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Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation
- Thread starter prodigydancer
- Start date
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
Well my mistake. I triggered the first configuration button and I waited because I though that that's what the game wants from me to do (speak with Jindosh and so on). This thing was featured in many gameplay trailers.
But I have to admit that I was wrong: It seems Arkane did think about this.
Basically a ghost run is very hard once you alert Jindosh about your presence - most clockwork guards are active and he summons 3 clockwork guards at the mansion entrance (making it a pain to avoid them and carry Sokolov out).
Now, maybe skacky is a pro but for me it was not so obvious that I have to hide at that point. It seems that the entire level experience depends on such an obscure decision.
I felt retarded ghosting while getting commentaries from Jindosh. It's probably good that Arkane allowed this retarded situation to occur but personally I would prefer they didn't in this case.
Anyway, I don't want to play the level again (got all the runes, optional objectives and low chaos score).
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,404
Okay, playing this:
I liked so far:
-The level design on this game is really great, every place you go, there are three or four routs for you to take, just keep an eye on things but this is hardly different from Dishonored 1, they just expanded what was good on Dishonored 1 to even better at Dishonored 2.
-The art is just pretty good, at least the enviroment, there are some moments that are almost photorealistic even with their "cartoony" art style.
- Some novel levels like the Clockwork mansion are great.
- Doing a mostly steel and blood clean hands playthrough is significantly more challenging than on Dishonored, without blink, to find a nice place to camp guards and learn their patrol routs can be tricky. If you are doing a very hard mostly blood and steel clean hands playthrough it is better do it on a second playthrough.
- the Ai search more extensively for you and go looking your last known position and don't give up so easily, you need to be careful too on high ground as enemies look up unless you are on a much higher plane than them.
I felt meh:
1 - I don't play stealth games for the story so it isn't a deal breaker, but I need to mention this because a well told story and well realized world can improve immersion and Dishonored 2 is pretty poor at this. It is obvious they made the levels first, had some concepts for the story and only later they tried connecting all this stuff. Some things on the story require leaps of logic and some stuff that required extensive explanation (like how the fuck you would make a coup like on the start of the game without Emily and Corvo being aware? This is children politics, you just don't come from a second rate island and take some new empress out of your ass and call it a day.) things got handwaived so hard with you being pushed into Karnaka on the clumsiest way possible. The story isn't a priority on this game as it wasn't on Dishonored 1 but I feel they handled it better on Dishonored 1, it could become better later but when I hear Luca Abelle with his comically evil speeches read on a tone by the VO that is that typical EVIL villain is EVIL tone, it takes me really out of the game as I can't stop facepalming.
2 - The VO in this game seems bored, many times I had the impression the actors were reading the script, even Stephen Russel seemed somewhat bored. Everyone has the impulse of being Mr. Exposition Man to not confuseretards mainstream players, the exposition is presented so dry and without enthusiasm, the Outsider for example seems as enthusiastic as an accountant reading to your balance sheet and explaining how much you will pay on taxes.
3 - They recycled way too much from Dishonored 1 on some narrative elements, you need to get Sokolov again, there is a new plague again but by bloodflies instead of rats, I felt that was repetitiousness being kinda bored with that and as the game wastes alot of time on that on the start. You feel aimless, doing random stuff at the start.
4 - this is a subjective one but I think the architecture design and art style of Dishonored 01 felt more unique to the setting, the overseer Campbell headquarters had a more distinct external architecture than the colonial inspired buildings of Dishonored 2. I liked the more pronounced steampunk feeling of Dishonored 1, this was sorta played down on Dishonored 2.
I dont like:
1 - The guard Ai sometimes bugs out, sometimes they just stand there and stop patrolling, sometimes they see you through walls, sometimes they get stuck on the enviroment, the vaulting system sometimes doesn't work and sometimes you need to try hard to get under a table, need to hit a certain spot with precision for the grabbing a ledge animation to play out, Dishonored 2 is less polished than Dishonored 1.
2 - The difficulty modes suck, enemies get more aware and do more damage, that is it so far what I noticed, difficulty modes on the Thief games were much better than this, making enemies more aware make things harder same way making enemies having bigger health bars make the game harder, it is just cheap and annoying, if you get distracted by a milisecond on very hard, it is reload time as they can go from unaware to full alert on less than 01 second from the other side of the room and warn out all their friends.
