Dishonored Review
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Presentation Dishonored is one of the most beautiful games I have ever seen. It's actually not too impressive by modern standards in terms of raw graphics capability - the game has its share of blurry and lower-resolution textures, for instance. However, the styling and composition, provided in part by Half-Life 2 art director, is impeccable. While similarities with Half-Life 2 are quite common, the game has a rich, hand-painted watercolor look to it, with nicely-complementing colors, beautiful urban vistas, and an incredible attention to detail around every corner. This is a game where the artists' concept feels fully realized in-game, and it's refreshing to see a game where technology is used in service of an artistic vision, rather than to cram in as many visual gimmicks as possible.
The game's audio also does not disappoint, for the most part. The sound effects, from bleak background atmosphere in the near-post-apocalyptic Flooded District, to the mechanical thudding footsteps of the "Tallboy" stilt-walking guards, are all as fitting as can be. The ever-present drone of Dunwall's propaganda broadcasts, while cribbed from Half-Life 2, also creates a growing feel of oppression and paranoia throughout the game, as well as providing story updates. The soundtrack mostly stays in the background, with subtle piano melodies creeping in seamlessly with the background ambiance. Voice-acting is competent, but a few actors feel miscast and a lack of variety in actors means you will hear the same voices over and over again.
On a pure technical level, Dishonored is solid, but does have a few issues. A few missions bugged out on me during the game, requiring me to restart a level one time and fail a couple more optional objectives. The game, at least on PC, has just about every option you could want, from being able to turn off tutorial pop-ups, objective markers, and other prompts, as well as equally important but rarely-provided camera bob and field-of-view settings, which I am very grateful for. When playing stealthy and going for a completely non-lethal run through the game, eventually I had to give up because unconscious bodies had a tendency to fall through the ground, or drop into water below, or land on top of lit fires, registering as deaths. The PC version also requires a Steam account to play, and features the now-standard suite of Steam features, but unfortunately those who don't like Steam are out of luck.
Conclusion
Dishonored is one of my favorite games so far this year. It is well crafted almost all the way through, with consistently excellent level design providing more options to explore, sneak through or take out your enemies within than just about any other similar title, an interesting world and set of characters you'll grow to like over the course of the game, and visual direction which makes me wish developers would just abandon their tireless quest for "realism" right now. What's more, it's a game where player choice directs gameplay, and where the most fun moments don't come from watching cutscenes play out, but from actually engaging with the mechanics and systems on offer, something that is almost impossible to find in action games and shooters these days, and even many full-on RPGs for that matter.
However, Dishonored does have its share of faults, namely in that its stealth gameplay is a bit underwhelming compared to its inspirations, its RPG-like character progression is lacking, it starts to run out of steam a bit towards the end, and the story simply does not have the same intellectual themes to it that gets you thinking about bigger issues once you've turned the game off (something Deus Ex: Human Revolution managed far better last year). As much as I liked it, and will play through it at least once or twice more, it's hard not to feel a bit disappointed where potential wasn't realized, mostly in the RPG qualities that it's dropped over its predecessors. I could have been an "instant classic" for fans of hybrid shooter/RPG titles, but instead it's merely "pretty good."
In short, if you are a fan of games like Deus Ex, and missing out on an inventory and skill points doesn't bother you, you should probably pick up Dishonored - not only is it a great game that you'll get at least a couple of play-throughs out of, but it's the kind of game that I think the games industry desperately needs, one that doesn't take its audience for morons and lets the gameplay shine, not the scripted cinematic sequences. It's not the best game of its type, and to some it will probably even be disappointing given the hype around it, but in an age where multiplayer shooters and MMO cash cows dominate, Dishonored is yet more proof that few things can top a thoroughly engrossing, offline, mechanics-driven game.
