Arkane's Dishonored

So this game seems pretty awesome. There's a couple things that have stood out right away.

1) The combat is, oh my god, actually good. I thought stealth games were cursed to have combat systems that serve only as pale imitations of whatever genre they have an affinity for, but not here. It's fast, fluid and actually rather unique.
2) Both the art style and world building is living up to expectations. I don't know if "believable" is a word I'd assign to it, but that's okay. Whatever and whenever this place is, it's a great place for an assassin to hang.
3) Hard is hard. The enemies do a good chunk of your health per hit and are moderately perceptive, giving you a strong incentive to stick to the shadows, surprise opponents or use one of the many tricks in your bag. I think that, if you're at all familiar with FPS games on the console, you'll do yourself a favor by starting on hard. Oh, and turn off the objective markers so you don't forget to explore the world.

I'm only a few hours in but it's promising. Also, the game runs smoothly and looks better than I expected on my PlayStation 3. So that's a bonus.

I haven't played too much of Thief, so I can't really compare that to this. But this game reminds me a lot of the Hitman series. Both share similar feel in terms of how each level progresses. Especially with the quest marker turned off (Thanks to all who recommended this, by the way. It really improved the experience.), the game encourages exploration before execution. It rewards players who look around and find the nuanced tricks that can change the outcome of a mission. Part of the fun is to see all the possible pathways that could lead to neutralizing the target.

I am playing the game on the hardest difficulty setting. All that means is that I am playing the game in complete stealth mode. I don't have the skills to take on more than 3 opponents at once even with all cylinders firing. One swipe and a pistol shot and I'd be gone. So all the kills are only done when absolutely necessary. In fact, I have real incentives to avoid most confrontations when better alternatives present themselves. This is in contrast to prior stealth games, where it was very easy to leave a trail of unconscious bodies as I snail my way towards the objective.

Unfortunately, it's hard to see the merit of certain gadgets and magics with my particular approach to the game. High-profile tools like grenades and wind blast have little use if my goal is to remain unnoticed. I'm also not a big fan of being punished for resorting to lethal measures against my victims, which further limits my choice of tools. I don't think I've fired the incendiary darts once. On the other hand, I never seem to have enough sleeping darts.

At this point of my gaming life, I think I know better than try to give any game a score. Some games with high production values entice vast interest from others but can't attract an hour of play time from me. Other games are the exact opposite. Dishonored is no doubt flawed, but it will likely be the first game I actually manage to finish in a very long while.

Spoiler:

My favorite mission so far is number three. Slackjaw offered to off the twins if I could secure the password to an artist's safe. As luck would have it, I happened to stumble upon the artist's disheveled apartment on the way to the Golden Cat. I eventually got the password after a pretty awkward conversation with the artist himself. And then I thought, "Slackjaw wanted the password, but mentioned nothing about what's inside. Silly him!" I then made a short stop at the apartment, availed myself to the content of the safe, which was very nice, and returned to Slackjaw with what he wanted like the professional that I was. I thought he'd be slightly miffed afterward and complain about me violating the spirit of good faith and fair dealing. Nope. Slackjaw kept up his end of the bargain. What a gentleman!

I can't believe how much they jam into that mission area; tons of notes, hidden goodies, etc. It's great fun just to explore. I think I'm just about to wrap up the first mission (I've been playing a few hours a day since it released, and I think I've spent at least five hours in that first "real" mission, and I noticed that I am missing one bone charm and one rune.

Is one of these two only obtainable if you:

Spoiler:

Do Granny Rags' side quest? I don't want to potentially inflict people with the plague, so I don't plan to do that side quest. Is that the only way to get it?

Also, is there are way to see how many of the bone charms/runes you've found in a level before hitting the end mission screen (besides grabbing one)?

This is definitely a deep game, rather than wide. Suck up everything you possibly can on every single mission in every single area. You will be rewarded for it and you'll get so much more marrow out of it.

