Arkane's Dishonored

ibdoomed wrote:
Gumbie wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I prefer them.

I'm not being a smartass I'm just curious why? It was $45 dollars digitally, plus it's a Steamworks game. If it came with something collective I could understand it but this one is plain jane I thought.

Exactly, steamworks is a detriment, why would you do that when you have a choice? Impatience?

Well, in this case, I wanted the 360 version; I tend to like strategy games on the PC, and games like this on a console. It also ensures that I'll be able to play it for years, without needing to deal with driver, system, or Windows compatibility issues; that's increasingly less of a problem, but I still boot up my damned NES and PS1 games every once in a while, so I'm an outlier.

My forum name aside, I'm not doing it out of any concern for being "seen" as hip, or retro, or whatever. I like gaming as a hobby where I can revisit games for years to come -- which is also why I don't sell games from my collection when I complete them.

Vector wrote:

I like my games on vinyl.

I kinda like vinyl, especially for jazz.

TheHipGamer wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I prefer them.

There's gotta be a hipster joke in there somewhere...

I'm so hip that I suspiciously cling to physical media, not trusting digital distribution to still let me play games I like in 10 years? I think I've veered into "curmudgeonly old man stashing cash under the mattress" territory, rather than hipster.

I'm pretty sure you still need a connection to install/verify it since it's a Steamworks game.

ibdoomed wrote:
Gumbie wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I prefer them.

I'm not being a smartass I'm just curious why? It was $45 dollars digitally, plus it's a Steamworks game. If it came with something collective I could understand it but this one is plain jane I thought.

Exactly, steamworks is a detriment, why would you do that when you have a choice? Impatience?

What? The game uses Steamworks no matter how you buy it. Impatience? not really, but I do love being able to click buy and the game is on my hard drive ready to play in 1-2 hours.

Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I probably should have not done the physical copy.. but I had a promo code that was needing to be used on Amazon so I got it for fairly cheap..

Scratched wrote:
Vector wrote:

I like my games on vinyl.

That's got me thinking, seeing as they used to store data on analogue tapes, has anyone ever stored data on a record.

Yup. Scroll down to "Floppy Rom"

There's a pill for that.

tanstaafl wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Vector wrote:

I like my games on vinyl.

That's got me thinking, seeing as they used to store data on analogue tapes, has anyone ever stored data on a record.

Yup. Scroll down to "Floppy Rom"

That's gotta be a Female Doggo to fast forward to the right spot. (Yes, I used to own a cassette drive and I'd save my BASIC programs too it.)

I got to play for about 20 minutes last night. Gorgeous game, and runs really smoothly (but I'd expect no less from Unreal Engine). I didn't get far but the story gets going fast so I'm already knee-deep in intrigue. I've gone with the RPS recommendations - No objective markers, no heart warnings, Normal difficulty (I'm not THAT masochistic), and tutorials left on. I'm looking forward to really getting in and exploring.

TheHipGamer wrote:

I'm so hip that I suspiciously cling to physical media, not trusting digital distribution to still let me play games I like in 10 years? I think I've veered into "curmudgeonly old man stashing cash under the mattress" territory, rather than hipster.

TheBrokenHipGamer.

LiquidMantis wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

I'm so hip that I suspiciously cling to physical media, not trusting digital distribution to still let me play games I like in 10 years? I think I've veered into "curmudgeonly old man stashing cash under the mattress" territory, rather than hipster.

TheBrokenHipGamer.

Nice.

Gumbie wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I prefer them.

There's gotta be a hipster joke in there somewhere...

I'm so hip that I suspiciously cling to physical media, not trusting digital distribution to still let me play games I like in 10 years? I think I've veered into "curmudgeonly old man stashing cash under the mattress" territory, rather than hipster.

I'm pretty sure you still need a connection to install/verify it since it's a Steamworks game.

ibdoomed wrote:
Gumbie wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

People still buy boxed PC games?

I prefer them.

I'm not being a smartass I'm just curious why? It was $45 dollars digitally, plus it's a Steamworks game. If it came with something collective I could understand it but this one is plain jane I thought.

