Dishonored Review

[Susan Arendt]

Dishonored Review

Absolutely killer.

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Hi Susan,

This seems like a game I can thoroughly enjoy, I have a question though. How "buggy" is the game? I hear alarm bells whenever I read Bethesda.

What system did you play it on and did you notice much going wrong?

Bethesda is the publisher, not the developer. Arkane Studios is the developer.

I've been hearing some things about the length of the game itself, Susan any sort of opinion before the inevitable fallout comes?

Like I've heard people have been beating the game in 4 hours.

Bullshit. It might be possible to beat the game in 4 hours if you've played it before, if you try to get to your target as fast as possible if you skip through all the cutscenes, if if if. Anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it will be spending about 20 hours with it, easily.

hate to sound like a dick but i just beat the game in 13 hours, i didn't do all the things like finding all the paintings or bone pieces, but i did get all the runes and it was a completely non lethal play through, even replaying a few missions. Don't get me wrong ill probably be replaying this till i log at least 20 hours, but one play though should not take 20 hours.

Well, sure, you'll naturally trim time if you don't look around. I said "anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it," by which I pretty clearly meant doing all the extras - optional missions, looking for the collectibles, watching the cut scenes, etc. I'm really not looking to get into an argument about exact numbers. You beat the game in 13 hours, fine. That's still not 4.

 

[Erttheking]

A lot of people say that System Shock was better than Bioshock, that doesn't stop Bioshock from being a good game in its own rights. And I'm really not familiar with too many games taking place on an industrial island run by whale oil with half of the city in ruins, martial law and magical powers. Seems pretty unique to me.

I don't think the uniqueness of Dunwall is what's being brought into question; it's the way the whole thing is structured that's being debated by myself and the what, two or three weird-ass alien thingies in this discussion that also didn't like the game. This is definitely a case of "odd man out". My friends are going gaga over Corvo Attano, and all I can work up is a resounding "Meh".

That's coming from a guy who's a sneak-thief in every Elder Scrolls as well as the modern Fallout games, who's suffered through Alpha Protocol, who doesn't hate slipping on Agent 47's suit every once in a great while and who actually tries as hard as possible to be actually stealthy in Assassin's Creed titles.

It's not that I have no affinity for the genre and like I said, the art direction deserves special mention. At the same time, once you've gone past the whole "Oooh, Steampunk and whale oil!" buzz, you're confronted with a game that has unforgiving mechanics and a fairly anemic plot.

In terms of level design, Victor Antonov's time at Valve really does show. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, if only booting up Dishonored didn't make me feel like I'm actually playing a mod that dates back to Half-Life 2's first few months in retail. Coldridge had me go "That's freaking Nova Prospekt!" a few times, and there's quite a few corners in Dunwall that really do look a lot like Ravenholm.

Again - that's not a bad thing, but it does create the sense that the level design is a little bit dated.

Take all of that for what it is, though, which is the opinion of one guy out of a handful of people who might be feeling a little lost in the middle of the unreal levels of praise this game is getting.

Captcha: sonic screw driver
Typo aside, I like Steampunk masks. Steampunk masks are cool.

It's true the Dishonored is rather difficult, but to be perfectly honest I kind of like it that way. I feel like just about every last time I tried to sneak around and ending up having to kill five guards because I got detected can be traced back to me being impatient. Also I find fucking up to be kinda fun (made a little thread about that) mainly because it makes the experience feel organic. The mechanics aren't really that bad, Blink and Possession are a fucking blast and really help my sneaking around and jumping from balcony to balcony via teleportation feels freaking awesome and helps get around awkwardness that normally comes with first person platforming. Also level design dated? Eh...not so sure on that one. I experimented with half life 2 and while I didn't like it that much I did stick around with it for 8 hours before giving up, to the point where I was running around with rebels and I have to say a couple of the walls may look a little familiar (After all Half Life and Dishonored had the same art designer) Dunwall doesn't feel anything like City 17, and the guards feel a lot more fluid and quicker than the stiff slow combine soldiers. I also found that the levels really do have a lot of room and different approaches, but then again I'm not a huge stealth fan so maybe this is my tiny scrub brain talking here. The plot is a little generic I admit, but then again everything has been done before and I find it rather interesting, especially considering that I KNOW that the Outsider has something to do with the Empress' assassination, and the atmosphere of the world really pulls me in and makes it up for me.

