Dishonored - New game from Arkane with interesting pedigree.

DEATHMASTER said:
Sounds like a "hand-held" game. At least you can cut the hand off.
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As far as the main mission goes, yes and no. They will tell you the general area of where to go but besides that you are free to either charge in slashing, stealth through undetected without killing, stealth in and kill everyone, you can teleport up ledges to get to a window where you can shoot/jump people from. You don't even have to kill your assassination targets, and if you don't then you normally have to do something else to your target to render them useless against your cause, which I don't want to spoil but is really cool. My point being that freedom is a major component in the game so "hand-holding" isn't really how I would describe it.

The stealth starts off really easy.. like "just take the roof and avoid everything" easy. But, the stealth gets much much harder the further you get. Doing a mission without being detected once is near impossible later on and takes crazy amounts of patience. More often than not, the best path is to sneak by everyone since the takedown takes a few seconds to complete. The non-lethal takedown.... This is so frustrating because the time it takes adds difficulty to playing non-lethal, and makes certain areas near impossible to complete. Love-hate sort of thing.

Where I think this game lacks is weapons. The weapons they have are cool but more drastic upgrades, or just more weapons, would have made for a deeper gameplay experience.

For those who don't know, you need to collect runes around the game in order to upgrade/unlock your skills. The way I am playing is non-lethal and non-detection so going around and getting runes is 10x harder so I often just pass. I have plenty of gold, but there isn't anything I want to spend it on (besides runes). That whole system makes the levels feel richer and gives you more to do but takes away from the "play your way" experience. That being said the rune system would piss me off even more if I didn't have a way of detecting them.

The levels though... They reuse a lot of maps (since it's a city) but change up a little bit each time (and they are still fun). First-person stealth assassin playground. I am getting close to the end but am not there yet... I will for-sure write a full review when I'm done. So far though I would say "PLAY THIS GAME."
 
3 hours until it unlocks in bottom-of-the-world-land :(
 
Yes, the game did indeed get much more difficult. I have died several times already (and I left it on Hard mode). So thats good, as its now a challenge. Its still easy to take someone out when they're isolated, but trying to pop two or three guys at once usually ends up in you dying, even if you manage to take one or two of them down straight away.

I also need to say that the movement is very fun. Blink and Possess are pretty much the only powers I'm using, and, combined with a pretty fluid normal movement, you can get around in a really fun and rewarding fashion. The game also has a much bigger playing space than I anticipated. Initially when you look at the maps, it seems like it would be restrained, but you can climb over things and take shortcuts using areas I would have thought to be invisible-walled. So that was a pleasant surprise too. Enjoying the game quite a bit.
 
is the AI as frustratingly dumb as they appear to be in so many of the vids I've seen?
 
If you are encountering AI then either you or them will quickly die. It's all about stealth and out-maneuvering them. But, to answer you question, yes, think of it like Bioshock AI except they are all oversized TF2 soldiers. I love killing someone right behind a glass door with another guy looking at me and never detecting me. That may have more to do with the level-design though.
 
Yeah, thats easily the most "uh.. what?" design decision I've seen in the game. Certain glass windows are completely line-of-sight blocking to AI, while others aren't. There was one point where a guy walked right up on me and I thought I was screwed because he was looking right at me through glass, but then I realized he couldn't actually see me. So that was a disappointment. But then I tried to pull the same stunt in another area with a different glass window, and they saw me straight away. I dont know if its a bug with the models or if some windows were intentionally designed to block AI sight despite being see through.
 
Well, played for 3 hours and just got my first power. Really liking it so far, can't wait to put some of these powers to good use.
 
Opi97.jpg
 
How is the story? This what will determine if I wait for a price drop. Was hoping for a lot of conspiracy and grey area morality..
 
ZT said:
How is the story? This what will determine if I wait for a price drop. Was hoping for a lot of conspiracy and grey area morality..
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I'm not too far in, but the story seems good so far. I love me a good revenge tale. I'd definitely recommend it for the $45 voucher price it's currently at on GMG (this special ends tonight though).
 
ZT said:
How is the story? This what will determine if I wait for a price drop. Was hoping for a lot of conspiracy and grey area morality..
Click to expand...
I have a hard time trusting any of my "friends." I havent gotten to it yet, but I'm quite sure I'm about to be backstabbed hard. I can't say for sure, because they've done a good job of not really being blatant about it, but there's some cracks showing in behavior of my allies. As for grey area, I imagine there's a decent bit of it. I've been trying to play my character as an honorable sort, so when this one guy started trying to work out a deal with me, I shot him in the eye with a tranquilizer dart and took him captive. I'm pretty sure that if I had let him go on, I would have been able to strike a deal though, and I'm also quite certain that I could have just killed him. I think I'll be starting another game as soon as I finish this one, to try out some alternate stuff.

