Dishonored - The bastard love child of a Bioshock, Thief and Deus Ex Menage a trois

The Game Room
1

So this game was no where near my radar, which is weird for someone who tries to be in the “know” when it comes to video games.

That truly alarmed me, to be honest. I’m not the type of gamer that needs a TV commercial before he realizes a game exists, and even after finding out about it, there was precious little to even find on the game. Some animated shorts, which certainly tantalized (but then again so did the Matrix animated shorts and we all know how that turned out), and a few breif, written previews of E3/PAX demos was all there was.

In direct contrast XCOM, another game due this Tuesday, and a remake of a really old PC game that no one outside fairly core PC gamers would even know about, was ever present on gaming websites and forums, with constant previews, gameplay showcases, and even several informative/funny video and podcast appearances form the two lead designers.

So, surprise, surprise, the review embargo is up two days before the game comes out (another possibly bad sign), and so far the reviews are glowing! An excellent entry into the stealth-action genre with a lot of style and flair.

The story takes place in the steam-punk-esque (technically whale oil -punk) victorian city of Dunwall. You, once one of the royal guards, have been (wrongly) accused of murdering the empress and sentenced to death. Your adventure begins when a mysterious figure helps you escape, and grants you special, dark powers to seek out the real murderers and exact righteous vengeance!

The aesthetics, detail and mood of the world have been compared to Bioshock. The gameplay mechanics to both thief and Deus Ex. It’s possible, for example, to go about the game without killing a single person. And indeed the world changes and the ending changes based on just how deadly or merciful you act during your missions.

Cynical Brit overview: ► WTF Is... - Dishonored ? - YouTube

IGN review: Dishonored Video Review - IGN Reviews - YouTube

Gamespot Review: GameSpot Reviews - Dishonored - YouTube

Anyone picking this up? Did you even know about this game until recently, like me?

2

I’ve sat through a few trailers for it waiting for other videos to load over on escapistmagazine.com. It was pretty intriguing, and certainly looked like Bioshock gameplay - down to right hand weapon, left hand plasmid mechanics. But Thief like you say? I’ll definitely pick it up (obviously) if that’s the case. Maybe Yahtzee will review it soon.

3

Looks interesting to me, too. I so love Thief, and there hasn’t been a game like it since. There was a previous thread on it - you can read it here.

4

I first heard about it here in another thread and was intrigued by my follow up Googling. Will buy it for sure but waiting for it to be discounted since I have no time to play now anyway.

5

I stumbled across a video interview with one of the developers a week or two ago, but don’t remember where it was or how I got there, and I hadn’t heard about it prior to that. I thought the game looked promising.

6

I’m interested in theory, but 12 hours of gameplay? I’ll be waiting for the discounts. I aim to get at least 1 hour of playing time per euro from computer games so I might be waiting for a while, too.

7

The estimate varies a bit. The PC gamer reviewer said closer to 20 hours, for example.

I got it at a massive discount for Steam (through Green Man Gaming). Had a $10 coupon and there was (might still be) a 25% off promotion for pre-orders. So I picked it up for a steal.

8

When I first saw the commercial, the first thing that popped into my mind was Assassins Creed set during the American revolution.

9

Hmm, here is a rather good article about the length of the game. Still not going to buy it any time soon but that does make it look better than 12 hours of playing time. I do hope it sells well.

10

So what’s up with Green Man Gaming? I read something about they track what you buy with cookies… do I care?

11

No. I don’t see why they wouldn’t track what you purchased with cookies, or why anyone would care. Telling you man, people are some kind of paranoid online.

They know what you purchased anyway, cookies just makes tapping that information less taxing on their system. Instead of making a call to their database, they just scan the cookie they placed in your browser. IT’s probably use to make smarter recommendations for you. So if you purchased Bishock recently, it will recommend say Dishonored.

12

Oh snap, this is right in my wheelhouse! Love games like this. I will be getting it.

13

I know cookies are fine.

This is what I’m talking about, from Wiki:

I’m not at all saying that’s bad, I’m just wondering if anyone knows of any unanticipated gotchas, since I’ve never bought from them before.