I just love that I can stash unconscious guards in the dumpster and close the lid. Not since the "Body Removing Powder" in No One Lives Forever has there been a better way to make sure they can't be found...

Hyetal wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Is this only if rats are obviously nearby? Like if I knock someone out and leave them in a corner will they inevitably get eaten by a pack or rats?

I'm pretty sure it's only if they're nearby. Leaving the body somewhere elevated should keep them safe, I think.

I'm pretty sure it's only if they're nearby. Leaving the body somewhere elevated should keep them safe, I think.

Two places I encountered a half-eaten body later on was:

Spoiler:

In the first Distillery district mission, I knocked out the thug that was standing just outside the area with the 3 thugs that fight. I passed by this area a little later and found his half-eaten body, but no rats nearby. Also, oddly, the body had been moved over to were I had left the 3 thugs.

Second case was in the Kennels of the first real mission. I had knocked out all the guards, passed through the area later and found one half-eaten body.This body had also been moved from its original location. I had left it in a hallway, and found the eaten corpse in one of the kennels.

The Wiki page has posted good evidence to who the heart is.

Which Bone Charms are you all wearing and which upgrades did you buy? After the first real mission I upgraded to wear 6 charms and was wearing the 6 I had found so far. I bought the mask zoom upgrade, sleep dart upgrade and capacity upgrade. I find the grenades great for taking out swarms of rats.

The charm types seem to be randomized to some extent. I'm on my second play through, the first not killing anyone (though I too didn't get the achievement) and the second killing everyone I see. In both cases I've collected every single bone charm and while some seem to be consistent with my first playthrough I'm getting other charms I've never seen before.

Not sure if it's completely randomized or selected based on how I got to the charm and/or what powers I have. It does lead to some replayability though.

Likewise, some elements of missions are randomized. At the party, for example, the game randomizes who wears what color. On another mission the target changed positions between my play throughs, though that might have been based on my chaos rating.

Draco wrote:

Which Bone Charms are you all wearing and which upgrades did you buy? After the first real mission I upgraded to wear 6 charms and was wearing the 6 I had found so far. I bought the mask zoom upgrade, sleep dart upgrade and capacity upgrade. I find the grenades great for taking out swarms of rats.

Right, and the question.

My charms on the no-kill game (completed) were:
1. Strong Arms (choke people out nearly-instantly)
2. Twist of Fortune (Mana pots sometimes give full mana)
3. Acrobat (climb faster)
4. Throwing Hand (objects get thrown farther)
5. Spiritual Pool (mana regens faster)
6. Spirited (mana pots give more all the time)

I maxed out all the non-killing upgrades, so mask upgrades, armor upgrade, boots upgrades, crossbow upgrades, and sleeping dart upgrade.

My charms in the kill-everything game (mission 7) are:

1. Whirlwind (sword swings are faster)
2. Blood Ox Heart (larger mana reserve)
3. Robust (health pots give more all the time)
4. Falling Star (drop-killing someone gives mana)
5. Unnerving Target (miss chance increase on enemy guns)
6. Spiritual Pool (mana regens faster)

I've maxed out all the pistol upgrades, boot upgrades, mask upgrades, crossbow upgrades, sword upgrade, and grenade upgrade.

Has anyone else come upon a bone charm or rune that the Heart didn't locate for you?

And speaking of the Heart, as much as I love and appreciate the expository blurbs when you "use" it on people, it's making it really hard to stay non-lethal.

"He has a gun, and he's used it on children before."

"They never found the bodies of the boys...he's pretty sure he's safe."

Blink's targeting isn't good enough. I'f I'm moving horizontally, it's fine. But vertically? It's not there yet. I'm missing ledges, I can't teleport consistently onto ceiling lights and sconces. It frustrating and kills the momentum and flow up to that point.

1Dgaf wrote:

Blink's targeting isn't good enough. I'f I'm moving horizontally, it's fine. But vertically? It's not there yet. I'm missing ledges, I can't teleport consistently onto ceiling lights and sconces. It frustrating and kills the momentum and flow up to that point.

