I finally got around to playing and beating Dishonored, a
game many people where telling me I should play. The same amount of people also
told me the game was just ‘okay.’ After playing it, I find it to between the ‘MUST
PLAY’ and ‘OKAY’ recommendations I was hearing. The game play makes the game
worth it but it falls flat in several other areas. The game was published by
Bethesda Games, who if you know me, I am not a fan of theirs. However, it was
developed by Arkane Studios who had worked on Bioshock 2 previously and it
shows because this game feels a lot like a Bioshock. Dishonored is a first
person super natural stealth action game that gives the player freedom of how
to go about the game’s missions. Honestly, I did not like this game at first
however, after figuring out ‘how to play it’ exactly, it suddenly turned to a
lot of fun. But the game is still weak in certain areas. Let’s take a closer
look.
STORY: In Dishonored, you play as Corvo returning to the
island city of Dunwall. The city is being ravaged by a plague, Corvo, the head
royal protector of Empress Kaldwin, was sent to neighboring islands to find a
cure. Returning with no cure, things go bad when they are suddenly ambushed by
assassins killing the Empress. Corvo appears to be the killer when the rest of
her guards show up and there are no witnesses. Framed with the empress’s murder,
Corvo must escape prison and set out with a resistance movement to restore
order to the city and clear his name. The story is cliché and nothing new we
haven’t seen before. The big plot twist in the middle of the game is
predictable and I could see it coming from a mile away. I was underwhelmed by
the story. The game does have multiple endings that vary on how you play the
game. You get the best ending if you get through the game without getting noticed
much or not killing very many people. The worst ending happens if you kill lots
of people and can cause lots of chaos. I’m not really sure which ending I got.
I watched both on youtube and neither one was very good to me. Both seemed like
standard 2 minite game endings that quickly wrap up everything like in 90% of
games these days.
The game’s characters do not help much with the story. I
found almost all of them rather uninteresting and like the plot, cliché. Corvo
could have been an interesting character if he wasn’t a silent protagonist. I’m
not too big a fan of these types of main characters that you usually see in
first person games. I understand if the character you play as has no
background, establishments or a face as they are supposed to be a role you, the
player, can step into and make your own. This works for some games, not for
others. Here, it didn’t work for me.
While I did not find much interest in the story and
characters, I did find the setting really interesting. Dunwall is a grim and
depressing city to say the least. There is death all around with plague victims
dead and dying in the streets, rats are everywhere, and the oppressive
government raping its people. If you could smell this game, it would smell of
death. The game has this early 19th century look to it but has some
advances like War of the Worlds like walkers and other futuristic security
devices. It’s kind of like steam punk but everything runs on whale oil so I
guess you’d call it… Whale... Punk? I don’t know but it is definitely one of
the more unique things about the game.
GAMEPLAY: Here is where the game shines most. While the levels
seem linier, they are filled with all sorts of paths to take to complete your
objectives if you explore the areas. Like I said, the style in which you play
effects the ending and knowing that really bugged me and hindered me from
really enjoying the game at first. Sneaking around or rather the way I was
trying to sneak around was not working and, more often than not, I would get
spotted and have to kill everyone in the area before I could move on. I was
still using the stay low and hide behind things method of stealth from Far Cry
3 though. Making use of the magic powers you get is the most important aspect
in this game. I usually tend to be conservative in using magic powers like
these in most games and usually save it for bosses or whatever so in the
beginning I kept forgetting I even had magic and was not using it. But I should
have been using and experimenting with the powers the whole time. Once I got
this down, I started having much more fun. Your magic powers include dark sight
which lets you look through walls to spot enemies and objects, brink which lets
you teleport and is the most used power so best to master it, rat swarm which conjures
a swarm of rats to attack and devour someone (by the way, if you have a fear of
rats, you will not like this game), the ability to slow down time, possession
which lets you enter the body of animals or other people to gain access to
places you usually wouldn’t, and tornados you can shoot at people. In addition
to this magic, Corvo also has a variety of conventional weapons to use like his
neat switch blade short sword, pistols, cross bow, grenades, traps, and can even
turn the enemy’s weapons against them by reprogramming devices.
Experimenting with all of this is fun once you get the hang
of it. Since the game has multiple endings and different ways that parts of the
game can play out, the game warrants multiple playthroughs. There is a level
set at a masquerade party that has lots of possibilities. I really enjoyed that
level. However, most people will tell you that trying to get through the game
unseen is ultimately a very frustrating experience. I don’t doubt it can be
done but you’re a more hardcore gamer than I if you can. Sneaking up and
killing people unseen is more exciting than sneaking around and not killing anyone
to me. But I guess that’s the beauty of the game play.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND: Another game that I’m sure looks a lot
better on PC but as for the consoles, Dishonored is nothing too special to look
at in terms of visuals. I like the look of Dunwall but the textures have
nothing too eye popping about them and there is some texture pop-in. During
some fights, I encounter some fairly dramatic frame rate slow down but this
wasn’t often. Much like with Far Cry 3, if graphics really matter to you, play
this on the PC. The character designs look like something from a graphic novel
which is fitting but it doesn’t translate too well into 3D. Main thing that
stood out to me was how big men’s hands were compared to their heads. I didn’t
really care of it. Also one of the characters looks like a caricature of Hugo
Weaving. Corvo looks alright though with and without the mask on. The mask he
wears kind of creeps me out but is really cool at the same time. Some people
might like the character design; I didn’t really care for it.
In terms of sound effects the game generally sounds great. I
noticed some reused sounds from Bioshock like the sound of eating food and
collecting items. The sounds of combat and killing people sound brutally great
especially when stabbing someone from behind. The sounds of rats devouring
bodies are degusting and great at the same time. The unsettling ambient sounds
of random screams in Dunwall add to the dark feeling of the game. The game’s
music is another story. It’s hardly there. When it is, it’s fitting but nothing
special. There is a song over the game’s end credits that is pretty good but it
cuts out half way through the credits just leaving us with silence. Usually
another song would kick in. I find this rather lazy. The voice acting sadly
does not help the already uninteresting characters at all plus poor dialogue writing.
Most of the characters just sound monotone and barely trying. I was surprised
to find out that there were quite a few Hollywood actors cast for rolls in this
game like Susan Sarandon, Brad Dourif, Carrie Fisher, John Slattery, and Chloe
Grace Moretz to name a few. Moretz is the only voice actor worth mentioning as
she plays the daughter of the Empress and it’s her first time voice acting in a
video game and she does a good job. No one else seems to give a damn and that’s
kinda sad. Also I feel it would have helped if the characters had European
accents. They all sound American in this setting that has a very European feel
to it. It’s kinda off putting.
Overall, Dishonor’s core game mechanic is solid. The ability
to make use of some really cool magic to sneak around and assassinate people or
not is a lot of fun. All the multiple paths to take in a stage to reach your
objectives add a lot of replay value to the game. Dunwall is a really dark yet
cool setting that makes for an excellent atmosphere. However, the story and
characters are weak and fall flat. If that really matters to you, you will be
pretty disappointed in most of this game. Some have complained that this game
is very short, especially for something from Bethesda but considering the multiple
endings and replay value, I think that it works in its favor. It’s definitely not
for everyone and I would wait for it to come down a little more in price to
play it if you haven’t already. This is still a better assassin game than
Assassin’s Creed 3.
OVERALL: 7/10
Now that that is out of the way, I will start writing up my
Top 5 Games of 2012 list. Look out for it within the next week!
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