They don't make games like Dishonored anymore, do they?
Arkane Studios' defining title was always a remarkably creative piece of gaming greatness. It was one of the first games in a short-lived (yet still fantastic) revival of the immersive sim family of games. It was a strong addition to the stealth genre, and a rare new original property that managed to both stand out and be rewarded for its accomplishments. And aside from its sequels, there's still isn't anything else quite like it nowadays.
Dishonored has a lot of things going for it, most notably its art direction and setting. Dunwall is a memorable backdrop to the game's events and levels, brought to decaying life with its muted color scheme, Victorian-era architecture and a surprisingly strong combination of period piece, steampunk and dark fantasy imagery. While far from a horror game, Dishonored successfully fills Dunwall's crumbling society and plague-infested threats with never-ending and oppressive dread. And heartbreak, the more you explore the tragic decline of a once-powerful cultural and technological center.
Dunwall is a horrible place to live in, but a fantastic playground for its greatest assassin. The various locations Corvo has to get through during his missions are impeccably designed with multiple routes and options to experiment with and explore. The maps are not outrageously big, instead focusing on carefully-placed alternate paths, secrets, side objectives and additional methods that make you feel clever or sneaky if you find and use them. There is a great, elaborate verticality to each stage, allowing Corvo considerable amounts of freedom to find the perfect spots for takedowns and preparations.
As every good stealth game, Dishonored offers a very useful set of tools at Corvo's disposal. Corvo has a sword, a crossbow with various bolt types, a gun and even mines and grenades for good measure. While his arsenal does skew a little too much toward more violent solutions, it still offers non-lethal options such as a choking takedown and sleep darts. All in all, there is a lot of thought put into maintaining the ability to both go as violently as one pleases, but also spare even your assassination targets from certain death. And of course, courtesy of Dunwall's mythical godlike-slash-diabolical Outsider, Corvo gets a slew of cool superpowers.
The most notable of those powers is Blink, which grants Corvo teleportation. But there are even more powers to unlock and upgrade, like time manipulation and even rat plague, and assuming you have the mana for it, you can use a lot of them in quick succession for your ends or amusement. It's also balanced pretty well, with the more potent and complex abilities demanding more mana, and the game is kind enough to replenish your mana meter with spare elixirs whenever you try to use some of those more energy-consuming feats.
Interestingly, the actual combat system is also fairly robust. There is a strong emphasis on parrying, and enemies are also smart enough to know when to counter your sword, pushing you to time your attacks accordingly. There is some clumsiness to it, but it's more than serviceable and functional enough to be a valid option to utilize from start to finish.
So, the art, world, level design and gameplay are all great. I guess if there's any notable issue with Dishonored is that it's narrative and characters largely fail to do Dunwall's fascinating history and culture much-deserved justice. They're pretty standard-fare as far as the genre goes. There are some fun standouts like the sleazy-yet-honorable Slackjaw, the proud and guilt-ridden assassin Daud and the eccentric and philosophical Sokolov, but for the most part, both the allies and villains you meet across the way are there to fill roles, little more. This also goes to the Outsider who is a rather generic otherworldly benefactor, and Corvo himself, who is merely the player's avatar.
There is also this whole binary morality thing like we've seen in Bioshock and Infamous. It's pretty boring and limiting, but eh, nothing deal-breaking.
I do want to point out that despite the story's banality, the world is still very interesting and there are a lot of background bits to enrich the narrative. And Arkane's animators also did a great job in little bodily expressions to convey better emotion than what the dialogue could offer. Even Corvo - his little weapon swirl whenever he takes out or puts back his gear is a nice little demonstration of his skill and confidence. And while a rather contested point for some, I generally like the character designs. Yes, they can get rather ugly or disheveled, but this feels like a deliberate choice through and through, and even years after its original release, it's still refreshing to see a major AAA game rejecting conventional character designs for something so crude, yet stylized and believable at the same time.
It's not a particularly long game, but this only enhances Dishonored. This is game built for multiple playthroughs with so many scenarios to play out, and its true strength as a versatile slice of stealth-action can be seen as it adapts itself to the player's whims.
Excellent sound design completes an extremely strong package. The voice acting can be a little wooden but it does its job well enough, and every object and footstep can be clearly heard both and used both for advantage and disadvantage.
Dishonored was and remains a triumph of game design. It boasts one of the coolest settings in the medium and despite a thin narrative it's thriving with a personality of its own that both honors its spiritual predecessors such as Thief and System Shock, and modernizes their ideas for new generations. It's a reminder that AAA games can be more than just tedious mechanical kitchen sink, and even a decade later, I hope more studios will get the chance to create more unique, memorable games like this.