It's been ok for me. The blink circle changes a bit and has a sort of up arrow that flashes when it hits a ledge you can climb onto. If I see that, I know it'll catch.

Nicholaas wrote:

Has anyone else come upon a bone charm or rune that the Heart didn't locate for you?

And speaking of the Heart, as much as I love and appreciate the expository blurbs when you "use" it on people, it's making it really hard to stay non-lethal.

"He has a gun, and he's used it on children before."

"They never found the bodies of the boys...he's pretty sure he's safe."

OMG! I had no idea you could use it that way! So you just have to line up your target sight with the person and pull the trigger for the heart? NPC of the year!

I don't remember the official names, but here's what they do:

1. Climb Faster
2. I find white rats more often
3. I can possess white rats for longer
4. Health potions give me slightly more health
5. I find more amounts of ammo
6. Rats attack less often

Do you guys actually use the rat charm ability? I have tried it a few times but it just doesn't seem that useful. It's an interesting option for getting through an area, but it uses a ton of mana and blink + pipes can basically do the same thing, albeit a little more slowly.

Do you guys actually use the rat charm ability? I have tried it a few times but it just doesn't seem that useful. It's an interesting option for getting through an area, but it uses a ton of mana and blink + pipes can basically do the same thing, albeit a little more slowly.

So far I've found it's handy to get through a congested area, where I don't feel confident that I can sneak by a group of guards without being seen. There's a few areas where it can help by creating a shortcut. It does suck down the mana, though.

The background info on whaling is particularly well written, to the point that I was so disgusted I couldn't eat dinner last night.

Absolutely. It reads like the truth, not game fiction. I don't know how much they pulled from real historical records, but the sense of industry and the background data about the whales is credible in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen in fiction.

That city is a terrible, terrible place -- but many real-world cities might have been similar, in 1900.

It's like the staff at Bethesda all read Moby Dick together a couple years ago and then made Skyrim and helped out on Dishonored. Heck, I'm not complaining. We need more of that, Dante's Inferno marketing bullcrap tie-ins aside.

Puce Moose wrote:

I can't believe how much they jam into that mission area; tons of notes, hidden goodies, etc. It's great fun just to explore. I think I'm just about to wrap up the first mission (I've been playing a few hours a day since it released, and I think I've spent at least five hours in that first "real" mission, and I noticed that I am missing one bone charm and one rune.

Is one of these two only obtainable if you:

Spoiler:

Do Granny Rags' side quest? I don't want to potentially inflict people with the plague, so I don't plan to do that side quest. Is that the only way to get it?

Also, is there are way to see how many of the bone charms/runes you've found in a level before hitting the end mission screen (besides grabbing one)?

One of the

Spoiler:

runes

seems to be obtainable only by that method you mention. For that reason, I couldn't bring myself to obtain it. I might be "dishonored," but I was once the bodyguard of an (ostensibly) good-aligned Empress, and I couldn't see my character purposefully immiserating the lives of poor city dwellers who couldn't afford elixir just so that I could "get all the loot."

The only way I've found to see the number of runes/charms in a level is to pick 'em up. Or visit the Wiki and write down how many exist in a level.

I'll say that it's been a long time since I've refused to complete content in a game because of my _character's_ moral outlook. Good job!

And for what it's worth, the first mission and tutorial took me eight hours total. Of course, there was reloading and backtracking, but I'll say that I don't think I wasted my time. And I look forward to completing it again on a higher difficulty level someday.

As for the bone charm randomness, I seem to remember from previews that there is some randomness in missions. Perhaps that is an element?

Malor wrote:
The background info on whaling is particularly well written, to the point that I was so disgusted I couldn't eat dinner last night.

Absolutely. It reads like the truth, not game fiction. I don't know how much they pulled from real historical records, but the sense of industry and the background data about the whales is credible in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen in fiction.

That city is a terrible, terrible place -- but many real-world cities might have been similar, in 1900.

For me, the readable books have nailed just the right length that I will stop and enjoy each one, in a way I never could with Skyrim's often ponderous tomes. It helps that the writing is quite good too.