So yeah, I think that the game is freaking awesome but I understand where you're coming from. People treat Half Life 2 like it's the best thing since buttered bread but I personal think it's an ok shooter at best. Like they say, different strokes for different folks.

P.S. thank you for having an argument more complex and thought out than "Aspect X is bad, game Y is better"

 

[GAunderrated]

Dishonored Review

Absolutely killer.

Read Full Article

Hi Susan,

This seems like a game I can thoroughly enjoy, I have a question though. How "buggy" is the game? I hear alarm bells whenever I read Bethesda.

What system did you play it on and did you notice much going wrong?

Bethesda is the publisher, not the developer. Arkane Studios is the developer.

I've been hearing some things about the length of the game itself, Susan any sort of opinion before the inevitable fallout comes?

Like I've heard people have been beating the game in 4 hours.

Bullshit. It might be possible to beat the game in 4 hours if you've played it before, if you try to get to your target as fast as possible if you skip through all the cutscenes, if if if. Anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it will be spending about 20 hours with it, easily.

hate to sound like a dick but i just beat the game in 13 hours, i didn't do all the things like finding all the paintings or bone pieces, but i did get all the runes and it was a completely non lethal play through, even replaying a few missions. Don't get me wrong ill probably be replaying this till i log at least 20 hours, but one play though should not take 20 hours.

Well, sure, you'll naturally trim time if you don't look around. I said "anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it," by which I pretty clearly meant doing all the extras - optional missions, looking for the collectibles, watching the cut scenes, etc. I'm really not looking to get into an argument about exact numbers. You beat the game in 13 hours, fine. That's still not 4.

When topics about hours played determining whether a game is worth it always comes up I can't help but scoff. Portal is considered to be one of the best games and its 3-4 hours long max.I think people should stop thinking "how many hours is the game" and look at how many hours of enjoyment they got for their purchase. I'm doing a no kill run in my first playthrough. But heck in the second (I will play again) playthrough i'm going to make it rain blood.

What enjoyment people get out of a game is what you put into it.

Btw susan great review. I always look forward to when you do reviews. Small piece of constructive criticism though. It is never a good idea to get into a conversation about semantics with gaming. You end up just posting to trolls.

 

[CrazyJew]

Here's my biggest problem with the game. Its greatest draw comes from the awesome creative kills, but a lethal run is penalized with a shit world.

I mean, look at Thief, you get penalized for deaths with lower rewards and nothing else, and kills aren't the focus of the game anyway. But Dishonored? The fun of the game is CENTRED around the bad-ass kills, yet you have to choose between a shit experience or a shit ending.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Dishonored Review

Absolutely killer.

Read Full Article

Hi Susan,

This seems like a game I can thoroughly enjoy, I have a question though. How "buggy" is the game? I hear alarm bells whenever I read Bethesda.

What system did you play it on and did you notice much going wrong?

Bethesda is the publisher, not the developer. Arkane Studios is the developer.

I've been hearing some things about the length of the game itself, Susan any sort of opinion before the inevitable fallout comes?

Like I've heard people have been beating the game in 4 hours.

Bullshit. It might be possible to beat the game in 4 hours if you've played it before, if you try to get to your target as fast as possible if you skip through all the cutscenes, if if if. Anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it will be spending about 20 hours with it, easily.

hate to sound like a dick but i just beat the game in 13 hours, i didn't do all the things like finding all the paintings or bone pieces, but i did get all the runes and it was a completely non lethal play through, even replaying a few missions. Don't get me wrong ill probably be replaying this till i log at least 20 hours, but one play though should not take 20 hours.