3 - The combat same as Dishonored 1, sucks balls, it is painfully easy, now they even added a counter move where you can instantly execute a guard after a successful parry and as parry is easy, this generates the phylosophical question: "What can kill a man that can stop time and wall hack?". Everytime I activate a power, I feel I'm cheating, I played easy games before but Dishonored is beyond easy. They just needed a few things to fix the combat on this game: Standard melee fighters can block all your frontal attacks so you can't spam them to death unless you are trusting, parry should allow you a hit not an instant kill, add new enemy types like elite guards with armors and helmets that make them hard to shoot down with crossbows and pistols from afar for example, add enemies that can counter act your powers like enemies that can stop you from using powers, make your powers weaker or become stronger when you use your powers, add reinforcement spawn points for full chaos players to have some fun, if you go on a murder spree, after a certain number of dead alert guards, they call for reinforcement and you have a real fight instead of killing two or three guards, repeat, kill two or three guards, repeat, kill two to three guards, repeat. Those bird robots becomming blind AND attacking enemies with a single shot on the head is ... I dunno, casual pandering to extreme?
So far it is Dishonored 1.5, I'm having fun but most of the issues of the first games unfortunately weren't fixed, if you liked Dishonored 1, you will like this one, if you hated Dishonored 01, you won't change your opinion.
I liked so far:
-The level design on this game is really great, every place you go, there are three or four routs for you to take, just keep an eye on things but this is hardly different from Dishonored 1, they just expanded what was good on Dishonored 1 to even better at Dishonored 2.
-The art is just pretty good, at least the enviroment, there are some moments that are almost photorealistic even with their "cartoony" art style.
- Some novel levels like the Clockwork mansion are great.
- Doing a mostly steel and blood clean hands playthrough is significantly more challenging than on Dishonored, without blink, to find a nice place to camp guards and learn their patrol routs can be tricky. If you are doing a very hard mostly blood and steel clean hands playthrough it is better do it on a second playthrough.
- the Ai search more extensively for you and go looking your last known position and don't give up so easily, you need to be careful too on high ground as enemies look up unless you are on a much higher plane than them.
I felt meh:
1 - I don't play stealth games for the story so it isn't a deal breaker, but I need to mention this because a well told story and well realized world can improve immersion and Dishonored 2 is pretty poor at this. It is obvious they made the levels first, had some concepts for the story and only later they tried connecting all this stuff. Some things on the story require leaps of logic and some stuff that required extensive explanation (like how the fuck you would make a coup like on the start of the game without Emily and Corvo being aware? This is children politics, you just don't come from a second rate island and take some new empress out of your ass and call it a day.) things got handwaived so hard with you being pushed into Karnaka on the clumsiest way possible. The story isn't a priority on this game as it wasn't on Dishonored 1 but I feel they handled it better on Dishonored 1, it could become better later but when I hear Luca Abelle with his comically evil speeches read on a tone by the VO that is that typical EVIL villain is EVIL tone, it takes me really out of the game as I can't stop facepalming.
2 - The VO in this game seems bored, many times I had the impression the actors were reading the script, even Stephen Russel seemed somewhat bored. Everyone has the impulse of being Mr. Exposition Man to not confuse
3 - They recycled way too much from Dishonored 1 on some narrative elements, you need to get Sokolov again, there is a new plague again but by bloodflies instead of rats, I felt that was repetitiousness being kinda bored with that and as the game wastes alot of time on that on the start. You feel aimless, doing random stuff at the start.
4 - this is a subjective one but I think the architecture design and art style of Dishonored 01 felt more unique to the setting, the overseer Campbell headquarters had a more distinct external architecture than the colonial inspired buildings of Dishonored 2. I liked the more pronounced steampunk feeling of Dishonored 1, this was sorta played down on Dishonored 2.
I dont like:
1 - The guard Ai sometimes bugs out, sometimes they just stand there and stop patrolling, sometimes they see you through walls, sometimes they get stuck on the enviroment, the vaulting system sometimes doesn't work and sometimes you need to try hard to get under a table, need to hit a certain spot with precision for the grabbing a ledge animation to play out, Dishonored 2 is less polished than Dishonored 1.