Exactly, steamworks is a detriment, why would you do that when you have a choice? Impatience?

What? The game uses Steamworks no matter how you buy it. Impatience? not really, but I do love being able to click buy and the game is on my hard drive ready to play in 1-2 hours.

Holy Crap. Are you serious? Is this game like poster boy for how not to distribute a game? All those pre-order bonuses specific to vendor mean nothing if everyone has to go through steam anyway. I'm blown away by how botched this whole thing is.

For a botched pre-order, I'm having no problems. The game is in my hands, ready to play, with no drama.

TheHipGamer wrote:

For a botched pre-order, I'm having no problems. The game is in my hands, ready to play, with no drama.

Same here mine just finished downloading on stream. *insert smug digital download face*

Hooray, mine finished downloading overnight! I'll be digging into this bad boy this evening. I think I'll have to pick up a bottle of wine to celebrate. I may even drink it with a long curly straw right out of the bottle to show those London-esque malcontents how refined an assassin I am! I'll have the house to myself as well, so I'm free to don my treacle-dispenser, monocle, stove-pipe hat, and nothing else, and scream like a loon while I race through the decaying streets.

Is anyone playing this on a Core 2 Duo and/or Radeon 5850/70? All the reviewers that I've run across seem to have beast-monster setups with 80-core, 500ghz systems, so I'm curious to see how well it scales to slightly older systems.

Oh, yeh - how's the mouse support? Is it required to fiddle around with .ini files to customize/disable mouse acceleration/smoothing, or does it just *work*? It always puzzles me how many FPS games seem to mess up the mouse implementation on the PC (maybe it's the porting process).

Ah, the warm, throbbing tingle of bulging anticipation! I haven't been so ready to play since... gosh, I guess DX:HR.

Puce Moose wrote:

Is anyone playing this on a Core 2 Duo and/or Radeon 5850/70? All the reviewers that I've run across seem to have beast-monster setups with 80-core, 500ghz systems, so I'm curious to see how well it scales to slightly older systems.

Oh, yeh - how's the mouse support? Is it required to fiddle around with .ini files to customize/disable mouse acceleration/smoothing, or does it just *work*? It always puzzles me how many FPS games seem to mess up the mouse implementation on the PC (maybe it's the porting process).

I'm playing on an Asus G73JH laptop, with a Radeon Mobility 5870, and it runs smooth and silk at the highest settings. I do have a quad core, not a core2 duo, so I don't know how much of an impact that has.

The mouse has been fine for me, there's no acceleration to turn off, and I didn't have to go looking for smoothing. In fact I didn't even have to touch the sensitivity, which is unusual for any first person game, I usually have to turn it down so I can get more precision. Dishonored has been perfect with respect to the mouse.

The game is loaded and installed (did this last night), waiting for me to come home and start it. I'm a big fan of the Deus Ex games, so I'm really looking forward to this. The steampunk angle is intriguing. I liked that aspect of Arcanum, from so many years ago.

Arkane's Dishonored keeps bringing to mind Arkaine's Honor from D1 (and D2). Gotta shake that...

Played through the first 90 mins or so and really like it so far. My only problem is when I play games that give you lots of options on how to proceed and one of them is stealth, I feel like I'm playing "wrong" if don't go stealthy. This game seems good about allowing you to recover if you break stealth, so it's not a fail state, but I still feel like a failure. I guess because I know it can be done stealthy, it makes the levels seem like puzzles and I want to figure out the stealth puzzle. Should be good for multiple plays throughs. I was reading the article below from RPS and the guys there are on their second play through and said they felt they were thorough and found big areas of levels they missed the first time. It contains spoilers.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

Speaking of RPS, they did an interesting article about the game's length, and the author's suggested "right way" to play the game to get the most out of it. As you can imagine, the comments ran the gamut from cheerful proclamations of baby-having to unmitigated, speckle-lipped bellows of rage and resentment, and a fair amount of stuff in between.