1Dgaf wrote:

Blink's targeting isn't good enough. I'f I'm moving horizontally, it's fine. But vertically? It's not there yet. I'm missing ledges, I can't teleport consistently onto ceiling lights and sconces. It frustrating and kills the momentum and flow up to that point.

I haven't had a problem with interior ceiling lights, but I've noticed there seems to be a "sweet spot" for hopping onto the exterior lights on poles. If I'm a little off to the right or the left, it will still show the upward arrow, but I'll plummet off as soon as I blink up. I also found out the hard way it will allow you to blink on top of the pointy metal fences to be hideously impaled.

Well, I finished, 22 hours. Mostly stealth. I guess I must have killed someone along the way, because I didn't get the Clean Hands achievement, but I got the one for 'less than ten'. As far as I'm concerned, they knocked this one into low orbit. I have one major criticism about the ending, but it's not a game-wrecker.

This game is wildly better than the new Deus Ex, which was very good. It's better than either Bioshock, but I think it probably doesn't quite hold up to the original Deus Ex. It's certainly a lot shorter.

This is Arkane's best, by miles. I wouldn't have minded it being a little longer, but every minute was interesting. No fluff or filler. Quality throughout. The world-building was unlike anything I've ever seen in game fiction. Not even Thief was that good.

This may not be the best first-person game ever done, but it's in the top three.

Criticism on the ending:

Spoiler:

They never dealt with the creation of the Heart! A horrific crime was committed there, and you should have been able to confront the Outsider in some way about it. Just leaving that unresolved .... wow, what a huge ball to drop.

Still, it beats Human Revolution's Choose Your Own Adventure ending by lightyears.

I mean -- this was so good, I'm interested in DLC, and that almost never happens.

I beat it as well, ~15 hours. It would have been quite a bit more, but I stumbled upon what must be the fastest possible route to the end on the last level and ended up missing most of it. Definitely gonna replay this one as a psychopath next.

Well, you can argue that the Bioshock stories were better, but the game was a paper-thin veneer in many places. It never felt like it could be a real place, like they'd actually design an undersea city anything like that. And the gameplay was mostly direct combat, and it wasn't that great. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't wonderful, either.

Dunwall feels like a real city. For me, at least, it was convincing on a visceral level that I was really there, that actual people would make actual buildings that looked like that. I was constantly reminded that Bioshock was a dream world, but I don't remember being jolted out of my suspension of disbelief in Dishonored. I'm trying to think of anything in the level designs that were clearly wrong or inconsistent with what I know of both that world and this one, and I'm coming up blank. With Bioshock, it would be faster to list what was right: basically nothing. There was never a point in that game where I thought "this could really happen".

Standing in an alley, looking up at the buildings of Dunwall, it's hard to DISbelieve in the place.

Malor wrote:

Well, you can argue that the Bioshock stories were better, but the game was a paper-thin veneer in many places. It never felt like it could be a real place, like they'd actually design an undersea city anything like that. And the gameplay was mostly direct combat, and it wasn't that great. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't wonderful, either.

Dunwall feels like a real city. For me, at least, it was convincing on a visceral level that I was really there, that actual people would make actual buildings that looked like that. I was constantly reminded that Bioshock was a dream world, but I don't remember being jolted out of my suspension of disbelief in Dishonored. I'm trying to think of anything in the level designs that were clearly wrong or inconsistent with what I know of both that world and this one, and I'm coming up blank. With Bioshock, it would be faster to list what was right: basically nothing. There was never a point in that game where I thought "this could really happen".

Standing in an alley, looking up at the buildings of Dunwall, it's hard to DISbelieve in the place.

I'm personally inclened to agree with penny arcade on this http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/10/10. Although the city as a whole did click with me around mission two, I never did quite get the whole whales are magical thing.
Though to be fair it makes about as much sense as magical slugs so I can't really hold that against it.

