Dishonored Review

Developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda, Dishonored is a first-person stealth action game set in the in the grimy steam punk city of Dunwall. You play as Corvo Attano; bodyguard to the Empress to the city – he has recently been framed for her assassination and must now fight to prove his innocence and gain revenge on those who schemed against him. Luckily Corvo is aided in his quest by master inventor and renegade group member Piero Joplin, and has been simultaneously bestowed a range of super natural powers by the mysterious Outsider, ruler of the dream-like Void. Still, even with all that help it’s going to take a whole lot of skill to find the truth in the world of Dishonored.

The game starts rather simply with Corvo returning from time away at sea, begging for aid from neighbouring cities in an effort to help with the mysterious plague situation at Dunwall. The plague itself is reminiscent of The Great Plague of London, being highly contagious and fatal, infected people will begin to cry blood and affectionately be known by the aristocratic sect of Dunwall as ‘Weepers’. During the introduction of the game you will bare witness to some of the game’s contrasting beauty in design; ahead of you lays the stunning Empress’ house, while to the left of the boat a humongous whale is strung up by hooks on a massive ship and harvested for its oil.

Your craft reaches its destination and travels up in an18th century inspired lock/water lift. You disembark to find the young daughter of the Empress, Emily, who affectionately asks Corvo if he wants play hide and seek with her. This essentially works as a movement tutorial, used to teach the player how to jump or duck stealthily behind objects. The controls feel light and responsive and jumping allows you to scramble up lower walls. For a moment I did see an apparition of Mirrors Edge, but not enough to have me disengaging my bowels and pooping my pants.

From there Corvo is escorted to meet the Empress and inform her of his travels, when all of a sudden a group of assassins appear from thin air and attack. This combat tutorial teaches the player the basic two-handed fighting method of the game: In one hand Corvo hold a retractable sword, in the other he wields a variety of different projectile weapons and magic powers. You start the game with a pistol but later obtain a dart gun with a multitude of different arrows, grenades and mines. As well as Corvo’s supernatural abilities that includes Dark Vision – the ability to see in the dark and through walls, Blink – a phase shifting teleportation power, Possession – mind control over animals and later, humans, Bend Time – slow time, Devouring Swarm – summons a horde of flesh-eating rats and Windblast – working as a kind of ‘force push’. You can also upgrade your agility, vitality, learn heavier fatal attacks and the power to turn enemies to ash as you kill them.

You can upgrade equipment with the help of Piero and collecting schematics, or improve your powers via the expenditure of mystical runes which can be found in various locations. To locate these precious items Corvo has use of the ‘Heart of a living thing’, which has been moulded by the Outsider’s hands. Despite the heart’s increased pumping as you find yourself getting closer towards either runes or status effecting ‘Bone Charms’ – which allow Corvo some small perk such as grenades taking longer to explode, speeding up your attack rate or healing you faster – the heart also has the uncanny ability to whisper secrets when pointed at someone or something, This fantastically adds an extra dimension to some of the NPC story arches  whilst giving Corvo some ominously dark information, as when pressed within the Void the heart reveals that the place is “doom” for those who dabble in black arts or that soon the “void will devour the sky”.

Utilising magical abilities and weapons correctly pays dividends to Corvo’s survival and some of the his melee attack animations are as gratifying as they are gruesome – using the game’s right bumper parry to throw an enemy before elegantly beheading them. Some of Attano’s paranormal powers are equally as disturbing; calling a horde of rats in order to clear an area unnoticed does led the victim to being devoured until there’s nothing left, right in front of your eyes.