14

I’ve used them a few times. The most recent game I’ve bought from them other than Dishonored was Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Both times I received a code from them via email after purchase, which I then entered into Steam, and boom, game unlocked, just as if I had purchased from Steam directly.

15

I’ll be interested to hear from any of you who bought it - I looooved Thief, thought Bioshock was decent, and really didn’t like Deus Ex. So I’m wavering on whether or not to drop the cash on this one.

If it’s mostly like Thief and/or Bioshock, I’ll pick it up. Deus Ex, not so much.

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What aspects of each of those did you like? Specially, what aspect of Deus Ex did you not like?

17

Y’know, I’m trying to figure that out myself.

A few things come to mind. The first and foremost is the storyline and the “fun” aspect. Deus Ex was too far towards the militaristic side of things, whereas Thief had a medieval feel, and Bioshock had a sci-fi/retro feel. Deus Ex reminded me too much of Crisis and various other military games.

The fighting style wasn’t to my taste, either, for a lot of the same reason. I had great fun with Thief, sneaking around and shooting the various types of arrows to do different stuff (distract the mobs, shoot out a light source, etc.) Bioshock also had a lot of fun toys, the various plasmids that did different things. Deus Ex was more of just a shooter if I recall correctly. I don’t want to just shoot people, I want the guns to do amusing things while they kill people. Borderlands, for example, is more of a shooter game, but the whole thing was just so amusing that I found it a lot of fun.

And the third thing was the @#@!# save game scheme. I really despise games where they force save points and if I mess up, I’m stuck repeating 15 or 20 minutes worth of stuff. Especially if it’s boring stuff, which Deus Ex was.

18

Still a few days until launch on the euro calendar. Really looking forward to this one, though.

19

Started playing it last night; loving it. One of my all-time faves was Thief, and this really reminds me of that game. Since it’s using the Unreal engine, it doesn’t take a particularly hefty machine to run it- my computer is (mostly) four or five years old, and I’m able to run it at max settings.

Oh, and I was very surprised to find my name in the credits- I’d recorded some placeholder VO last year, and even though I doubt any of my voice is in the game, they put me in the credits. The autograph lines starts to the left.

20

I’ve got to say I am pretty disappointed in this game.

It is good but nowhere near as good as I expected and I believe the reason is the PC version is basically the console version with all the limitations that implies.

To be sure the PC port is competent. Game controls work smoothly and allow you to take advantage of a mouse/keyboard setup but that is about where it ends. Some few minor graphic enhancements that are barely noticeable (I have seen a side-by-side comparison of PC and XBox for this game and they are indistinguishable).

Which is sad really. The art direction is very cool. The environment begs for the graphic goodness a PC can offer. Screenshots are misleading since most give a view from some distance. When you are closed to something the bland textures are all too apparent.

It is more than the graphics though. The environment can only partially be interacted with. Some things you can pick up but most things you can’t. The lack of life in the city (not many people walking around…some but very few).

It is hard to put your finger on any one thing but all of it screams as being built to run on the lowest common denominator and then made to work on multiple systems. That may be fine for some games but you cannot help but feel a great deal of potential is lost in the PC version.

The writing is ok. Not great but not bad. So too the voice acting. It is certainly respectable (which is good…this gets overlooked all too often) but nothing to write home about either. Things like reading the books you can find all over repeat after not too long.

Many people are crowing about being able to progress through the game via a number of approaches (kill everything vs. stealth and so on) which is good but hardly new (reading about it from some reviews you’d think this had never been done before). Allowing for different play styles is cool and good to have but it is not the end-all, be-all for a game either. As a hybrid it does not do each of its parts as well as other games have (e.g. Thief did stealth much better IMO).

At 15(ish) hours play time it is fairly short as well.

In short, for the PC, I’d rate this game as adequate. It’s good but not great. Maybe 80 out of 100. Perhaps on a console it is much better by being a good example of what you can do on 7-year old hardware.

Personally I wish I had bought XCom instead. If this goes on sale for $20 it might be worth picking up if you like this style of game on the PC.