2 - The difficulty modes suck, enemies get more aware and do more damage, that is it so far what I noticed, difficulty modes on the Thief games were much better than this, making enemies more aware make things harder same way making enemies having bigger health bars make the game harder, it is just cheap and annoying, if you get distracted by a milisecond on very hard, it is reload time as they can go from unaware to full alert on less than 01 second from the other side of the room and warn out all their friends.
3 - The combat same as Dishonored 1, sucks balls, it is painfully easy, now they even added a counter move where you can instantly execute a guard after a successful parry and as parry is easy, this generates the phylosophical question: "What can kill a man that can stop time and wall hack?". Everytime I activate a power, I feel I'm cheating, I played easy games before but Dishonored is beyond easy. They just needed a few things to fix the combat on this game: Standard melee fighters can block all your frontal attacks so you can't spam them to death unless you are trusting, parry should allow you a hit not an instant kill, add new enemy types like elite guards with armors and helmets that make them hard to shoot down with crossbows and pistols from afar for example, add enemies that can counter act your powers like enemies that can stop you from using powers, make your powers weaker or become stronger when you use your powers, add reinforcement spawn points for full chaos players to have some fun, if you go on a murder spree, after a certain number of dead alert guards, they call for reinforcement and you have a real fight instead of killing two or three guards, repeat, kill two or three guards, repeat, kill two to three guards, repeat. Those bird robots becomming blind AND attacking enemies with a single shot on the head is ... I dunno, casual pandering to extreme?
So far it is Dishonored 1.5, I'm having fun but most of the issues of the first games unfortunately weren't fixed, if you liked Dishonored 1, you will like this one, if you hated Dishonored 01, you won't change your opinion.
Last edited:
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
Just finished Aramis Stilton's Manor and I have to admit that I'm impressed.
Despite all the criticism, the narrative is quite competent in some regards.
One more mission and I'm done with the game.
I was hovering above Aramis and I thought let's put this guy to sleep ... and I got blown away by the changes in the world. Really fucking awesome.
Despite all the criticism, the narrative is quite competent in some regards.
I like the way they handled the main decision in the Dust District. Factions information was feed in the previous missions therefore it was easy to take a decision.
One more mission and I'm done with the game.
Andkat
Educated
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2010
- Messages
- 68
The plot has gone from 'mediocre' in the first game to 'pants on heads retarded' in this one (not to mention the overload of pandering references to the original). The gameplay might be the draw but the obtrusively nonsensical presentation of the narrative actively conspire to suck the fun out of it- I just about wanted to shoot myself after the third rambling exposition dump less than an hour into the game. Surely they could've taken five seconds to come up with a better sequence of pretenses for why you're doing what you're doing (I mean considering that they're already recycling the premise of the first game with the antagonist of the DLC and calling it a day). The plot would make more sense and be more satisfying in its construction if you were simply told that you were an insane serial killer escaped from an asylum who heard voices in his head telling him to murder various important people.
Last edited:
"Take back what is your's, beotch" is a better marketing pitch than "U r an insane serial killer gurl, go take it easy."
Paul_cz
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2014
- Messages
- 2,127
Arkane, man. I knew after playing the first Dishonored and its fantastic expansions that second game was only a matter of time, and it was going to be another masterpiece of gameplay design, mission design and audiovisual artistry. And that prediction proved true. Having just finished my first playthrough as Corvo, completely nonlethal, I am again amazed by the experience. Arkane just know how to build fascinating places. From the streets of Karnaca, through abandoned solarium, Rubik's cubish Clockwork Mansion, the beautifully moody observatory, to gloriously handled time travel..Dishonored 2 kept surprising me. There is also one thing improved from the first game that made me very happy - both playable characters, Corvo and his daughter Emily, are voiced and actively talking. So no more artificial mute monologuing with other people like in the first game. Maybe a sign of the dumb "Silent Protagonist" trope dying off? I hope so.
Anyway, masterful experience, can be replayed many times thanks to the wealth of possibilities. Tech-wise, looks beautiful and ran perfectly fine for me (60fps, 2500K/1070/8GB).
I hope Arkane are hard at work on story expansions, I wouldn't mind meeting Daud again..
Anyway, masterful experience, can be replayed many times thanks to the wealth of possibilities. Tech-wise, looks beautiful and ran perfectly fine for me (60fps, 2500K/1070/8GB).
I hope Arkane are hard at work on story expansions, I wouldn't mind meeting Daud again..
