Dishonored

In another thread (this one), VaderXanth gave us his first impressions of Bethesda's recent release, 'Dishonored'. His first impressions were clouded with the joy of "seeing" the game, and thus his enjoyment or disappointment was tainted. I told him to hurry up and play so he could give us all a review, and life/time had other things in mind for Vader. During our last visit, he asked/requested (told? ) me to borrow it and give it a test run. I have done so, and have... um... maybe 10 hours in, and am just about to REstart the 4th mission. I decided to wait until I had a grasp on controls and character abilities, as well as world happenings, before dropping an intitial opinion.

To begin, I will make a quick summary. Bethesda did not make this, they are merely publishing it, so up to this point I have not encountered any bugs except for obvious game errors like weapons going through walls or feet not hitting steps properly on stairs... all forgivable. Story I will save for some other time. Gameplay... sigh... they have taken almost everything RIGHT about Assassin's Creed, and almost everything right about the Thief series, and combined it into one glorious control experience (should point out this is on the PS3... PC controls may vary in ease). I'm sure we're all aware that I enjoy the Assassin's Creed series, though the 'intuitive' controls left me wanting. And of course I have always sung high praise for the Thief series, touting them as some of the best games ever made. And now I say Dishonored has combined the best mechanics of both. Truly an excellent first step into the world of Whalepunk.

You have the stealth of both game series, hiding in shadows and under tables. You have mystic powers and awesome weapons. You have a multitude of ways to complete each task. Sneak to the balcony by way of the rooftops, find a semi-collapsed passage to the basement by way of the sewers, straight in with guns blazing, possess a rat and skitter through drainage pipes, or even complete a side quest that could maybe open up a whole new possibility for success in the main quest! YOU decide how you want to play!!! WAIT!!! Whalepunk?! What the---?!

Oh yes, sorry. The game LOOKS like a heady mix of steampunk AND dieselpunk, yet nothing runs on either diesel or steam. Everything 'powered' in the game runs on oil distilled from whale blubber. Whale oil for fuel equals Whalepunk. Warning: refined whale oil is VOLATILE and semi-unstable!

Let's see, what else? Backstabbing. Leaning around corners. Falling on an enemy to give that jump-kill effect. OH, the controls! You can't just climb everything like in Assassin's Creed, but there a hundreds of ducts, ledges, rooftops, walls, fences, boxes, ETC, that you can climb onto and over. Because the game is first person, I have NEVER wanted to climb wall X and instead my character climbed box Y because it's so 'intuitive'. That happened pretty much constantly (to me) in Assassin's Creed. OH... there's stuff to steal! Much like Thief, maybe you see a way around some guards by going through the upstairs of an abandoned building. While there, you could find coins, ammo, notes offering clues or backstory... and any valuables turn into pocket coin to use for upgrades and ammo. There are hundreds (thousands?) of notes and books available to READ that either give clues or backstory.

Graphics are top-notch, selection of mystic powers is awesome, sound and voice-acting are excellent. Don't know what else to say right now. Don't know how long the game is, or how far along I am, and I refuse to wiki it in case I accidentally see some spoilers. The only real WTF I see right now is a trivial matter... the game makers must have REALLY loved the "splattered" black and white menus of Batman Arkham Asylum, as Dishonored's menus are almost identical. Hmmm... now that I actually put it into text, the game has a lot of Batman in it too... only better.

Score so far:

Wow! A solid 9.5. Nice!

I'm sticking with my 9.5 rating, and hopefully not going to give away too many spoilers, but I wanted to explain a bit of wow I recently found. Granted this is probably the same thing Vader has mentioned with the Massive Erect series of games, wherein your choices change the game. On my second play through, since I discovered the trophies one can get for not killing anybody, which I find drastically half-tarded considering many of the early tutorials TELL you "hey, kill that guard and hide the body" or "jump down and hit R1 to get a drop-kill." Sure, NOW I realize those are just suggestions, but when you're first going through...