Well, sure, you'll naturally trim time if you don't look around. I said "anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it," by which I pretty clearly meant doing all the extras - optional missions, looking for the collectibles, watching the cut scenes, etc. I'm really not looking to get into an argument about exact numbers. You beat the game in 13 hours, fine. That's still not 4.

When topics about hours played determining whether a game is worth it always comes up I can't help but scoff. Portal is considered to be one of the best games and its 3-4 hours long max.I think people should stop thinking "how many hours is the game" and look at how many hours of enjoyment they got for their purchase. I'm doing a no kill run in my first playthrough. But heck in the second (I will play again) playthrough i'm going to make it rain blood.

What enjoyment people get out of a game is what you put into it.

Btw susan great review. I always look forward to when you do reviews. Small piece of constructive criticism though. It is never a good idea to get into a conversation about semantics with gaming. You end up just posting to trolls.

You're right, of course, but I just get so annoyed I can't help myself.

 

[Selef]

Dishonored Review

Absolutely killer.

Read Full Article

Hi Susan,

This seems like a game I can thoroughly enjoy, I have a question though. How "buggy" is the game? I hear alarm bells whenever I read Bethesda.

What system did you play it on and did you notice much going wrong?

Bethesda is the publisher, not the developer. Arkane Studios is the developer.

I've been hearing some things about the length of the game itself, Susan any sort of opinion before the inevitable fallout comes?

Like I've heard people have been beating the game in 4 hours.

Bullshit. It might be possible to beat the game in 4 hours if you've played it before, if you try to get to your target as fast as possible if you skip through all the cutscenes, if if if. Anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it will be spending about 20 hours with it, easily.

hate to sound like a dick but i just beat the game in 13 hours, i didn't do all the things like finding all the paintings or bone pieces, but i did get all the runes and it was a completely non lethal play through, even replaying a few missions. Don't get me wrong ill probably be replaying this till i log at least 20 hours, but one play though should not take 20 hours.

Well, sure, you'll naturally trim time if you don't look around. I said "anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it," by which I pretty clearly meant doing all the extras - optional missions, looking for the collectibles, watching the cut scenes, etc. I'm really not looking to get into an argument about exact numbers. You beat the game in 13 hours, fine. That's still not 4.

sorry if it seemed like i was looking for an argument, it was 4 am and i was just trying to give my experience, thank for the review it did the game justice

 

[kyoodle]

I look forward to the Wall Street Journals review:

'As a $60 FPS this game really should be worth $60 by including online play. Call of Duty has an online mode, but Dishonored does not have an online mode. Maybe it would be worth $30 (which is less than $60)but for a game, in 2012) a rich social media experience would be necessary for testosterone fueled 18-35 male demographics.

Halo 4 is also an online.

8/10'

Then they can sit back and watch the Pulitzers fly in.

Great review Susan looking forward to when this comes out in the UK!

 

[Farther than stars]

"Loyalists" are your benefactors, eh? Too bad the game forces you into a perspective in which you strive for birthright as being the defining attribute of just leadership.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Sorry, but a game with really outdated visuals (not that I mind those) and some gameplay flaws does not deserve a 10/10.

For example, changing weapons is complicated unless you click the wheel button, but changing fast by scrolling is hard.. There should be an option to map some powers that you use frequently. It makes no sense the heart and the teleport trick (and others) are in the same place as weapons.

This said, I'm still enjoying it very much. This is coming from someone who cannot get into new games easily and has dropped many games this year. Shitty Mass Effect 3, shitty Skyrim (but those are Rpg's, which I dislike by nature), shitty Max Payne 3, shitty AC:Revelations.

You can assign weapons to the d-pad, which makes switching between them fast and simple. So, there is an option to map powers that you use frequently. And though you may personally find it nonsensical to have powers and weapons in the same wheel, that's a matter of taste, not a design flaw.