I wouldn't say the "choices" in this game are mind blowing and the best I've seen, but they're well executed nonetheless.
 
I just cut off a guy's head and it landed on an awning behind him.

GOTY.
 
I can't believe I'm 5 hours in and haven't even passed the first mission. There's too much exploring and experimenting to do. I tihkn it's going to be a very long game for me.
 
Feels like a mix of Human Revolution and Bioshock. Fantastic so far. I'm still in the first mission too, and damn, there's so much to do.

That old lady is creepy as hell. I was 100% sure her first 'gift' would be an ambush or something.
 
morgs said:
I can't believe I'm 5 hours in and haven't even passed the first mission.
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I spent a good deal of time there as well, trying out stuff, I'm about to start the 2nd.

I'm enjoying the game so far, really liking the art style - in the media I saw before the release, the game did seem like it had purposefully undetailed graphics which looked washed-out and generally weren't too attractive to me. But it is in fact pretty detailed - in a way a detailed painting would be - you can see the 'brush strokes' on textures and it looks really nice.

I have however fallen into the perfectionist trap again, as I do with those kind of games - even though I'm not aiming for a non-lethal playthrough (all those nice weapons, gadgets and animations would go to waste), I still reloaded when shit hit the fan. But now I plan to snap out of it and aim to play the game in a 'whatever happens, happens' way.

I'm playing on hard (as per Krynn's recommendation) and now plan to turn off the objective indicators as well. I'm a bit worried about missing out on runes though and encountering situations such as the one in the first mission where

you have to hide the unconscious body of the guy that was talking with Campbell in 'a safe place'. Well this safe place turns out to be one specific dumpster and you don't really have any way of knowing this without an objective indicator.

As for the gray area morality - well you are killing guards that believe you are a murderer and may not actually be 'bad people'. Also there's a side quest in the first mission which I didn't end up doing at the last moment, thinking about the consequences (side quest spoiler ahead):

The quest involves infecting bootleg anti-plague elixir prepared by a gang, which would result in the death of the gang members, but also the people that buy it from them. After I saw a list of families that ordered the elixir I decided it would be a shitty thing to do and didn't proceed with the quest
 
Unfocused said:
The quest involves infecting bootleg anti-plague elixir prepared by a gang, which would result in the death of the gang members, but also the people that buy it from them. After I saw a list of families that ordered the elixir I decided it would be a shitty thing to do and didn't proceed with the quest
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I felt horrible after doing it but I just couldn't resist the rune. I love it when a game makes you feel like this.
 
Edeslash said:
I felt horrible after doing it but I just couldn't resist the rune. I love it when a game makes you feel like this.
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Disclaimer: I am further into the game than the rest of you, read the spoilers at you own risk.


I did that sidequest too, and though afterwards, "oh shit what did I do?".

The funny thing is that after that mishap, me and the leader of the bottle street gang become allies.
Also immediately after that mission where the "infecting" sidequest was, zombies, er... I mean plague victims started appearing in the streets. One mob appears right after you talk to Slack-jaw, scared the shit out of me. So I wander if these infected appear if you don't tamper with the bootleg elixir.

Also Krynn regarding your suspicions on the allies.

Yeah, Pendelton and that general back stab you right after you finish taking care of "business".
Everyone else besides those two really are on your side though. The boatman later tells you that he diluted the poison so that it wouldn't kill you.
 
Hmm, I was kind of hoping for Deus Ex style story telling; shady politics and secretive organizations on both sides. Sounds more like simple Half-Life 2 storytelling; the good guys versus the bad guys?
 
I dunno, it's hard to tell who's good and who's bad a lot of the time.

I've only killed bandits so far, but I have had to kill a couple of guards that just wouldn't let up on me.
 
ZT said:
Hmm, I was kind of hoping for Deus Ex style story telling; shady politics and secretive organizations on both sides. Sounds more like simple Half-Life 2 storytelling; the good guys versus the bad guys?
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Well, there's the good guys and the bad guys but the good guys are starting to feel fishy. And there is lots of shady stuff going on in the plot.
 
ZT said:
Hmm, I was kind of hoping for Deus Ex style story telling; shady politics and secretive organizations on both sides.
Click to expand...

The story isn't about secret organisations like in Deus Ex it's more about the struggle for political power, betrayal and revenge.