Despite the high amount of weapons and magical powers on display the main focal point is stealth and it is something that Corvo has in spades. Not only does he have the ability to throw bottles to attract guards, de-activate traps, peer through key holes etc, the game’s level designs are also aimed towards funnelling the player into heavily guarded areas where they are forced to use their brains to work out the way through. It’s one of the most interesting things about Dishonored – the freedom of choice; it gives you more than enough tools to go directly into any area sword raised, cause alarm and have an epic fight, but also places much emphasis on tactfully finding a more covert way to complete a level. So much so that the game grades you after each zone, detailing just how many people you killed, silently killed, how many bodies found by others and even so far as to have a ‘chaos’ meter which effects the story’s outcome. You can’t help but applaud the game’s creators for doing such a good job, pushing the player towards the main essence of stealth and exploration and finding the two, three or even four other optional routes around the level while equally letting some people enjoy their blood bath.

As Corvo is a silent protagonist most of the game’s story elaborations are portrayed while snooping around. You are more than likely to come across story enriching books, audiograph messages or overhear people’s conversations that pertain to the game’s narrative and background, I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that I saw a whale being extracted of oil – well, if you spend some time reading books or posters on the walls you will find that whale oil is the main taxable source of energy for Dunwall. The Overseers seem a little religious and brainwashed or maybe confused of the origins of the mighty ‘Tall Boys’? Read some books on the Trials of Aptitude and it will give you a glimmering insight into the ritual preparation and evaluation of some of the city’s younger generation… hell you might even be able to crack a safe or two by putting some information together.

I love the silent hero roles in videogames – I am not one for ‘seeing’ myself as someone on screen (quite frankly it worries me some people say that) but I love having to look for story. I love having to find my own way to a solution and feel it helps build an attachment to the world you are playing in. It generally makes you take notice of what’s happening. It is in this point where Arkane Studios have hit the nail on the head in terms of contrast and creating an engrossing world, there are so many small, detailed nuances that add depth and character to Dunwall, you cannot help but let yourself be drawn in to the conscious internal battle of what is right and wrong. A simple touch such as the Empress’ daughter asking to marry Corvo when she grows up relays the simplicity of attachment between the hero and the victim, contrasting forcefully with puzzle sections which call for you to pick up a dead body and throw it across a room to act as a diversion to escape flesh-eating rats. Other sections include choosing to either kill a target or knock her unconscious and ‘give’ her to a slightly obsessive man who may or may not to something creepy to her. It highlights that sometimes doing the correct thing is still wrong and that in even trying to do the ‘right’ thing by not killing the lady you could essentially lead to something undeniably worse.

The way Dishonored mixes platforming, puzzles and stealth with balls-out combat is something you really don’t see in games that much any more and while you can easily say that the game draws much inspiration from a multitude of other titles, it is still an incredibly unique experience. At times the graphics feel slightly less refined then they should – almost like a water painting in some places. It is inconsequential though as the game\s small features add up to form a vast amount of wealth and depth that is particularly unrivalled in today’s market. Strokes such as not being given an achievement for at least the first hour almost go unnoticed as the game tries to pull your head into a specific uninterrupted mood of unease.

The dark humour is ever so slightly written into items such as one book stating that some ways to cure the plague are as “ineffective to burn two hagfish and a cat together, inhaling the vapours while chanting the names of the plague dead”. In short, Dishonored is a very welcome style of game. I would say it’s crafted for people who are bored of the norm and enjoy the odd change of pace, but I think it would be safer to say its not for everyone, and if it isn’t for you what the heck are you doing playing videogames!?

Ryan Syrett

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Smelly beard man who has no right talking to anyone about computer games.

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gamescom 2012: Dishonored Preview

After spending a good few hours getting hands-on with Arkane Studio’s latest blockbuster, Dishonored, I have found myself in that horrible position of writing an un-biased preview that sums up the game’s general plot beats, whilst simultaneously explaining the feel, graphics and general information. To be short, this new found fan-boy boner is getting in the way of my typing and if I was allowed I would simply create a post that says ‘TOTES AMAZINGYO!’, draw a smiley face and then leave it at that.

