Dishonored: Operation Layarteb

[Arslan Aladeen]

Whenever a game character says stuff like "I'm the only one you can trust," and try to make everyone else I meet seem like they're going to stab me in the back, they're the people I know are going are going to betray me.

**Spoileresh Warning* The games that come to mind for me in that regard are BioShock and Dead Space.**

I didn't get Dead Space. I wasn't paying complete attention to the story, so when it did happen in front of my face I just sort of though 'Black guy is cool, and I'm having hallucinations about my girlfriend or something because Necromorphs'. When it was revealed she was a hallucination in a shocking twist, I was really confused. Wasn't that supposed to be obvious?

I was referring to the other woman in the game. Forgot her name. But apparently she was working with the government, and she gave you most of your objectives in the first one. She was the one usually arguing with the black guy, usually accusing him of stuff.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Oh, I could rave on about the shit plot and characters of Dishonored, but I'll save my energy and just say that the instant I saw the spymaster, I instantly muttered 'Hello, obvious villain!'. Hell, same with Havelock and Pendleton, really. They were so fucking transparent - not too shocking, I guess, when they had no goddamn discernible character whatsoever. Most of the characters didn't, and felt like hollow cardboard cutouts.
Gameplay was alright though.

 

[BrotherSurplice]

Well, now I feel like a moron. I never saw the betrayal coming. And I listened to the audio diaries and read their logs!

I was expecting a betrayal. I wasn't expecting them all to be in on it.

Actually, that isn't quite true. I wasn't expecting a betrayal. I was, however, expecting a twist - I knew we weren't at the end yet, and I knew there was still the Empress' Assassin to take care of. I was expecting an attack on the house, or something like that.

Anyway, put me down as one of those legitimately surprised - or at least, someone who only cottoned on after I'd drunk the drink and experienced a few of those weird blurring moments...

Same here. I knew that it couldn't quite be the end after I dealt with the Lord Regent, but never saw a betrayal coming. To be honest I thought that my vision blurring was the Outsider coming to receive payment for my powers; I was more suspicious of him and all the free help that he gave me.


Can someone please explain to me how the betrayal was so obvious? Because I'm feeling pretty stupid right now.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

The ever pleasing cutscene railroad. :7

"Oh, Jensen; you men so stupid, teehee."

Oh I know what you're referring to.

I played Pacifist but if the game would've allowed me I would've riddled that ***** full of bullets. Especially the second time when she gets away AGAIN.

 

[Darth_Payn]

The devs of Dishonored should have read Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation column about in-game betrayal to see how to doit RIGHT. In fact, I'm gonna read it again, justto laught at more bad examples.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Dishonored sucks because it has no story,little character and haphazard mechanics. It would make a perfect Prototype or Just cause 2 style game but its a bit on the piss ass easy side of things.....

 

[Mr Companion]

Dead Space spoiler

An obvious twist is when you start receiving transmissions from your girlfriend with her saying incredibly odd phrases like "Make us who again Issac". OH come on lady, am I supposed to believe everybody on this f**king ship died but my weakling girlfriend, PL-EASE. This woman is obviously a concoction of my brains self denial.

Then the game did bullshit where she opened a door for me and im like 'Oh wait, she can interact with real things and the Necromorphs attack her? Well either this is a very complicated hallucination or somehow she is still alive, or evil, or something...' and I became confused.

Then the game ends by laughing in my face because it thinks I didn't figure out she wasn't real.
YES I DID YOU F*** C**MPET but you made it physically impossible for that to be the case! I hate developers pulling that nonsense.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Yeah, I was thinking about this yesterday on my second playthrough of Dishonored.
It's like they had everything perfect in the game (the setting, the atmosphere, the gameplay) right up until the time of actually writing it. Heck, I only read about half of the little backstory logs and journals (the text is painfully small on consoles, and I'd usually rather listen to an audio log rather than read a book in-game anyways), and I still smelled that betrayal from miles away. Now, if it was Corvo the character being tricked into doing something stupid (like drinking the obviously poisoned drink) rather than me, it wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much. In fact, the whole game would've benefeited if Corvo had been an actual character rather than a lame "blank slate". I mean, he was aesthetically interesting and fairly unique, he had a name, a definite history and previous relationship with other characters, yet he never says or does anything to define a personality of any kind. He's not to the point where he's a "fill in the blanks" kind of thing, but he doesn't get to the point of being an actual character at all.

