Dishonored (2012)

I need to write a personal apology to Dishonored for skipping you all these years. I went straight to Dishonored 2 back when it came out and didn't even give this game any thought. Dishonored 2s story didn't make any sense to me and I assumed the rats were there because... cities have rats? Perhaps the greatest insult of them all is that i've been calling this game "dish-honored" as it's the only way I can remember how to spell it. I should work on my spelling skills.

On a serious note, the second game was a blast to play gameplay wise, and that's exactly why I loved it. I'm taking the time now to start from the beginning and it's all starting to make sense, the plague, the empire and the betrayal, how you become an assassin. It's almost as if story is important?!

I'm loving the relatively slow start and how you're able to play through the events that immediatly happen after the intro. They could have used cutscenes, but physically playing through those events is really immersive.

Also loving the art direction. The game looks great! Is it just me though or do the NPCs all have slightly over-sized hands?

Me encanta la saga dishonored, sus mecánicas , su diseño de niveles, la ambientación también es una maravilla, y el sistema que tiene de Karma, aunque sea lo más básico del mundo, por lo menos te da un mínimo motivo para rejugarlo.

Este fue el primero que jugué y la verdad que me dio bastante fuerte con el juego, desde ese día respeto a Arkane, hasta que sacó RedFall >:(

Uh, okay. What the hell. Recently I started to feel kind of down about gaming. I just wasn't vibing with it as much as normal.

Enter Dishonored.

Why am I so obsessed with this game? I started it Saturday... then picked it back up Sunday and played THROUGH FOOTBALL (finally stopped around 3pm EST). That doesn't happen. Picked it back up again Sunday night... now I'm at work on Monday and can't wait to get home and play.

This game just feels so. Damn. Fun. Maybe it's the choice in how you interact with things. Maybe it's the environment (whale punk? What the heck?). Maybe it's how cool it feels to teleport around rafters and stalk the rooftops.

In any case. It's been a really long time since I was so obsessed with a game.

Maybe it's just the right thing at the right time, and for that I'm thankful :)

I have a strange history with this game. I was originally drawn to the style of the game and its premise yet never got around to playing it when it first came out having just been a poor university student. I eventually rented it and got as far as the Distillery District which isn't very far. I found it to be a daunting game and returned it. It had all the makings to become a personal classic but it just didn't grip me. A friend eventually lent it to me out of nowhere but it sat on my nightstand and didn't make it into my Xbox at all.

When my girlfriend bought me a PS4 for my birthday Dishonoured 2 came with the console. I decided I needed to play the first game first to grasp the story. It also gave me drive to find a copy.

I decided to grab a copy on 360 as I'd already popped some achievements. I also wanted to up my completion rating on True Achievements. It sit under my TV for a long time. When I did decide to finally play it the disc didn't even work much to my annoyance. I traded it in.

In the end I saw a cheap remastered copy in my local game store and grabbed a copy - making a point to pick it up on PS4 so I didn't bother to go for achievements. I fired the game up only just yesterday (ignoring all the new Switch games I got) and started playing.

What can I say? The game is a lot of fun but the notion of a 'dark' ending if I kill everyone is daunting to me and I find myself getting frustrated when one mistake ends with me slaughtering the room because I've been spotted. A lack of a map at all times also makes it hard to navigate the world. Stealthy FP games are also more challenging than third person when you can swing the camera to your heart's content in third person. Despite my grievances I am enjoying the game but small niggling things bother me such as those listed. The game seems to promote exploration but exploration is hindered by watching out for guards who aren't meant to be killed if you want the 'best' ending.

Will be slowly plugging away at this but I am glad I finally started playing it.

Beat the game on Hard with High Chaos back in 2013. I focused heavily on stealth and tried to be a good guy by avoiding killing guards. I killed thugs and plague victims without mercy though, and anyone else I considered a bad guy. I used Dark Vision almost constantly to find treasure and observe the movements and vision cones of enemies, striking when the time was right. Most often choking the guards out and hiding the bodies. Possession 2 was quite useful for dealing with tricky situations where I could not take someone out without being seen. Of course sometimes I screwed up and was forced to kill guards. I did not use many tools. My goal was to incapacitate every enemy, fully explore every level and find all the loot. I used Bend Time 1 for combat vs multiple enemies for the times when I screwed up, and headshots with the wrist bow when fighting enemies I did not care about killing.

I loved this game; loved the setting, atmosphere and story. The gameplay is excellent though I will admit that killing everyone is far more fun than being non-lethal. Without Dark Vision, the stealth would be obnoxious. I was disappointed when I finished the game because of getting the High Chaos ending despite not killing many enemies. I might as well have butchered everyone. All my effort put into choking out guards and hiding them was wasted. In my opinion, the biggest flaw in this game is the lack of intermediate chaos stages between high and low.

I played The Knife of Dunwall (Hard) afterwards and went full High Chaos killing everyone. If I am not going to get credit for granting some enemies mercy, then I might as well kill everyone and have more fun doing it. I also have the City Trials dlc, but did not care for it; too arcadey and not enough deep immersive story.

Years later I purchased the Bridgemore Witches dlc and beat it on Hard in High Chaos. I used Void Vision 2 almost constantly and favored sword assassinations. Also did wristbow headshot assassinations. There were plenty of times where I botched stealth and used gun and explosives, though Bend Time 1 was the best way to deal with multiple enemies.

Corvo’s powers: Dark Vision 2, Bend Time 1, Blink 2, Possession 2, Vitality 2, Agility 2, Bloodthirsty 2. Spent points on others but did not use them.

Daud’s powers: Void Vision 2, Bend Time 1, Blink 2, Vitality 2, Agility 2, Bloodthirsty 2, Pull 1. Never really used Pull and never got Summon Assassin.

For both characters, I favored simple charms that improved health, mana, movement speed and combat ability. I felt it was too much of a pain to swap out charms to optimize them for a given situation. I did not use any of the corrupted charms. I spent my money on favors to get runes and charms, and useful upgrades. I generally did not favour improving consumables (such as ammo capacity) and went for more permanent upgrades.

Definitely want to play through the entire game again on Very Hard. I probably will not try to do a Low Chaos, 100% non-lethal or ghost run.

So I picked this up over the weekend and beat it last night. The Definitive Edition on Xbox One was only $10 at GameStop, so I grabbed that...and then I come here to post a message about it and see that 4 years ago I got the game on Xbox 360 free with gold -_-

Was nice to get all the DLC, though. Game was mostly fun, but I beat it like I beat every stealth game. I stealth until around the end of the game and then I get impatient and cheese out the enemies and sprint past everything to the end.

Story wasn't great, but I like the world. Interested to see if it's fleshed out better in other titles/dlc.