Dishonored by Arkane

[Gord]

Maybe I'm too old to give too much of a shit about poly counts and super-high-res textures, but I think the game looks fucking great from an artistic standpoint. Seriously:

Think so, too.

Btw., sea, broke down already and bought it, or just recieved a review copy?

 

[J1M]

I will save everyone a lot of analysis and arguing.

This game is Bioshock 3. Made without the Bioshock license. By the people who worked on Bioshock 2. In Unreal Engine.

Spoiler

It even has the shitty point in the middle where the game should be over and instead you are betrayed by the only characters in the game world who are still alive. This naturally leads to a boss fight against a mage.

 

[sea]

Btw., sea, broke down already and bought it, or just recieved a review copy?

Provided by the fine folks at SKIDROW. I will buy the game, as I think it is quite good, but only once there is a GOTY version for all the DLC or when it's on sale. $60 is still a bit much and I am not in favour of supporting the rising cost of PC games.

I will save everyone a lot of analysis and arguing.

This game is Bioshock 3. Made without the Bioshock license. By the people who worked on Bioshock 2. In Unreal Engine.

Actually BioShock was Unreal Engine 2.5 and heavily modified by the devs. Dishonored is Unreal Engine 4, or whatever you want to call it now (the "3" version has evolved so much over the years it is almost unrecognizable compared to the one that came with UT3).

But yes, this is actually the one thing about Dishonored that bugs me. The level design is great, but the XP-less upgrades, art style, health and mana bars with dedicated buttons to restore each, and the whole "loot everything and it automatically turns to health/mana/cash" element feel very much like they were lifted from BioShock. It's not even that it makes the game any worse, it just brings up all these negative associations and similarities in my mind that it's hard to *not* feel like I'm playing an evolved version of BioShock.

 

[Multidirectional]

Except it's way more fun than Bioshock ever was, so why give a shit if they have similar aesthetics or not?

 

[Ion Prothon II]

I will save everyone a lot of analysis and arguing.

This game is Bioshock 3. Made without the Bioshock license. By the people who worked on Bioshock 2. In Unreal Engine.

Even the controls and UI are similar.

 

[Black]

The game that Dishonored Arkane.

 

[JarlFrank]

So it just took me more than 3 hours to get through the first real mission, doing all the sidequests (except for using the rat viscera to poison the elixir brewery; I did break in there and rob the place though) and stealthing (mostly ghosting with some knockouts).

 

[sea]

So it just took me more than 3 hours to get through the first real mission, doing all the sidequests (except for using the rat viscera to poison the elixir brewery; I did break in there and rob the place though) and stealthing (mostly ghosting with some knockouts).

Same here actually. I was worried about length but the missions are actually very long and have a lot to do. Granted, if you do not stealth you will go through the game much faster, but... well, duh.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

it's a lengthy game.

 

[Trash]

Same here. Everyone who just breezes through it misses out on tons of content. The only way to play this is to sneak, try to kill noone and do every side-mission and see everything. Takes ages and is, gasp, fun.

 

[Excidium]

The mission to take out High Overseer Campbell is the longest, though.

Going non-lethal on very hard and playing moderately I finished it in just 3 days...and that's restarting on the first real mission twice. And I wasted a lot of time, getting every rune and bone charm, reading text, checking audio logs, etc. I did p. much everything there was to do in the game.

All that is left now is replaying on berserk mode to get the high chaos ending, but even then it would still be a damn poor return for $60, good thing I don't give my money to Bethesda.

 

[Metro]

Stick $20 in an envelope and mail it to Arkane.

 

[Black]

I doubt they'll ever get free from bethesda's jewhands so sending them money won't do any good.

 

[Toffeli]

What's with the retarded chaos meter? I had it on low, avoided pretty much every unnecessary kill after the first mission until the mission after

Spoiler

you are poisoned and those other assassin's came.

Most of those I just killed, because there was no time to stun them. I killed the boss too in that mission, and after that, chaos meter was high, and was high to the end. I think I killed 1 civilian in the game. (Accidentally the house owner in the bridge mission with a safe).

 

[Captain Shrek]

Same here. Everyone who just breezes through it misses out on tons of content. The only way to play this is to sneak, try to kill noone and do every side-mission and see everything. Takes ages and is, gasp, fun.

The extra content is mostly irrelevant. There is little there lorewise or adventure type exploration wise. It is completely possible to ghost the mission to get a low chaos ending even with FINAL lethal victim takedown. The only advantage of doing the side missions is fluff in form of DID NOT KILL ANYONE.

Don't argue that Thief was not any different. Thief was 10 years ago and had better Stealth mechanics and challenge.

