EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q6SR6.jpg)
It wasn't the easiest decision. Normally when I'm considering purchasing a game I find that I look at what various features I might find attractive, or decidedly not so, and then try to make a decision upon that careful weighing of elements. With Dishonored I found that something was holding me back from immediately jumping on it as soon as it was released. A lot of this has to do with how I saw the game, and what it was or wasn't doing that I particularly found appealing. In the end, due to a number of good reviews, and no small part to RPS coverage, I decided to finally bite the bullet and enter the city of Dunwall despite my apprehensive stance towards the game.
Now, I probably should explain why I felt that way about a game that seemingly everyone was/is excited about. Mostly the cause of my apprehension was due to the overly obvious elements taken from both Bioshock, and more importantly Thief. This isn't to say that I didn't like either of those games, in fact the Thief series is one of my favorite series of games period (I + II being two of my favorite games of all time), but I'd like to begin my thoughts on Dishonored and what I found that I really liked, and why my apprehensive stance was in the end, somewhat warranted (and will require a more thorough explanation).
The Good, the Bad, and the Unfortunate Wrath of the Trickster
The biggest thing that Dishonored has going for it is the setting for this narrative piece. With the naval and seafaring overtones, a blend of mechanical age steam punk-like technology, a distinct colonialist affectation, and a meticulously crafted visual array of set pieces Dishonored boasts a very interesting world in which to inhabit. This is thanks in no small part to the concept artist Viktor Antonov, who also penciled the concept art for Half-Life 2. But you probably already knew that. Now while I would be very interested to see this 'unique' blend of pre and post-industrial styles, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this is hardly 'unique'. Thief II: The Metal Age already had blended these two elements in a very compelling manner more than 12 years ago. That's not to say it's bad, because I did enjoy the overall flare of the narrative, just that I've seen it before, and more expertly executed.
In fact, Dishonored is in an odd position for younger gamers. For those who have never played Bioshock (that seems unlikely) or the Thief Series (much more likely), Dishonored is probably going to feel like a breath of fresh air in comparison to some of the other offerings of late. Unfortunately, for those of us who have played these games, Dishonored ends up reading like a love letter to them, rather than truly being its own entity. Let's look at the combat for some indications.
The combat system consists of essentially 4 elements, the ability to fight and defend with your sword, which was very Dark Messiah-like (and probably the best part of that game bar none), use of your secondary weapon, and finally use of your plasmids, err... I mean magic. OK, so let's be honest here, your magical abilities even from the trailers I could tell were essentially ripped from Bioshock's corpse and repurposed along with getting a new coat of paint, and while I enjoyed using and abusing these abilities they never felt very novel. I would call this a relatively minor quip but it does get at a rather unfortunate problem throughout %75 of the entire game (regarding combat). The last element that isn't really combat oriented, but very important is your ability to navigate the levels while being undetected. This is where your magical abilities feel "bleh", because %99 of the time I used 1 ability which allowed me to navigate the levels with relative ease. I had no need for %75 of the game to use anything else but 1 ability, which from a excitement factor was kind of droll and uninteresting. However this leads to my biggest problem with the game, Difficulty.
Are you Silent Enough?
A little preface on how I play. When I have the chance to play a stealth oriented game I jump at the chance, largely due in part to my love for the aforementioned Thief series. However there are some additional things to mention. I have never been satisfied with the difficultly of Thief, or Hitman, or any other stealth oriented game, and therefore I've always imposed arbitrary restrictions on myself to make it harder, or more believable. Let's be honest here, there's no way you could incapacitate everyone in an area, and not have a noticeable effect on the environment. To that end, I years ago decided to try to not just not kill anyone, but not even touch them. If one guard wasn't on patrol, that's a tell that something's up, and that asking for changes in the system to occur is not wise. Additionally for Dishonored specifically, when you get your magic you have the option to get a very Arkham Asylum 'night vision' where you can see through walls, and even detect where enemies were looking. Yea, fuck that, that would make it way too easy.
So here I am with all of these arbitrary restrictions, as well as playing on the hardest difficulty, and what is my overall feeling on navigating this world without anyone noticing me in the slightest? Well, unfortunately for most of this game, it was almost boring in how easy it was. Only in a few places did I start to have to think creatively, or had a feeling of true uncertainty or angst at needing to complete a technical series of moves precisely. Having been through a number of Thief games, this is admittedly old hat, but what I discovered was that the AI was about as good as the last Thief game. That in it of itself is both a compliment, and an insult. Great because they got the series of necessary mechanics right, but rather unsettling because the last Thief game was in 2004, and the AI has barely improved since then, and even regressed in some areas (environmental awareness is flat out terrible).