 

[charge52]

Yeh. Good game. Little shorter than could be, but then I was reminded of how similar the mission system is to the Hitman and Splinter Cell games, and how much more there is to do than in those, so I was happy again.
But I have a problem with one of the passive abilities available. Shadowkill. If you stab someone from behind, you also disintegrate them completely. On second level, you disintegrate everyone you kill, no matter how you did. But they still count towards chaos. Chaos increases when you're extra-violent, leaving bodies around. Means the city guard will get rather twitchy and the rats will increase in number thanks to the extra food. But with Shadowkill, there aren't any bodies to be found (they are reduced to nothing), so there shouldn't be any extra plague rats, and nobody should be the wiser that someone killed someone. Said people just up and disappear. The Outsider himself could've eaten them for all the people now. But the game still reacts to you killing people with Shadowkill as if you just normally did.
I know that there's only so much the developers can take into account, but the fact that this ability's use does not make any difference on the world leaves me a bit 45-degree-angle-faced.

The whole point of that skill is just to make it so no one will find a corpse and get alerted. They will still notice that they're men are just gone, and would still want more guards to try and figure out what the fuck is going on. If in real life the majority of a mansion just disappeared, and there was no evidence of where they are, you can damn well bet that there would be more guards.

 

[kyuzo3567]

Sorry, but a game with really outdated visuals (not that I mind those) and some gameplay flaws does not deserve a 10/10.

For example, changing weapons is complicated unless you click the wheel button, but changing fast by scrolling is hard.. There should be an option to map some powers that you use frequently. It makes no sense the heart and the teleport trick (and others) are in the same place as weapons.

This said, I'm still enjoying it very much. This is coming from someone who cannot get into new games easily and has dropped many games this year. Shitty Mass Effect 3, shitty Skyrim (but those are Rpg's, which I dislike by nature), shitty Max Payne 3, shitty AC:Revelations.

There is an option to map powers, on consoles the D-pad can be mapped with 4 powers/weapons (I'm stealthing the first playthrough so I have 3 powers and sleep darts linked) and on the computer you can map 1-0 with things as well

Edit: Posted this then noticed Susan responded to you already

 

[Sight Unseen]

Yeh. Good game. Little shorter than could be, but then I was reminded of how similar the mission system is to the Hitman and Splinter Cell games, and how much more there is to do than in those, so I was happy again.
But I have a problem with one of the passive abilities available. Shadowkill. If you stab someone from behind, you also disintegrate them completely. On second level, you disintegrate everyone you kill, no matter how you did. But they still count towards chaos. Chaos increases when you're extra-violent, leaving bodies around. Means the city guard will get rather twitchy and the rats will increase in number thanks to the extra food. But with Shadowkill, there aren't any bodies to be found (they are reduced to nothing), so there shouldn't be any extra plague rats, and nobody should be the wiser that someone killed someone. Said people just up and disappear. The Outsider himself could've eaten them for all the people now. But the game still reacts to you killing people with Shadowkill as if you just normally did.
I know that there's only so much the developers can take into account, but the fact that this ability's use does not make any difference on the world leaves me a bit 45-degree-angle-faced.

The whole point of that skill is just to make it so no one will find a corpse and get alerted. They will still notice that they're men are just gone, and would still want more guards to try and figure out what the fuck is going on. If in real life the majority of a mansion just disappeared, and there was no evidence of where they are, you can damn well bet that there would be more guards.

Doesn't that same logic apply though if half your guard ends up waking up in a dumpster or precariously perched on the ledge of a roof with tranq darts sticking out of their chests, with the person they were guarding dead or missing? But that doesn't increase your chaos any...

I look forward to the Wall Street Journals review:

'As a $60 FPS this game really should be worth $60 by including online play. Call of Duty has an online mode, but Dishonored does not have an online mode. Maybe it would be worth $30 (which is less than $60)but for a game, in 2012) a rich social media experience would be necessary for testosterone fueled 18-35 male demographics.

Halo 4 is also an online.

8/10'

Then they can sit back and watch the Pulitzers fly in.