Otherwise the game is Okay I guess. Nothing really to be excited about. They had a great setting (like in Thief) but ruined it with banal shit boring story telling which in fact was one of the core strengths of Thief. Granted it was minimalistic in that game but it was wonderfully done.

 

[Black]

The Outsider has to be one of the most retarded plot devices ever conceived.

 

[Excidium]

What's with the retarded chaos meter? I had it on low, avoided pretty much every unnecessary kill after the first mission until the mission after

Spoiler

you are poisoned and those other assassin's came.

Most of those I just killed, because there was no time to stun them. I killed the boss too in that mission, and after that, chaos meter was high, and was high to the end. I think I killed 1 civilian in the game. (Accidentally the house owner in the bridge mission with a safe).

That is odd,

Spoiler

I killed all the assassins I could find and stabbed Doud even after he came with that talk of "hurr durr I see the error of my ways now" and my chaos meter was still low after that mission.

 

[Metro]

So looks like Kodex Konsensus is 'Best Possible Outcome for a AAA Game of This Genre Today.' Let's face it, no major publisher is going to fund something like the old Thief games again. "OMG WHY DOES THIS GUARD KILL ME IN TWO HITS!??!! HOW DID HE SEE ME I WAS A WHOLE TWO FEET AWAY?!?! WHAT'S A SHADOW?!!"

Sort of like Human Derpalutions. I know a lot of people here hated it but you really aren't going to see a more 'Deus Ex-ish' game produced today. Not by the likes of Squeenix or Bethesderp or ActiBlizz or EA"

 

[Excidium]

If this is the best outcome then stealth genre is truly dead, the game is short and by the time the plot twist happened I just wanted it to end already.

 

[potatojohn]

Yeah, I was hoping the game would end there too. Why would the loyalists poison me? They literally no reason to. They'll have the same queen, the same positions, the same fame, etc. What does it achieve to kill the queen's bodyguard? The plot is so fucking dumb.

 

[Multidirectional]

If this is the best outcome then stealth genre is truly dead

Yeah because nothing shows the state of stealth genre better than a superhero hybrid game. The stealth genre was always barely alive to begin with though.

 

[Peter]

OMG WHY DOES THIS GUARD KILL ME IN TWO HITS!??!!

Guards kill me in 2 hits in Dishonored

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Any real C&C in the game?

 

[Excidium]

There's some choice but very little consequence.

 

[sea]

So looks like Kodex Konsensus is 'Best Possible Outcome for a AAA Game of This Genre Today.' Let's face it, no major publisher is going to fund something like the old Thief games again. "OMG WHY DOES THIS GUARD KILL ME IN TWO HITS!??!! HOW DID HE SEE ME I WAS A WHOLE TWO FEET AWAY?!?! WHAT'S A SHADOW?!!"

To be fair, the guards kill you in 2ish hits on very hard mode, and actually do look up. I would not recommend playing the game any other way.

Only issue with difficulty for me so far is that there is very little resource management, overpowered guns, and upgrades are too easy to get. If you get into a fight, the pistol basically destroys anyone instantly, and because everything takes place in melee, aiming is rarely a concern. Even the crossbow can insta-kill many enemies and sleep bolts will immediately knock out anyone except in combat, even when they are alerted, which makes many areas extremely easy to get through. You are never, ever in danger of running out of supplies, except maybe sleep bolts if you use the crossbow everwhere. After the first mission, I had maxed out 2 skills already... and they were the only ones I was really interested in getting. I like the game a lot, except for when the streamlining gets into basic gameplay elements that cannot be so easily changed.

Interestingly, blink is not overpowered as I thought it would be. You can just as easily fuck up a blink-stab as you can a regular one, it's just that you don't have to creep around as much. Enemy formations and environments seem to be set up with this in mind, because getting a clear chance to take someone out even while blinking can be quite difficult at times. Mana is not so limitless that you can spam it constantly either, and it's fun to use in exploration... doesn't make jumping and climbing useless, either.

Sort of like Human Derpalutions. I know a lot of people here hated it but you really aren't going to see a more 'Deus Ex-ish' game produced today. Not by the likes of Squeenix or Bethesderp or ActiBlizz or EA"

Syndicate was a really shallow and awful attempt at ripping off Deus Ex, and given Human Revolution's success I'd say we will see more of these "intelligent shooters" in the future, especially as mainstream audiences might begin to tire of simpler games. Arguably even games like Watch Dogs, and that other stealth-platformy-thing (forget the name, you play a woman, modern setting, etc.), are taking a lot from Human Revolution, and hopefully not just aesthetically.

 

[Excidium]

...and actually do look up.

No, they don't. Unless you attract their attention somehow. It gets so ridiculous I could crouch on top of a vase display that is just above their line of sight and nobody would notice me there.