Well boys and girls, the moment is at hand! Glass of wine at my fingertips, volume turned up, and a sleepy looking cat in a basket next to my wall. It's time to head into the bowels of the beast and see what's what in this strange, decaying world of Dishonored.

Digging in here, as well. So far, I'm really enjoying it; the textures on the 360 look a bit muddy, but it isn't an impediment to the gameplay in any way.

Ahh! About an hour or so of playing, and I thought I'd post some quick impressions.

Performance:
My system (C2D 3.16, 4GB RAM, Radeon 5850, Windows 7/64, Creative X-Fi Gamer) exists just above the minimum CPU requirements, and squats just above the recommended GPU.
I've had excellent performance so far, with framerates in the 50-60 range. The only issues I've had so far performance wise:
a) Some audio stuttering in the cutscenes (similar to Source engine stutter). Nothing major, just a freeze where one-three seconds of the same sound repeats before the cutscene resumes. It's happened four times so far.
b) Delayed texture load after an Alt+Tab - very minor. Sometimes the textures will take a second or two to load (remember RAGE?) after alt+tabbing.

I'm impressed with the good performance so far! I also liked the title screen; dragonflies, birds, cat tails, plants - it's always nice when a developer takes the time to implement non-human things in a game whose soul purpose in life is something besides trying to kill the player. The texture quality isn't top-of-the-line, but they're stylish and don't distract from the fun. The NPC models are slightly exaggerated and rather pleasing overall.

I've made it to the sewers, and so far it strikes me as a mix of Bioshock, Thief, and Oblivion. There have been a few gamey bits of silliness :
a) GRAB THAT AUDIOGRAPH PUNCHCARD, you lunkhead! It could be the evidence you need to clear your name!
b) Guards refusing to travel past their behavior package boundaries:
IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/dish1.jpg)
which led to an amusing bit where I doing a little dance, just outside of their range, as they swung and cursed at me. Many graceful pirouettes did the assassin Corvo perform before these guards that refused to take a step closer.

Minor stuff; overall I've had a lot of fun so far. I've found a couple of journal entries (yay!) and some food & posters with legible labels/text (*swoon*) so I'm a happy gamer.

I chuckled a bit when I ran across this sign: (brightness done via a quick edit, it's not that washed out in game):

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/hrain1.jpg)

Ha! Suck it Quantic Dream!
(I've never actually played Heavy Rain, so I have no opinion on it, but it still made me laugh.)

Fun Fun Fun! Time for some dinner, then I'll play a bit more.

I haven't gotten a chance to play yet, but the Dishonored Tarot Deck from my Gamestop preorder is awesome. It is a deck of 79 oversized cards featuring art from the game. The four suits are Rats, Skulls, Swords, and Pistols. It also includes rules for the "Game of Nancy" which is apparently a card game played in the Dishonored world. The box has a UPC code on the bottom, so I wonder if they are going to sell it separately. It's flippin sweet!

So I watched part of the Giant Bomb quick look. This was nowhere on my radar screen. I heard "City 17", "Rapture", "Deus Ex" and "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Those all caught my attention big time. I won't ask about the design of the environments. I can tell it's pretty / interesting. What about the idea that it provides flexible ways to get through the environment? The Deus Ex comparison. Is that apt?

Aristophan wrote:

I haven't gotten a chance to play yet, but the Dishonored Tarot Deck from my Gamestop preorder is awesome. It is a deck of 79 oversized cards featuring art from the game. The four suits are Rats, Skulls, Swords, and Pistols. It also includes rules for the "Game of Nancy" which is apparently a card game played in the Dishonored world. The box has a UPC code on the bottom, so I wonder if they are going to sell it separately. It's flippin sweet!

That's a pretty cool pre-order bonus. Card minigame! I hope the game features collectible cards you can find scattered around the game world to add to your deck.

DSGamer wrote:

So I watched part of the Giant Bomb quick look. This was nowhere on my radar screen. I heard "City 17", "Rapture", "Deus Ex" and "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Those all caught my attention big time. I won't ask about the design of the environments. I can tell it's pretty / interesting. What about the idea that it provides flexible ways to get through the environment? The Deus Ex comparison. Is that apt?