Only when I got to the last %25 of the game did I finally have to start thinking creatively to traverse the situation, and never once did I feel that I really had to be overly cautious. In fact I was most of the time, when I would get noticed, testing the system to see just how obtuse the AI was. So in combination with game breaking magic skills which allowed me to traverse the levels in ways that I'm not sure they intended, and the thick-headed AI, I was more disappointed than pleased. I didn't hate it, but it is 2012, and we should be constantly trying to improve upon things, not trying to satisfy the status quo of 8 years ago.
Narrative Problems
The thing about the narrative that I have a less than positive feeling about is that they glossed over far too much of the important things. The opening sequence for example is quite quick, and never gives you the feeling of settling into this world, or that you have any idea of how it functions. One of the great things about The Dark Project was that each narrative piece, each level served a purpose to introduce the world, it's inhabitants, the factions vying for power, and was done in a manner where you got more than just a sentence or 0:30 snippet telling you what these elements were or why they were that way.
In Dishonored, you are the Lord Protector, and should understandably know Dunwall very well, as well as the political system you serve, etc... But you don't, and they are never presented to you in a direct manner. I was relegated to reading secondary texts to gain understanding into this world, but that isn't a very good substitute as it removes your personal experience from the overall situation. For example, being the Lord Protector you should have a lot of knowledge of Dunwall, and be able to navigate it fairly well, and if you had the quest markers active that was easy. But again due to my predilections, I immediately turned that off because it's a soft form of cheating. I would actually have preferred to be able to refer to a map in order to check that I am going the right way. This was another reason Thief was fantastic. It used its means of navigation as a subtle reinforcement to the overall world and atmosphere-building of the game. Making things easier only subverts the atmospheric intensions (a cautionary tale for modern gaming companies).
Unfortunately one of the biggest flaws of the game is also the story arc...sort of. Throughout the game I had an instinctual feeling that something wasn't right, and that we'd do what we needed to do only to have another reveal happen. And guess what...well funny enough my instinct wasn't really instinct per se, but more a direct recollection of Thief I's story and how that unfolded. In fact, almost every element of Dishonered's story is taken piecemeal from the three Thief games and are only slightly retooled. This, like the AI is simultaneously a good thing, and a bad one, because when the major reveal happens, I had been aware of it 'going to happen' two missions previous and was hardly surprising. I should however say that once this reveal happened that I finally began to really enjoy the game, as it felt much more alive than previous (part of that reason was due to introducing multiple elements or character types and never exploring them until a specific and later point in the game, which was the biggest tell that something was up). Overall, the broadcasting of the story arc was rather droll and hurt their intentions of having a shocking reveal that you've been working for....wait this sounds familiar again...
Verticality and Level Design
I know I haven't spoken about the interesting verticality of the level design, or the overly linear or one direction-ness of it (which is another problem in some places), but I will just keep this section short. Overall I liked the additional verticality that Dishonored is able to work with, and that is another nice element, but due to your skills it ends up becoming way to easy to abuse the high ground advantage to navigate each level. If that weren't enough, the level design is rather linear, which in some cases works well, but in others backfires miserably. Having a penchant for coming at problems sideways I always am looking for alternate routes, and found that some routes that I could clearly abuse were disallowed, because they didn't want me going that way. Or another bad design was the Sokolov mission where I bypassed the entire compound with a well executed double jump teleport (or whatever you'd like to call it).
Finalmente, Musings
If my experience of Dishonored hasn't been a truly eye opening experience or full of exuberance I apologize as it is only because I've seen all of this done before, and with far better skill. This isn't to say that Dishonored isn't a good game, because it is good. I have enjoyed it in how and what it does, but my experiences with a far better IP casts a rather unfriendly light upon Dunwall in a way that shows its faults, frayed edges and patchwork composition. If I were to recommend this game I would say, it's a good game and that you should probably play it, but not with the unbridled eagerness that I could state about other more carefully crafted products, because at the end of all this, Dishonored has too many loose threads and too many oddities about it or obvious references (keeper glyphs come to mind) to truly make it a great* game.
I would love to hear how everyone else has felt about Dishonored, what they liked, loved, or didn't like as they progressed through the game and their thoughts. I will probably go through this game one more time as a raving murderous bastard to get a more complete picture, but it might be a while before I do that.
*I have been known to hold a rather high standard towards games, so this description may seem to be less positive than it is intended to be.
