Dishonored Review
- Thread starter Susan Arendt
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I don't get why people are giving Susan a hard time about the 5 star review. It appears from the review to be 1 enjoyable experience overal, 2 great art direction, 3 feels like living world, 4 decent game play, and 5 fun. Which tends to be the 5 parts they judge by, and why a star for each. I may be wrong here since I don't know how Susan equals x to how many stars. Though what the site has for what 5 stars means goes as so.
Which the game seems to be doing, based only on the review.
Oh, I'm not implying the game's not fun. It probably is a hell lot of fun. But let's examine it in the context of Mass Effect 2. Hell of a lot of fun, but the fact that you had to stick with Cerberus always left that niggling feeling at the back of my mind, even more so since my character's entire team was killed on Akuze by a Cerberus experiment, so that every fiber of my body was screaming to get away from them.Res Plus said:
I figure I'd have the same kind of feeling with Dishonored. It doesn't matter why you're working for them, what matter is that you're working for them. Of course with Mass Effect 2 you always have that excuse of "but... the galaxy needs saving", which is kind of a good cop-out to set aside your morals.But with Dishonored, if you're staying loyal to the empress, all you're really doing is preferring one dictatorial rule to another.
And let's not forget, loyalist protectors tend not to be your most individualistic type of person, which is exactly what I want in a game that's about choices: the choice to be who I really want to be. The fact that that's limited to the archaic imagery they've chosen to work from will probably taint the story for me in the same way that Mass Effect 2's story will always be tainted to me.
P.S. Technically it's a democratic (or republican) deconstruction of the plot, but thanks for noticing.
The phrase "individual rights" didn't even enter the lexicon until the 18th century (via Thomas Paine, in fact).Farther than stars said:Oh, I'm not implying the game's not fun. It probably is a hell lot of fun. But let's examine it in the context of Mass Effect 2. Hell of a lot of fun, but the fact that you had to stick with Cerberus always left that niggling feeling at the back of my mind, even more so since my character's entire team was killed on Akuze by a Cerberus experiment, so that every fiber of my body was screaming to get away from them.Res Plus said:
I figure I'd have the same kind of feeling with Dishonored. It doesn't matter why you're working for them, what matter is that you're working for them. Of course with Mass Effect 2 you always have that excuse of "but... the galaxy needs saving", which is kind of a good cop-out to set aside your morals.But with Dishonored, if you're staying loyal to the empress, all you're really doing is preferring one dictatorial rule to another.
And let's not forget, loyalist protectors tend not to be your most individualistic type of person, which is exactly what I want in a game that's about choices: the choice to be who I really want to be. The fact that that's limited to the archaic imagery they've chosen to work from will probably taint the story for me in the same way that Mass Effect 2's story will always be tainted to me.
P.S. Technically it's a democratic (or republican) deconstruction of the plot, but thanks for noticing.
Dishonored's society is the equivalent of several hundred years before that - mostly inspired by London circa 1666. What you're proposing is that Corvo either be wildly anachronistic within the framework of the game, or that he be the most progressive and brilliant social philosopher in Dunwall.
It would be as cringeworthy as when they did all that in Braveheart.
You said it, "opinion". I've played first-person stealth games and I've liked them. And the platforming worked really well in this game. So I liked it. If you're of the very strange opinion that Thief was a bad game [and not even that you just didn't like it] then you aren't going to like this game. It's still not the game's, or the genre's, fault.Kopikatsu said:
I agree. Giving a game with gameplay flaws, graphics and visual style not fantastic and very run-of-the-mill story a 100% can only mean low standards. This is another game like Bioshock which I just can't understand why it got such high reviews. The only thing I can think of is the hype combined with the lack of other stealth games recently.Anoni Mus said:
Read the escapist's review score definitions:Blood Brain Barrier said:
Five stars. This is as good as gaming currently gets, the creme de la creme. This doesn't imply perfection, merely that the experience you'll have will be exceptionally enjoyable.
Four stars. An outstanding gaming experience marred by just a few flaws.
Three stars. An average game. You'll play it and probably enjoy it. A month from now, you'll likely have forgotten all about it.
Two stars. Die-hard fans of the genre will find something to like, but anyone else will be hard-pressed to enjoy games of this quality.
One star. So broken as to be unplayable. Not even worth picking up in the bargain bin.
Four stars. An outstanding gaming experience marred by just a few flaws.
Three stars. An average game. You'll play it and probably enjoy it. A month from now, you'll likely have forgotten all about it.
Two stars. Die-hard fans of the genre will find something to like, but anyone else will be hard-pressed to enjoy games of this quality.
One star. So broken as to be unplayable. Not even worth picking up in the bargain bin.
By the standards given, I say that Susan is justified in giving it a 5 star review. Is the game perfect? No. Are there any glaring flaws that detract from the games enjoyability? Not really. Is the game awesome? Absolutely.
