress, Daud is on a quest for redemption, the key for which is revealed to him by The Outsider as something called “Delilah.” You’ll be accompanied by a band of loyal assassins as you search through “never-before-seen districts” of Dunwall and face against new enemies.

[alastair]

'The Brigmore Witches' DLC artwork and screenshots:

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2013/08/dis ... reens.html