Anyway, I already explained Whalepunk (which I discovered I was not the first to name the genre ). What we also have is a plague spread by rats. Humans that are infected get sick, and in the last stage before death, they roam around, practically brain dead, vomiting black goo, and moaning/weeping, hence their nickname of "Weeper"... and they have an insatiable urge for human flesh and blood. Yes, it's zombies, but at least they tried for something a little different. They will attack you and hurt you, a lot. Further, the rats are okay, but when you get a swarm of them (you'll know it when you see it), they will attack and you will feel it.... of course the swarms will also attack other civilians and guards, even going so far as to strip corpses to nothing so there will be no evidence of a kill. YAY, rats!

One of the load screens explains that the more kills you make, there will be more rats in future missions. That's a pretty neat twist. I didn't realize it also worked going from one map to another, but it does. Go into a building that requires a load screen, kill everyone inside, come back out, and there will be 2-3 times more rat swarms! AND... more rats equals more weepers.

But that's not all! Missions are adjusted by your total chaos level. Lots of kills equals lots of chaos. No kills equals low chaos. No kills is a longer game due to all the sneaking and waiting, but because there's less rats/weepers/guards, it's an easier game, and you have more opportunity to find everything! It's not just guards and rats and such though... these guys changed entire missions, dialogs, who lives/dies, all based on how much chaos you want to create! It blew my mind when I first discovered this concept! Okay, mini-spoiler, though they tell you this several missions before you get there...

Spoiler:

In another mission, on high chaos you have to find three guys in three different locations, on low chaos you only have to find one. The entire frickin feel of the game changes depending on your bloodthirst! And lemme tell ya, the last time Samuel drops you off in the boat, his low chaos speech makes you feel a lot less dirty than his high chaos speech!

Oh, and get this, a kill is ANY death that happens from your interference. If you hit a guard with a sleep dart and leave him in the street, there's an XX% chance his sleeping body will be devoured by rats, and because YOU didn't stop to put him somewhere safe... YOUR FAULT! You actually have to be smart and careful if you want those damn trophies!!!

Oh, from the mouths of innocents!

Soothsayer Jr MK II and I watched the trailer for Dishonored the other day, due to Vader's borrowing me the game. Well, Soothsayer Jr posed this rather... interesting... question, one worth repeating here.

"So, you were framed for murder, right? And now you're going around killing everybody to prove that you aren't the killer?"

...

Anyone want to tackle that one? I have no idea on how to even respond.

And let the record show it was this video we watched.

UNLESS you CHOOSE to be "better than all that" and make it through the game without killing a single soul. Believe me you, it's possible! Revenge is tempting, but maybe the Outsider wants to know if you can rise above the baser emotions... The Outsider walks among us, you know?

I've started playing Dishonored, and I gotta tell ya... it's a pain. Not the game, no, but all newer games in general: I can't read a damned thing on the screen!

I don't have a large flat screen. When the wife and I bought our set (36 inch), we had that option, but we had settled on the SDTV; it was heavy and boxy, perfect for when you have kids running around and smacking into things (which the TV has had done to it). Also at the time of purchase, I didn't have the PS3, so high def really wasn't an issue.

That shouldn't make a difference. In the set-up options of the PS3, it asks for your output and TV system, so that it can best calibrate the signal. That, added with the fact that one can toggle close-captioning in game AND adjust screen ratio (on some games, not all) AND switch from standard to 3D (again, on some games), one would think that they'd be able to develop some way for the in-game text font to be increased or not. I've even went and adjusted the TV settings, hoping to bring an extra level of clarity or sharpness to the text, but to no avail; it isn't the text itself, it's just the damned size.

And no, I'm not planning on sitting inches away from the screen. As it is, the chair right in front of the TV is about 6-7 feet away.

With all that said, I have no idea what options I'm clicking on when holding conversations, or what it is I'm picking up / eating, or even more importantly (as I like stories more than gameplay) the fact that I can't read any of the journal entries I've come across.

I'm literally playing blind.

Again, not complaining about the game. I rather like the world setting it's in. I just don't know how much I can get into it without being able to get into the heart of things, if that makes any sense.