This is a game that is highly gameplay driven. The story is barebones but it is not really bad and it fits the tone and it consistent with the themes of the game. The graphics aren't Crysis level detailed, but they don't try to be. There's a deliberate art style choice here that I think really suits this game, and manages to show off both extreme opulence and extreme poverty and have both look great while not falling into the modern color palettes of only using brown and grey
That's just it. From what I've played my experience wasn't exceptionally enjoyable.lotr rocks 0 said:
But it's pointless to argue. There are just some games which I don't understand the praise for and this one is in that category for me.
Back to the review, I do think it's poor form that the fact a game 'isn't perfect' is always used to justify a 5-star review, but low scoring reviews always pick on points of imperfection. It doesn't make sense to me.
There's a very clear difference to me between a game which has a few small quirks which don't overall detract from the game and one which has glaringly obvious flaws that ruin your enjoyment of an otherwise decent game.Blood Brain Barrier said:
Everything from this point on is my opinion only: Dishonored has, from what I've played of it, no fatal flaws, I've only witnessed one minor graphical bug, and all of the gameplay systems work nearly flawlessly. The gameplay, story, aesthetics, voice acting and environments are all very well done, cohesive and blend to create a very interesting new world to explore which is unlike any other game. And the gameplay is fantastically fun and addicting and gives a very large array of options which is almost unprecedented in a modern videogame.
When compared with another game, for example Risen. The reason I choose Risen is that it was the game I was playing until Dishonored came out so I am most familiar with it at the moment. Risen is a pretty decent game which I would probably give 3 stars. The story is intriguing, the dialog is decent but the delivery is bland. The world is vast and fun to explore, but starts to feel empty once you've eliminated the enemies which never respawn. The game has a number of pretty annoying bugs, particularly relating to combat, which make combat very annoying at times. Some of the skills seem only half implemented with only a small number of options for what to create, and no real reward for making them except to resell them back to the merchant for maybe a slight profit.
The point I'm trying to make is that Risen's flaws begin to add up and make me wish for a game that was like Risen, but better and without the flaws of the game. I don't feel this way at all about Dishonored. The only thing that I feel is really missing from dishonored is a few more options for non-lethal takedowns other than sleep darts and the choke hold, which quickly becomes repetitive. But I understand why you're limited in this way: because it adds challenge for what should be the hardest style of play. And honestly, I can't even think of other ways to implement silent, non lethal takedowns anyway. This is why I would give Dishonored a 5 star rating and Risen a 3 star rating. Both are good games in their own rights, but one suffers from many flaws which make me wish for something more, while the other has nearly no flaws that I can point out.
But yeah, these are all opinions. You're entitled to yours just as much as I'm entitled to mine, and Susan is entitled to hers. You're free to disagree with me on my opinion, but I don't think it's fair to say that Susan and I fell victim to the hype or that our opinions are in some way biased and therefore wrong because we feel the game deserves a 5 star rating.
Well it's not so much about opinions about a game as it is about the purpose of reviews in general.lotr rocks 0 said:
This is actually interesting you brought up Risen because I would reverse the scores - for me Risen and Risen 2 are both as close to 5-stars as an open-world RPG can get, though I would hesitate to write a 5-star review for them. Yet I acknowledge they have flaws some of which are very severe indeed. Dishonored I'd probably give a 3 or 3.5.
Yet if I was reviewing for Escapist, I could write a review for Risen, (or any other flawed game), pointing out all those flaws and still say "but I enjoyed it immensely so I'm giving it 5 stars". After all why should I give it less if I enjoy it as much as perfect games which I gave 5 stars? And why should I give a high score for Dishonored if I didn't enjoy it, even if I can tick off the boxes "good gameplay", "good atmosphere", "interesting story" etc.?
Basically, I'm saying that a review rating based on my own enjoyment is a pretty pointless one.
The difference being, however, that when watching a film, you're not acting from your own perspective. You are disconnected with all the characters on the screen. With a game, however, and especially a first-person one, the way you play it is logically affected by our modern-age liberalistic views.ResonanceGames said:
Aint just you, but to me it was worth 5 starts. And to Susan it was worth 5 stars.... Saying that we only liked the game because of hype (One example) is a bit.. insulting to our intelligence isnt it?Blood Brain Barrier said:
What im saying is, this is not neccesarily purely opinionbased, the things brought up in this comment-section 'against' the game is opinionbased.
Art-design is crap. (Subjective)
Story is boring (Subjective)
Pacing is bad (Subjective)
Minor graphical errors (Not worth a star)
No magic abilities on the wheel (You can assign it to a hotkey, arguement invalid. Even if not thats not worth a star)
Choices didnt affect anything, i completed each mission in 10 minutes (I hate it when people say this, but you're blind)
A review like this, if you judge from the above. Can only be subjective. Rather than starting from 0 and moving up as each negative factor is counted in, I think a review is starting at 5 and taking away from the flaws... And this game simply didnt have a lot of flaws, I'd say that its pretty much flawless at what it tried to do.