Poll: Did you enjoy Dishonored?

[Mikeyfell]

Nope. All the good things you heard about are probably red herrings.

It could be immensely satisfying to set up convoluted traps and have unwitting guards bumble through them like idiots.
But it has the problem of the game not wanting you to have any fun with it.


The Stealth is dull (It's the bad kind where one inch of you is exposed everyone knows where you are)
And killing guards is the WORST THING IMAGINABLE!!!
Torturing, dismembering, Drugging and instigating rape, all fine and dandy. Killing EVIL!

And it's with admirable gusto that the game drives this point home. So you start to feel really shit about using any of the not shit mechanics at risk of getting the bad end (cause it's one of those games too)


The Writing, voice acting and character building are the worst I've seen in years. (Since Oblivion)
Characters will often flit schizophrenically between 2 massively contradictory opinions about you or events or anything.

It's hard to take anything in the game at face value because of the awful writing.


It would be perfectly functional as an arcade style Kill-the-guards-em-up.
Just so long as you ignore everything else that's going on in the game.

Personally I think it's one of the worst games of last year.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Damn straight I did. One of my favorite games of 2012 honestly. Absolutely loved the setting, by the end of the game, I almost felt like I knew all the ins and outs of the streets of Dunwall as if I had lived there. The city itself has a life of its own, and unlike in most other games, I thought the sort of "morality" meter of this game made much more sense in the game world. Actions literally have consequences, where it's far easier to just kill all the guards in your path to reach the objective, but the more you do, the more chaos erupts from it leading to places being more heavily guarded and increase of the spread of the plague. Subtle touches like how if you go through the game without even being spotted, your wanted posters only have a question mark for your picture. This is a game that cannot be missed, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

 

[Longstreet]

Yes, it was awesome, there were probably a few / a lot of faults, but i found it so entertaining i didnt care two shits.

Stealth was great, you had several options each time. Two different endings that depended on how much / if at all you killed. (My reason for replaying it, and i rarely replay a game)
Yes that might be one of the all hated morality systems, but for this game, somehow i didn't care.

 

[verdant monkai]

I know I'll get hate for this but to be honest it was just a poor rip off, of Deus Ex human revolution.

It has no depth
The characters are terrible.
The game focuses on the shitty politics of Dunwall rather than the Outsider and supernatural elements.
The pacing is non existent you just get thrown into it.
Your character's lack of a voice is lazy as hell. It just seems like he's a mindless robot, and its a shame because his back story held a lot of promise.
The stealthy approach takes too long. There's no reason not to go on a murder rampage and just hack your way through.*
You don't care about the characters who are shoved in your face, and then told are important to you.

Spoiler

I let Emily drop at the end just to see if Corvo would give a fuck that his child just died..... he didn't

To be fair I can see the game's workings are well designed, and the art is all great along with the flexibility and options available to you.
I kept on comparing it to the brilliant Deus Ex, in Deus Ex even though you can't upgrade everything you can upgrade most of it. And you feel like a badass at the end, near the end of Dishonoured I was only able to upgrade a few powers. Both Dishonoured and Deus Ex seriously need a new game +.
*I'm not even bad at stealth games it's just that Dunwall is stressful to navigate.

 

[Inconspicuous Trenchcoat]

Dark Vision kinda ruins the game, in my opinion. I would avoid that power if I were you. It's a lot more intense and immersive without Dark Vision. DV makes the game... uh, too gamey? for my taste. DV neuters the appeal of sneaking around, in my opinion. I want the thrill of trying to remember where each guard is going, and doing trial and error runs, I don't want a highlighted easy mode.

If you like challenge, Dishonored isn't going to satisfy a hankering for a challenging game. Even on hard, it's not tough, but the power fantasy and trying to make each encounter as varied as possible by trying new combinations of items and powers, can keep it very fun and fresh. At least, for one playthrough. I didn't find it remarkable enough to be worth much more than maybe one slow, deliberate playthrough and a second crazy, madman kill everything playthrough (which goes really quickly). I'm hoping the new DLC is good--the challenge maps got old pretty fast, game is too clunky for fun score attacking, or maybe it was just me.

I would suggest not doing a full stealth, no kills run your first time, nor a full on madman. I think the game plays best when you mostly sneak, but have to deal with getting caught, or sometimes feel compelled to brutally dispose of some particularly nasty people. In other words, use all your items and powers and don't abuse save scumming. The game is best when you're constantly having to improvise.

It is very true that the game isn't very good outside of aesthetics (technically speaking, it is a bit ugly), world building and the gameplay. Its story, characters and some of its lore are poor and entirely forgettable. If you need a good story to get you through a game, look elsewhere. This game's Pros are all in the gameplay column. The world is interesting, but mostly nothing in the world is interesting, if that makes sense, beyond the "seeing what's around the next bend" factor.