Arkane Studios' defining title was always a remarkably creative piece of gaming greatness. It was one of the first games in a short-lived (yet still fantastic) revival of the immersive sim family of games. It was a strong addition to the stealth genre, and a rare new original property that managed to both stand out and be rewarded for its accomplishments. And aside from its sequels, there's still isn't anything else quite like it nowadays.
Dishonored has a lot of things going for it, most notably its art direction and setting. Dunwall is a memorable backdrop to the game's events and levels, brought to decaying life with its muted color scheme, Victorian-era architecture and a surprisingly strong combination of period piece, steampunk and dark fantasy imagery. While far from a horror game, Dishonored successfully fills Dunwall's crumbling society and plague-infested threats with never-ending and oppressive dread. And heartbreak, the more you explore the tragic decline of a once-powerful cultural and technological center.
Dunwall is a horrible place to live in, but a fantastic playground for its greatest assassin. The various locations Corvo has to get through during his missions are impeccably designed with multiple routes and options to experiment with and explore. The maps are not outrageously big, instead focusing on carefully-placed alternate paths, secrets, side objectives and additional methods that make you feel clever or sneaky if you find and use them. There is a great, elaborate verticality to each stage, allowing Corvo considerable amounts of freedom to find the perfect spots for takedowns and preparations.
As every good stealth game, Dishonored offers a very useful set of tools at Corvo's disposal. Corvo has a sword, a crossbow with various bolt types, a gun and even mines and grenades for good measure. While his arsenal does skew a little too much toward more violent solutions, it still offers non-lethal options such as a choking takedown and sleep darts. All in all, there is a lot of thought put into maintaining the ability to both go as violently as one pleases, but also spare even your assassination targets from certain death. And of course, courtesy of Dunwall's mythical godlike-slash-diabolical Outsider, Corvo gets a slew of cool superpowers.
The most notable of those powers is Blink, which grants Corvo teleportation. But there are even more powers to unlock and upgrade, like time manipulation and even rat plague, and assuming you have the mana for it, you can use a lot of them in quick succession for your ends or amusement. It's also balanced pretty well, with the more potent and complex abilities demanding more mana, and the game is kind enough to replenish your mana meter with spare elixirs whenever you try to use some of those more energy-consuming feats.
Interestingly, the actual combat system is also fairly robust. There is a strong emphasis on parrying, and enemies are also smart enough to know when to counter your sword, pushing you to time your attacks accordingly. There is some clumsiness to it, but it's more than serviceable and functional enough to be a valid option to utilize from start to finish.
So, the art, world, level design and gameplay are all great. I guess if there's any notable issue with Dishonored is that it's narrative and characters largely fail to do Dunwall's fascinating history and culture much-deserved justice. They're pretty standard-fare as far as the genre goes. There are some fun standouts like the sleazy-yet-honorable Slackjaw, the proud and guilt-ridden assassin Daud and the eccentric and philosophical Sokolov, but for the most part, both the allies and villains you meet across the way are there to fill roles, little more. This also goes to the Outsider who is a rather generic otherworldly benefactor, and Corvo himself, who is merely the player's avatar.
There is also this whole binary morality thing like we've seen in Bioshock and Infamous. It's pretty boring and limiting, but eh, nothing deal-breaking.
I do want to point out that despite the story's banality, the world is still very interesting and there are a lot of background bits to enrich the narrative. And Arkane's animators also did a great job in little bodily expressions to convey better emotion than what the dialogue could offer. Even Corvo - his little weapon swirl whenever he takes out or puts back his gear is a nice little demonstration of his skill and confidence. And while a rather contested point for some, I generally like the character designs. Yes, they can get rather ugly or disheveled, but this feels like a deliberate choice through and through, and even years after its original release, it's still refreshing to see a major AAA game rejecting conventional character designs for something so crude, yet stylized and believable at the same time.
It's not a particularly long game, but this only enhances Dishonored. This is game built for multiple playthroughs with so many scenarios to play out, and its true strength as a versatile slice of stealth-action can be seen as it adapts itself to the player's whims.
Excellent sound design completes an extremely strong package. The voice acting can be a little wooden but it does its job well enough, and every object and footstep can be clearly heard both and used both for advantage and disadvantage.
Dishonored was and remains a triumph of game design. It boasts one of the coolest settings in the medium and despite a thin narrative it's thriving with a personality of its own that both honors its spiritual predecessors such as Thief and System Shock, and modernizes their ideas for new generations. It's a reminder that AAA games can be more than just tedious mechanical kitchen sink, and even a decade later, I hope more studios will get the chance to create more unique, memorable games like this.