I've finished the game and I can say that there aren't that many decent/good people in this game. There are the handful of friends in the resistance that stay loyal to you, and there are the servants and plague victims.
Everyone else falls in one of these categories:
-street thug
-scumbag nobleman
-fruitcake religious zealot
-military goon
-scumbag assassin
-psychopath witch/wizard

Also speaking of wizards.

That guy/entity they call "the outsider". The one that gives you the magic powers. I was disappointed there wasn't a boss fight where I could kill him. He's a manipulative psychopath that gives magic powers to "chosen ones", and then sends them off into the world to cause chaos for his entertainment
 
Hmm.. Can someone please confirm with a yes or no, if...
You fight Santa Claus?
 
OMG I hate those assassins soo much.. They make it so at times you have to take the roof if you don't want to be detected
 
It did not! He was like "yadda yadda yadda, our world is magical, you fight magical fags and shit". I was SO ****ing pumped, I thought it wasn't going to actually be Santa Claus, but like some creepy figurehead used by the elite politicians to make the little homeless children fear authority. His posters would be around the city, with weird patronizing messages, and false promises of getting food for Christmas if the reported rebels to "Santa Claus".

Then later in the game you actually find "Santa Claus", and he's just some fat, rich, religious creep who owns a bunch of child servants, he's surrounded by whores, and food. And you break into his little mansion or whatever and kill him to send a message to the homeless, because deep down, they all wanted that creepy child-slaver dead. I WAS SO PUMPED, I WAS LIKE "SHIT, THIS GAME IS GOING TO BE SO WEIRD AND DARK"
 
Hmm, the game could be a bit more wired towards playing without objective markers at times. Most of the time it's fine but for example in the 3rd mission:

You are supposed to find Sokolov, who lives in an apartment atop the Kaldwin Bridge. So I climb the bridge, and at the 'top' there's this extension with a platform on it, which I found no way of climbing onto. So turn on the objective markers and it turns out there's a spot, where I have to disable the floodlights, below me (it would probably take me a while to find it, since I would have just proceeded to the other side of the bridge) and after I do so, it points me to Sokolov's house on the other side of the bridge. Perhaps my English is lacking, but I was under the impression that "atop the bridge" means "on top of the bridge" :?
 
Just started the golden cat mission, couldn't for the life of me find a missing Rune on the first mission. Something that I was really hoping wouldn't be an issue in this game has really, well, been an issue. It's the same problem HR had, in that you can knock someone out and the game would count them as dead on the next level. So in this case it was either knock him out and not cause a fuss, or let the person raise an alarm and put the whole place in lock down.

Still, Having just started mission 2 at the 8 hour mark, I think this is going to be a very long game for me.

EDIT: Does anyone else really want a sequel, or even DLC set out at sea? maybe on some kind of ship or whaling boat. The things you read about in books of sea creatures, weird fish and other supernatural happenings at sea really make me want to go out there and see what's there.
 
This is probably one of the bests game I have ever played in my life. It's like all of my favorite games combined in one, single game. This is coming from a guy who hates most of the modern games.

pros:
>fun to play - controls are simple, smooth and responsive
>runs extremely well on my PC, loading times are short
>the art direction is amazing
>the level design - attention to detail is incredible
>characters (samuel, granny rags) and their stories
>side quests
>roleplaying elements
>lovecraft references

cons:
>the bug in the overseer mission (overseer runs away from you)
>not enough books
>not enough roleplaying elements, items, abilities
>the final granny scene was not needed. she was meant to be a mysterious character
 
The loading times are indeed incredibly short - mine are about 3 seconds average. The overseer running away from you sounds intentional to me?

Dunwall Tower mission spoilers:
I just killed Lord Regent and goddamnit - I didn't expect the guards to actually check if he is OK. Let the old man sleep! Taking the audio to the broadcast tower would have been simpler, I guess, but I wanted that man to die.
 
Unfocused said:
Hah, the funny thing is that line usually gets a douchebag response like: "I don't need shit from you!"
Click to expand...

My favorite line is: "This is ridiculous! Stupid rats! Stupid plague!"

But seriously they should have recorded more lines for the guards. The lines repeat way too often.
 
Every game Bethesda touches has this problem apparently.
 
"YOU JUST MADE SOMEBODY A WIDOW."

Yeah, I die a lot. Conversely, the game's guards seem to be largely married men.
 
What I don't understand in this game is what's up with the weird aquatic creatures.

Like those barnacle/crustacean type things that shoot poison darts. Are they supposed to be mutants or something?
 
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