Sadly you scamps tend to like information rather than my preferred faithful blind obedience, thus I will now have to do that annoying writing thing. Dishonored is a first-person stealth-based action game that takes place in the steam punk inspired yet mysteriously rat infested city of Dunwall. You play as assassin Corvo Atano, a fabled bodyguard to the game’s Empress, who has been framed for her murder. Guided by the mysterious Outsider – who just so happens to have granted our protagonist some magical powers – Corvo has taken it upon himself to gain revenge on the people who wronged him.

The level on show at Gamescom revolved around Corvo finding a way to infiltrate a wealthy masquerade ball, locating a target and then killing them. Sounds relatively simple(ish) in but Dishonored has been created in a way that relays every minor action into a multitude of diverse options: Want to kill a guard? Well you could try knocking him out with a sleeping dart and dumping the body off a ledge, or you could just freeze time and stab the guy in the neck. Hell, if you are feeling adventurous why not just magic up a rabid swarm of rats to devour him alive while you sit laughing in the shadows.

The possibilities of combat within the game seem truly only limited by the player’s imagination. In a broad sense this can be said about many games, yet it’s some of Dishonored’s mission objectives and free range to complete them that excited me. Upon shitting my pants at the first sighting of an in-game Big Daddy-esque tank enemy named the ‘Tall Boy’ (Google for rad images of it) I scampered into the entrance of the invite-only masked ball. After milling around for a moment, messing around with Corvo’s ‘mind control’ ability to find a way in, I noticed that a patron had dropped their invite, thus I scooped it up and entered the venue. Once inside I found one of the level’s many optional side quests of challenging someone to a duel. Thankfully it wasn’t one of those standardised bare-fisted brawls that are in most games, but an actual gentlemanly open a box of two pistols, walk ten paces, count to three, turn and shoot with no hard feelings kind of thing. Obviously, given the freedom of gameplay you can just bludgeon the guy to death if you so wish but this would likely raise alarm and result in some much unwanted attention.

After disposing of the side quest enemy in a fair and gentlemanly manner I entered the ball to find that my objective was to kill one of three family members, all of which had dressed in the same outfit but in varying colours. My task was to snoop around the party, identify my target and ascertain the best way to dispose of them. The game opened up multiple options of acquiring knowledge that would lead me to the end result; this included things like using various powers to sneak upstairs and rummage through peoples draws, peaking through keyholes to watch for various character traits or guard patrols, con a flirty lady into giving you information about the target by offering her a drink and finally speaking to some scarecrow masked head-case who – in exchange for the target’s identity – wanted me to kidnap the objective and bring her to a boat downstairs in the cellar so he could whisk her away forever… in a freaky and sadistic kind of way.

One of the beautiful things about the whole set up is that I never truly felt as if my hand is being held too tightly during the level; it was all extremely organic and enjoyable. The mansion also showed me some of the title’s brilliant art nuances that were littered around the environment. The party goers all wear eerily detailed masks, the rooms are decorated in lavish and bizarre sculptures and you could even sign the event’s guest book with Corvo’s name to add that cheeky charismatic stealth flair to your mission. The berth of freedom Dishonored gives you to find your own way, whist simultaneously being given the feeling of power, is something I think the developers of this game really pushed.

After convincing my target to follow me downstairs and unceremoniously knocking her out to uneasily give her to scarecrow head I had to flee the scene in order to finish the mission; this involved a whole bunch of shadow to shadow running and silent kills, as well as doing my very best to dodge the dreaded ‘Tall Boys’ and rat plague infected town folk, now named ‘Weepers’. Once again you can just run through this section trying to fight everyone, or you could move from building to building taking out lights or even use some of Corvo’s magic abilities and create some havoc… I chose the latter – using a mixture of flesh eating rats, time freezing and mind control to work my way to the final check point.

I think most people can be forgiven for thinking the game draws a huge amount of influence from games like Bioshock, Thief and Deus Ex because it unashamedly does, but in the same breath it is important to say that this isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. Dishonored is still abundantly engrossing, smart, gorgeously stylised and being honest, what game doesn’t take influence from others – just check out how good Singularity was.

Ryan Syrett

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Smelly beard man who has no right talking to anyone about computer games.