Great review Susan looking forward to when this comes out in the UK!

Hate to disappoint you, but I think their review was actually decent for this game:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/10/10/dishonored-is-a-whale-of-a-game/

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Huh. Hadn't even heard of this before now. How have I missed this? Crap, I guess the season of titles is upon is, isn't it? I may need to try and find another job to support my gaming habit.

 

[kburns10]

Judging from that review this game did everything right! Don't really want to add another game to my backlog, but I might Redbox it soon.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I've tried to hide bodies in dumpsters,bushes or in dark shadowy areas or even on ceilings or bookcases.And yet at the end of the mission I still had 8 bodies detected.

Should I just get the shadow kill power and outright stealth kill the guards instead? How big will that affect my chaos rating.

 

[Sight Unseen]

I've tried to hide bodies in dumpsters,bushes or in dark shadowy areas or even on ceilings or bookcases.And yet at the end of the mission I still had 8 bodies detected.

Should I just get the shadow kill power and outright stealth kill the guards instead? How big will that affect my chaos rating.

Not sure what you did wrong, but my most recent mission I got only one body detected and it was a legitimate detection ( I saw who saw it) so it is possible to do.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Didn't read the full review (What? It said it had spoilers) but...damn, five out of five?...when was the last time a game that a review that good on this website...ok, now I am REALLY looking forward to tuesday.

Dragon Age 2.

But yea, why on earth would you put spoilers in a review? That makes like, zero sense.

The spoiler in question is the basic set up of the plot, which is something I always include in reviews. If you already know why your character is dishonored - a plot point that was revealed in several different pre-launch trailers - then the review has no spoilers. If, however, you don't know any of that, I'd rather let you experience it as it happens in the beginning of the game.

 

[MDSnowman]

When I first saw trailers for this game I was totally unimpressed. It looked like a more steam punk version of Bioshock.

Then I saw the game play previews. The same mission done with stealth, and without. The one without stealth looked fun, but ho-my-gawd the stealth game play video nearly made me drool.

Since that video this has been my most anticipated game of the year.

 

[Sight Unseen]

When I first saw trailers for this game I was totally unimpressed. It looked like a more steam punk version of Bioshock.

Then I saw the game play previews. The same mission done with stealth, and without. The one without stealth looked fun, but ho-my-gawd the stealth game play video nearly made me drool.

Since that video this has been my most anticipated game of the year.

You won't be disappointed

According to Steam I have 12 hours played so far (minus about 1 hour where I went back to old missions and just dicked around for fun) and I'm only on the 4th mission of apparently 9. Trying to go as nonlethal as I can and so far I'm absolutely loving this game. The amount of options you have is staggering and the level design is really, really good (although it'd be nice to have more nonlethal options than just sleep darts and choking...)

Just dont go straight to objectives (in fact, I'd recommend turning the objective and heart displays off completely) and you can spend a lot of time on this game in each mission, finding everything there is to offer.

 

[Norix596]

Dishonored Review

Absolutely killer.

Read Full Article

Hi Susan,

This seems like a game I can thoroughly enjoy, I have a question though. How "buggy" is the game? I hear alarm bells whenever I read Bethesda.

What system did you play it on and did you notice much going wrong?

Bethesda is the publisher, not the developer. Arkane Studios is the developer.

I've been hearing some things about the length of the game itself, Susan any sort of opinion before the inevitable fallout comes?

Like I've heard people have been beating the game in 4 hours.

Bullshit. It might be possible to beat the game in 4 hours if you've played it before, if you try to get to your target as fast as possible if you skip through all the cutscenes, if if if. Anyone actually playing the game to enjoy it will be spending about 20 hours with it, easily.

That's pretty much what I've heard from other reviewers. You CAN rush through the game but you'd be doing yourself a disservice. These missions also seem to have much more replaying in mind than other stealth games I have. For eg, I've never heard of assassination targets getting randomly reassigned routes and locations. Should help keep the playthroughs fresh along with the range of options you've got.