If you are an audiophile and enjoy listening to the game's brilliant soundscape, there is a GameRip available containing over a 1000 soundbits extracted from the game.
https://yadi.sk/d/PZbX71PvzHyLG
(~761MB)
(~761MB)
I think Daud would be a bit too old by now. On the other side, they could do some wacky things with the timepiece....
Fuck mission 4
Edit: Morgoth of course I'm butt-hurt
The entire mission is a fiasco from a game design point of view cause the immersion factor was thrown out the window for this mission. There is no immersion for a stealth approach. Except if you like pretending.
Just think for one second: How do you feel ghosting a level when the villain sees and taunts your every move !? The answer is simple: retarded
The Clockwork Mansion level design is amazing but the level is ruined by the bullshit above.
Why would you want to ghost through a level full with Clankers that can see backwards? They're supposed to get demolished. Gee toro, have some fun making things kaputt once in a while when they game offers you to be a reckless Luddite.
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
Fuck mission 4
Edit: Morgoth of course I'm butt-hurt
The entire mission is a fiasco from a game design point of view cause the immersion factor was thrown out the window for this mission. There is no immersion for a stealth approach. Except if you like pretending.
Just think for one second: How do you feel ghosting a level when the villain sees and taunts your every move !? The answer is simple: retarded
The Clockwork Mansion level design is amazing but the level is ruined by the bullshit above.
Why would you want to ghost through a level full with Clankers that can see backwards? They're supposed to get demolished. Gee toro, have some fun making things kaputt once in a while when they game offers you to be a reckless Luddite.
I already answered this: I fucked up
You can actually ghost it without him even knowing you're there, which is the best option.
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
I know. We already discussed this.
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
Finished the game. I got the (((good))) ending ... and it feels underwhelming (to say the least).
The ending for the first game was normal - nothing special - but it felt like a proper ending. In this one, the ending is simply stupid (for lack of a better word). Also it feels like a déjà vu considering that Delilah was the end boss in the second DLC to the first game.
I cannot believe how so much work and so many assets were wasted on such a pointless story. And this doesn't sounds too good for Prey either.
But I appreciate the fact that I was able to play without powers and the exceptional world design allowed for such a play style. World, art and sound design are top notch (they should be - it's a AAA title).
However there are many negative things I could mention (fuck ... I miss Thief) but it will not bring anything new to the table.
Overall it's not a bad game and it has its moments (Aramis and Clockwork mansions) but it's nowhere near the masterpiece that other people are claiming it is.
The ending for the first game was normal - nothing special - but it felt like a proper ending. In this one, the ending is simply stupid (for lack of a better word). Also it feels like a déjà vu considering that Delilah was the end boss in the second DLC to the first game.
I cannot believe how so much work and so many assets were wasted on such a pointless story. And this doesn't sounds too good for Prey either.
But I appreciate the fact that I was able to play without powers and the exceptional world design allowed for such a play style. World, art and sound design are top notch (they should be - it's a AAA title).
However there are many negative things I could mention (fuck ... I miss Thief) but it will not bring anything new to the table.
Overall it's not a bad game and it has its moments (Aramis and Clockwork mansions) but it's nowhere near the masterpiece that other people are claiming it is.
Last edited:
vortex
Fabulous Optimist
http://www.glixel.com/interviews/dishonored-2-director-harvey-smith-the-world-is-a-shtshow-w452616
Also he talks about PC release and DLC.
Also he talks about PC release and DLC.
Last edited:
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
Arkane was "brought" during Dishonored development, meaning it started before being "brought", considering how they were "brought" its likely that a byproduct was Dishonored had a longer development cycle as Dishonored 2was very likely pushed to be released as soon as possible and we all know or should know, when it comes to story they focus on the beginning of the game and the ending often more or less a afterthought.
Also who knows what involvement did Bethesda had in all this.
toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,818
In other words, it's like in a bad marriage:
- if the story was good then Arkane takes the credit,
- if the story sucks then Bethesda is to be blamed.
:D
To be fair, Arkane has always been shit at making good stories. Even before Zionmax bought them.
Very playable.
Uncle Morgoth's protip of the day: Put "+com_showLoadingScreen 0" into the launch options to skip the intro videos.
vortex
Fabulous Optimist
Ooooh, uncle Morgoth is now giving protips.
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