 

[FoolKiller]

Hello,

So i recently purchased Dishonored on Amazon for $30 new(should be getting it on Thursday). I have heard great things about it, but i want to know what this community thinks about it!

Well after I voted I see that 250 people have voted and about 220 liked it. I guess its a "yay" vote overall.

Hmm... its occurs to me that this is how games should be rated in terms of people's opinions. A simple binary choice which results in a percentage based whether someone likes it or not. No schemes out of ten or any such nonsense. Based on this style, Dishonored is sitting near 90% on the scale.

 

[Fiend Dragon]

I thought it was fantastic. As I played through it, I kept noticing all these tiny little bits of detail and things that were lovingly attended to. The world is super fleshed out and really cool to explore and learn about, the atmosphere is wonderfully cool and the visual style is quite interesting.

The gameplay itself is outstanding as well. A lot of games advertise multiple ways to do things, but I always feel like they are pretty forced, and not actually as diverse as they seemed. Basically like a 2 or 3 option system. In Dishonored, I always felt like going about the level in a different way actually mattered from the top down, and there were actually loads of diverse and different ways that you could go about completing the level. In just one level, I counted about 20 unique different ways just to get into one building.

All of the different pieces of equipment and supernatural powers look and feel good and useful, but none of them are required. I actually felt like no matter what I picked I wasn't being punished or rewarded for anything, and that no particularly strategy was any better than any other. There aren't really any true measures of judgement other than completing the mission, so I felt like no matter what I did I was playing the game right.

Even the combat is super fun. The simple stab-block-counterattack mechanics actually work really well, they look awesome and feel really good, and the equipment and weapons you can use alongside feel great in a stand up fight too. You could easily play the game just running through stabbing everything screaming HAH-HAH like Roberto -I called this run Corvo Insano- or go full stealthy, or a mix of both and I feel like playing organically and not save scumming is actually really easy and fun to do.

TLDR: I've played the whole game through many thorough, well paced times now and I am still super excited about playing more of it. It's an awesome game, you'll enjoy it.

 

[Camaranth]

I just picked it up two weeks ago and definitely in the liked it crowd. Yeah the narrative is a bit cliched but it doesn't detract from anything.

I'm going to echo what trenchcoat said above (because it's what I did) make the first play-through was as organic as possible. Then go nuts in whichever way you desire. I went on a stabby, rat summoning murder spree now I'm working on a ghost run when feel I have the patience for it.

I didn't feel it was too short. It introduces the world, gives you plenty to explore and doesn't outstay its welcome or drag on at all. I suppose it can feel short if you're going for a straight-up kill your way through the front door approach but if that's all you do then you are missing out.

I replayed Dishonored immediately. Still haven't picked up Deus Ex: HR for a second run through.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Chalk me up as a member of the "Eh, it's okay, I guess" squad.

I suck at first-person stealth. I've always sucked at Thief and the original Deus Ex, and the only hidey-stabby-shadows-y games I can manage with some efficiency tend to be part of the Splinter Cell series. Third-person perspective allows me to more or less deduce the actual field of view of most enemies via a few informed guesses, whereas I kind of hated the way Corvo's limited field of view left me counting down seconds and making sure my approach was as close to flawless as possible.

That and, well, the storyline's setup punishes you for sucking at first-person stealth. You lost patience but don't feel like save-scumming? Suck it, EEEEBIL ENDING FOR YOU!

Then there's the "textures" side of the design specs. I'm not necessarily expecting ocular intercourse-levels of visual fidelity, but I'll admit the style others called "painterly" came across as smudged and rather low-budget to me. As for the design itself, though? Loved it. Steampunk whale oil with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft? I might not be in love with the end result, but I can certainly understand its appeal.

It's just that I keep reflexively checking my video settings to make sure I'm not running on Low. I'm not, and the end result is rather underwhelming.

Otherwise, my one beef with the storyline is that Arkane apparently figured that throwing exposition and rapid-fire world-building at you would trigger some sense of player agency. It didn't, at least not for me.

Game: "OHES NOES! Empress Jessamine got herself murdered in the face and the kid's gone! Not only that, but you've taken the fall and you're off for REVENGE!"
Me: "Oh, okay. Oh, look! There's Brad Dourif and Lena Headey phoning it in for their paychecks! Sucks, Brad. I liked you better as my personal perennial late nineties Large Ham: Saavedro, from Myst III: Exile."

So I finished it. Do I care to undo all my hard work just so I can take a gander at the evil ending? Nope. I'm done. It lasted a weekend, and I frankly don't see the reason behind certain elements in the frighteningly huge heaps of praise being lobbed at it. It's an okay game, it certainly isn't the Best Thing Ever in the History of Ever.