But I feel its a little too soon (and a little too subjective really) for me to know which game is better. I do however feel that for now at least bioshock is the more important game.
I do feel that Arkane has the chance with their next game to top anything done before in the medium and that is not something I say lightly.

Well, the whales being magical bit is what you're supposed to grant for the story. All stories get a couple of those. In this world, magic works, and whales are magical.

As fantasy premises go, this is downright reasonable.

I do feel that Arkane has the chance with their next game to top anything done before in the medium and that is not something I say lightly.

I think, in most respects, they already have. I'll grant that maybe Bioshock had a better story, Deus Ex had better levels, and Thief had better stealth. But of the three pillars, stealth, level design, and story, Dishonored is almost as good as the greats in the center of their respective strengths, and way better in the other two areas. And the actual, physical gameplay, the mechanics of moving around and fighting, is better than all three.

I just don't see how we could reasonably expect more than what they gave us.

edit: And I'm not sure I should have used Thief as an example of 'better stealth' -- I think Dishonored's system is more sensible.

Malor wrote:

edit: And I'm not sure I should have used Thief as an example of 'better stealth' -- I think Dishonored's system is more sensible.

One of my favorite aspects of the game - the sensibility of it. Whenever I've gotten past a guard, I almost always think, "Yes, that person should not have seen me."

Malor wrote:

Well, the whales being magical bit is what you're supposed to grant for the story. All stories get a couple of those. In this world, magic works, and whales are magical.

As fantasy premises go, this is downright reasonable.

I do feel that Arkane has the chance with their next game to top anything done before in the medium and that is not something I say lightly.

I think, in most respects, they already have. I'll grant that maybe Bioshock had a better story, Deus Ex had better levels, and Thief had better stealth. But of the three pillars, stealth, level design, and story, Dishonored is almost as good as the greats in the center of their respective strengths, and way better in the other two areas. And the actual, physical gameplay, the mechanics of moving around and fighting, is better than all three.

I just don't see how we could reasonably expect more than what they gave us.

edit: And I'm not sure I should have used Thief as an example of 'better stealth' -- I think Dishonored's system is more sensible.

Given how difficult game development is I don't think it's reasonable to expect anything more than functional, there's even been a few games I've loved that weren't functional, such as everything ever made by obsidian (not that all of their games are good but you get idea).

I also think that the combat is only good when taken in the context of the stealth mechanics, and Dishonored most certainly has the best stealth mechanics I've ever seen, though to be fair every time I've tried to play one of the thief games I've given up due to how poorly 3D games of that era hold up (at least in terms of action games). And honestly I hated what I played of Deus Ex, I see why its important (except for the people who say the plot was any good, planescape had already come out and still holds up in a way few games of that or any other era do) but even with all the graphics mods installed it just doesn't hold up at all, at least for someone who didn't play it when it was new.

And I do feel that Dishonored has a good story idea, I just don't think they executed on it well enough for it to matter, and honestly I don't even necessarily need a good plot just give me good well developed characters, for instance take persona 4, a game that might as well not even have a plot 90% of the time, but I never cared because the characters were so good that it didn't matter, to the point that I prefer it over Bioshock.
And honestly If they had just focused more on the relationship between Corvo and Emilly that would have been enough for me.

And you are right about the whales, for whatever reason that just stood out to me as kind of weird, and in the end the story is my only real complaint about the game, everything else about is either outright perfect or close enough that it doesn't matter, and that's kind of the problem, can you really say that the White Album is any better than Rubber Soul? you can certainly prefer one over the other but at that point its all up to personal taste, and I can respect that, I'm glad this game exists and I'm glad its good enough to warrant this kind of debate.

True, when you get people arguing about whether or not it qualifies as the best ever, that's a strong sign that it's at least good.

I snapped a screenshot that I ended up using for my desktop wallpaper. I'll post it as a link since it could be regarded as slightly spoiler-y if you haven't obtained your powers yet. 1920x1080, png, lots of blue

What's the game saying when you go into Dark Vision? Sounds like.... "chaos dies"?