So far I'm getting more of an Oblivion/Bioshock/Thief vibe than a Deus Ex vibe, but I'm not far into the game. From the tidbits I've read most of the missions offer a lot of freedom as to how you resolve the conflict. A short ways in, I'd recommend turning off as many HUD elements as you can stand for maximum "makin' my own decision" opportunities. I've read a few recent previews, and it looks like some alternate resolution possibilities to missions (besides just leaving a trail of snoring guards vs. corpses) exist.

Puce Moose wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

So I watched part of the Giant Bomb quick look. This was nowhere on my radar screen. I heard "City 17", "Rapture", "Deus Ex" and "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Those all caught my attention big time. I won't ask about the design of the environments. I can tell it's pretty / interesting. What about the idea that it provides flexible ways to get through the environment? The Deus Ex comparison. Is that apt?

So far I'm getting more of an Oblivion/Bioshock/Thief vibe than a Deus Ex vibe, but I'm not far into the game. From the tidbits I've read most of the missions offer a lot of freedom as to how you resolve the conflict. A short ways in, I'd recommend turning off as many HUD elements as you can stand for maximum "makin' my own decision" opportunities. I've read a few recent previews, and it looks like some alternate resolution possibilities to missions (besides just leaving a trail of snoring guards vs. corpses) exist.

I'm in the opposite boat, getting a big Deus Ex vibe from the game. Everything from the highlighting objects you can pick up/interact with, to the wide variety of ways to approach a situation all bring memories of Human Revolution flooding back. It evokes the least Oblivion recall from me, but maybe that's because I usually play a bruiser in TES games, and I always play pure stealth in games like Dishonored.

DS, your approach to the situation is a huge part of the game. Watch Certis' video if you haven't already, that's entirely apt.

Gumbie wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

For a botched pre-order, I'm having no problems. The game is in my hands, ready to play, with no drama.

Same here mine just finished downloading on stream. *insert smug digital download face*

Another smug face added... i dont see how this can be considered botched in any shape or form when compared to actual games who have botched their release.

Some quick impressions:

Rats are not to be trifled with

There is a lot more freedom to jump on things than you may think

I like how at the end of the mission you see how many people you (accidentally) killed

Seriously, don't mess with the rats

Aristophan wrote:

Seriously, don't mess with the rats

I had a situation where there were 30 or so rats below me and I didn't want to have to deal with them. Dropped one grenade and all that was left were some bloodstains. Messing with rats is fun

European box art, yeah!

IMAGE(http://www.pixelhunt.com.au/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dishonoured-02.jpg)

You may now continue with discussing relevant things that have to do with actually playing the game.

How can that man focus on killing with that enormously yummy looking lemon/blueberry gummi on his shoulder!?

I think that would have been a rockin' cover with just the creepy tower and the rest covered in fog.

"Honestly, I didn't kill the Empress! My awesomely sane, wholesomely-decorated, innocent-looking mask will surely convince you of that!"
"IT does! ACQUITTED ON ALL CHARGES!!"

DSGamer wrote:

So I watched part of the Giant Bomb quick look. This was nowhere on my radar screen. I heard "City 17", "Rapture", "Deus Ex" and "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Those all caught my attention big time. I won't ask about the design of the environments. I can tell it's pretty / interesting. What about the idea that it provides flexible ways to get through the environment? The Deus Ex comparison. Is that apt?

If you are talking about original Deus Ex, i don't know, haven't played it. Compared to DE:HR, Dishonored seems much more open in your approach. The levels are more sandboxes than the funneled paths that DE:HR seemed to have. I know it's a bit cheap to use other games to describe one, but it feels like Bioshock (unique art design, ability to combine powers in interesting ways), Assassin's Creed (verticality in level design), Hitman (different tools and traps to take out enemies), and Far Cry 2 (I saw a grenade roll down a hill).

Goddamn, the games industry is on some kind of mission to empty my wallet right now.