 

[Mordekaien]

The story is "meh" and characters are bland and only little interesting, and I still replayed that game twice. It's really fun to play, feels and moves great and the areas are visually pretty gripping. There's a nice amount of enviromental storytelling too.
One of my favorites last year.

 

[octafish]

Nah, it felt like a poor imitation of all the games they were copying from. I got it the same time as Xcom EU, and have barely touched it, I'd rather play any Deus Ex game (even IW) or Chaos Theory.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I had to force myself to play Dishonored through to the end. I hated the way it entices you with all kinds of lethal weapons, only to penalize you for using them. The morality system is bunk. The stealth mechanics are shallow. The writing and plot are underwhelming. The magical abilites are overpowered and misimplemented. And it was waaaaaay too short for the price.

Strangely enough, I'm one of the few people who seem to have been impressed with the graphics. I liked 'em a lot. The setting and environments weren't too bad either, at least for the first third of the game.

I thought RAGE was a much better experience, so take my opinion of Dishonored with a grain of salt.

 

[Elamdri]

I enjoyed it a lot, but I have two complaints:

1: It's short. I finished it in about 9 hours I think and that was a no kill game.

2: The game gives you a bunch of really cool ways to kill your opponents and then punishes you with a bad ending if you kill too many people.

 

[suitepee7]

bloody fantastic. really enjoyed the gameplay (even if enemies don't tend to look up) and i loved the 'moral choice' system, where is not choices you make, but based on how you played the game. apparently i'm alone in liking the moral choice system, but that's not the point...

 

[Ieyke]

It's no Assassin's Creed 2, but it's pretty good.

Like Assassin's Creed 1, however, it clearly holds the potential to become something as magnificent as Assassin's Creed 2.

I very much look forward to the sequel.


My biggest complaint would simply be that it's just too short. I beat it 3 times in 2 days. The first time took me a day and some change as I went through the game super slowly, and then the 2nd two I just blasted through in no time.
The party mission, for example, I can now blast through in just a few minutes...

Granted, the first time through I took the time to murder EVERYTHING, and the second two times I never killed a thing, so that makes a fairly major difference to game time.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

It started of really strong and went downhill really fast. The first few real missions were fantastic, offered a lot of variety and side content but about halfway through they got more linear and boring. Which is especially glaring because the game is not very long. I was kinda dissapointed.

 

[bjj hero]

Hello,

So i recently purchased Dishonored on Amazon for $30 new(should be getting it on Thursday). I have heard great things about it, but i want to know what this community thinks about it!

Im in the same boat as I just received it as a gift, how far in are you? I think I'm about to do the last level. Im really enjoying it but a few things are grating on me.

The render unconcious thing just wrecks disbelief for me. Has anyone ever choked someone until they blacked out? I have and they stay out for minutes at best, any more than this and youve probabably killed them or given them brain damage. In this i can leave them out cold in a skip and theyll stay there for 30 minutes while I finish the level. As a game mechanic it wrecks the "truthiness" of the game for me. Thats why Im killing everyone, even though it will probably wreck the ending.

I find blink a bit "wooly" as far as whether I will grab of land on a ledge. It makes using it a pain in the arse. Im playing the 360 version and I find the assassinate a bit hit and miss whether I can grab someone from behind.

I dont think the sword fightings great either, (hold block, cut the guy, repeat) but I think its more a limitation of it being a first person game than anything else. Its also no worse than asscreeds waiting to be attacked method of dueling.

some of the audio winds me up as well. The way he says nothing all game wrecks the immersion for me, every time theres a "conversation" its a reminder that its just a game. Equally the way it feels like Victorian London but there are so many Americans in the city doesnt sit right.

It may sound like I hate the game but these are little things in an otherwise excellent game. I like how grim the game feels, I wish theyd have fixed a voice actor for the protagonist and fix the nonlethal take down.

 

[Ziame]

It was pretty good, when I went on a rampage, with powers and shit. Then I tried stealth and it was boring in comparison. Finished the game only once.

 

[AndrewF022]

yes, actually I enjoyed it enough to get every achievement in it, which is something I rarely ever do.

It has a fair share of problems on the writing side of it, and I felt it was far too easy...

However it does something very few stealth games do well, it makes fucking up fun. Usually if you screw up in a stealth game (in anything from Thief to Metal Gear) you kinda just give up and either die or load a save. Dishonored made it fun to escape or to fight back if I got caught.

It's also very accessible, I love me some thief, but I wont lie, those games are a nightmare to really get into... However after about 10 minutes of the first real mission I really felt like I was in control and knew exactly what my characters limitations were, I never had to think about whether or not I could do something (like running jump + blink), or whether I would be seen or not... it made the trial and error aspect of most stealth games almost non-existent.

 

[WindKnight]

I loved it, especially blinking around the place and the risk/reward aspect of the non-lethal takedowns.