Also, as I also realized on my second playthrough, I suck at being nice in that game. I was going for the low chaos, but NOPE, I ended up killing people.

 

[DSK-]

Oh well, at least now I don't have to play the game.

 

[theultimateend]

Meh...not finished with the game yet :/.

Thanks...

 

[DarklordKyo]

Is it just me?, or does Erin look adorable in this entry of the comic?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Corvo:

Brilliant assassin.

Can't tell when he's about to be poisoned.

 

[Arcanist]

Yea, Dishonored fell into the usual trap of the incoming betrayal being so heavily telegraphed it wasn't a plot twist at all - a real disappointment, considering how well the rest of the narrative held together. I mean, as soon as I met Havelock and especially Pendleton, I immediately thought "Yea, I'm gonna have to hunt these guys down after they stab me in the back, aren't I?"

Not exactly the reaction you want to provoke from a person you want to surprise with a big twist.

 

[Halvhir]

The real sin the game committed here (for me) is they let you snoop around and figure out exactly what was coming, but then didn't let you use the information to your advantage at all. They're going to kill me? They just invited me to a party for drinks? Gimme a minute to swing by Piero's workshop and see if he's got any antidote in stock...

 

[Arakasi]

Yeah, I was pretty much screaming "NO DON'T DRINK THAT DRINK, YOU SON OF A *****".
Then, when I was all drugged and wobbly, I was like 'Okay, lets kill the bitches who poisoned me', try to kill one and BAM failed, had to reaload.

Kinda cheap really.

 

[TheCaptain]

Meh, I didn't mind that so much. Remember, Corvo wasn't much of a spy or assassin before the events of the game, but rather the Lord Protector of Empress Jessamine - the guy who could take on dozends of opponents in a fight single-handedly, but the assassin/spy thing is something he became only after joining the loyalists and being imbued with the powers of the void. Until then, he was a fighter, not a politician, so for me it wasn't such a stretch that he would fall victim to their betrayal, even though as the player you could see it coming miles away.

The comic made me laugh anyway

 

[5ilver]

A bit of a clearer Spoiler warning on the main page would've been appreciated.

It really isn't as much of a spoiler as you'd think. The game pretty much hits you over the head with a big "YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE BETRAYED" sign.

 

[Siege_TF]

Dead Space spoiler

An obvious twist is when you start receiving transmissions from your girlfriend with her saying incredibly odd phrases like "Make us who again Issac". OH come on lady, am I supposed to believe everybody on this f**king ship died but my weakling girlfriend, PL-EASE. This woman is obviously a concoction of my brains self denial.

Then the game did bullshit where she opened a door for me and im like 'Oh wait, she can interact with real things and the Necromorphs attack her? Well either this is a very complicated hallucination or somehow she is still alive, or evil, or something...' and I became confused.

Then the game ends by laughing in my face because it thinks I didn't figure out she wasn't real.
YES I DID YOU F*** C**MPET but you made it physically impossible for that to be the case! I hate developers pulling that nonsense.

*Spoilers*

You spend most of the game hot on the heels of a young couple who have managed to survive this far. It's the young woman singing 'twinkle twinkle' who is actually moving stuff, using consoles, etc, but Issac's seeing his girlfriend. A lot of the audio logs you find are theirs. Eventually her boyfriend is caught and killed by doctor crazy (it's the 'witness the conviction of a true believer! *stab*' bit), and that's when she finally looses it and shoots herself in the head in the room full of candles and bundled up corpses.

*END SPOILERS*

OT:
The game does start with him failing to protect the Empress. Has anyone considered the possibility that the only reason she survived as long as she did was becuase nobody had made a serious attempt to kill her until then? It's possible Corvo really is sharp as a bowling ball.

 

[Cenzton]

I actually think of it this way:
Corvo knew what was coming. He was well aware that he was going to get betrayed, but playing along was the only thing he could do in order to actually save Emily. He had resigned himself to death as he still blamed himself for the Empress' death, and it was only through the action of another that he was able to stand himself upright and take the next step in what needed to be done.

 

[DataSnake]

It IS possible to do that kind of twist well, case in point:

Spoiler: Would you kindly click here?

Nice work, boyo! Hahahahaha! Hahaha! Hahahaha! It's time to end this little masquarade. Someone in my line of work takes on a variety of aliases. Hell, once I was even a Chinaman for six months. But you've been a sport, so I guess I owe you a little honesty. The name's Frank Fontaine.