Dishonored

[Magnus]

Any way you want.

 

That said, I wouldn't recommend going for the 'no powers' achievement on a first playthrough, as a lot of the fun comes from using the different powers.

[jayseven]

Low chaos/etc first makes the high chaos/etc run much easier -- going the other way may make the low chaos run seem far more difficult than it actually is, due to getting used to having more options at your disposal.

 

Having said that, simply playing through and deciding what to do on a case-by-case basis will give you more enjoyment/immersion in the world, I think. I also recommend feeling free to save/reload whenever you want. If you play a low chaos/etc run then your pacing of the game will fit the pacing of the loading times!

[The Bard]

The one thing in this game that sort of annoyed me was the inability to play through again with all the powers you had collected from a previous playthrough. I appreciate that it would muddle with the balance and the pacing perhaps, but to be honest, I've already experienced all that and I'd rather play through a second time with a feeling of ease.

[dwarf]

It's the sort of thing they'd let you do back in the age of cheat codes. What happened to the beloved cheat code I wonder?

For your particular request I'd imagine it would be more of a bugs issue than a balance one.

[The Bard]

I don't think there would have been any bugs to iron out really though, since many of the scenarios involve going through the same geometry and performing different tasks later in the game. The source of the games increasing difficulty really relied on progressively greater quantities of enemies spread over larger danger zones, so I don't think the availability of more skills would really have done much other than make it easier. Of course I'm not a designer, so I'm sure they had their reasons. The games you do see a skill carry over tend to be shooters like Dead Space and Resi, where the extent of your abilities really only revolve around the fire power of your weapons rather than traversal speed or ability to stop time...

 

I'm just a little gutted that I didn't get to max out all my skills in the same save.

[MindFreak]

Completed this game on Low Chaos today (boom, 320 points!) but with every upgrade I could think of. I think the ending was fine but I didn't like the easiness of getting Emily back. She just shouted "Corvo!" and ran to my neck even though there were three men in the room next to me with no door between. That seemed kinda off.

 

I really liked the game, though, and I will definitely go through it again on high chaos as I see that the game is quite different in that way (and easier?). Also, I need to do the Granny Rags and Slackjaw missions.

Edited February 8, 2013 by MindFreak

[jayseven]

I think low chaos is the hardest way (assuming you went for no detection/no weapons), and actually when you're able to be a kick-ass dude it's much easier -- but still pretty rewarding.

 

Goddamn I want a sequel.

[Retro_Link]

£17.99 at Amazon!

[MindFreak]

Phew. Cleared High Chaos tonight. Quite liked that it changed the game so much but I didn't like that Samuel had come to dislike me. I think I enjoyed the stealth-mode the most but if I ever play the game again, I'll go for a mix but mostly steatlh. Got 49 achievements on the game, didn't want to go for "Mostly flesh and blood" as I guess it makes the game both overly hard and a bit more boring. Might go for it some day but for now I'll give the game a rest.

 

Is the DLC any good?

[The Peeps]

This game has been on my "To Get" list for a while and I finally bought it last week. I've only had two sessions so far but I've just completed the first mission

killing that high overseer guy

I'm really enjoying it so far despite the fact that I am trying to play without killing people but I panic when I get seen and stab the shit out of them... I think once I complete it I'll try and play through again and actually not kill anyone :p

 

Kind of want to play it right now but I have a driving lesson at 9:30 tomorrow so I need to go to bed!

[Magnus]

Remember: the faster you drive, the faster you'll get home to the game.

[Shorty]

 

 

Awesome.

[The Peeps]

So I finished this game the other day... I thought it was great! It's been a while since I've really got stuck into a game and I just couldn't put this one down. I'm still going to go back and try to beat each mission differently (not being detected etc) and I'm glad to see there's DLC out just next month

[MindFreak]

DLC 'The Knife of Dunwall' is out now. Is anybody getting it? I would have got it soon if I had not just now discovered it's part one of two. I didn't know that, so I'll probably hold off until Part Two arrives. This is also due to me having tons of other games as well as the original DLC for Dishonored to complete. I wanted to go for 100 % achievements on the first DLC but that's just too hard! It's really challenging and getting an achievement actually FEELS like an achievement in it. But it's mostly enjoyable.

[The Peeps]

I keep meaning to get round to buying it (and finishing off the first DLC and 100% completing the main game...) but I never seem to have time. I have two days off work next week (for the first time in like 2 months) so maybe I'll get it then!

[Magnus]

Nah, you'll just play Halo 4 all day instead. :p

[dwarf]

Started playing this yesterday and I'm absolutely terrible at it. I feel like using the crossbow is cheating so I try to refrain from using it, but I fuck up when using stealth all the time. Very annoying.

 

Is there no way to do a falling non-lethal kill?

[Shorty]

Is there no way to do a falling non-lethal kill?

This game is pretty light on non-lethal kills.

[bob]

So is every game really.

[Ellmeister]

So is every game really.

 

Even fifa?!

 

I killed people at the beginning as well when I had no clue what I was doing, it gets easier once you get da magicz

[Shorty]

It's been said repeatedly but the game is way more fun playing a balanced mix of stealthy and lethal, at least for the first play through.

[dwarf]

[FFS. Lost a huge post about this, so this one will probably be slightly less incisive]

 

Critique

 

I think this is one of those strange cases where an intriguing concept behind a game blinds people from its actual execution, which happens to be pretty average in Dishonored. Critics and users alike have seemed hesitant in showering praise upon it unremittingly, but at the same time they haven’t been very articulate about the flaws to be found in the game.

 

Blink is simultaneously the best and worst thing about Dishonored. On the one hand it makes exploration fun, it grants you agency in approach and it really makes you feel like a supercharged bandit who’s accountable to nothing and to nobody. On the other hand, it makes a mockery of the level design. After completing five missions having scarcely been spotted and having eliminated only a few guards, I came upon a tough section of the game that I wanted to complete more stealthily and more conservatively than I had managed previously. I reloaded the save and failed a few times. Jokingly, I then decided to galumph through the centre of the level, Blinking past every enemy and obstacle in my path. To my astonishment I had reached my destination in seconds without any hassle, and had there been any problems the abundance of ammo and auto-aim weaponry would’ve nullified them if I were willing to degrade myself.

 

There are drawbacks to every approach you can take in the game. The middle ground semi-stealth semi-action style I favoured was too easy. A doddle. My sprint/blink/ignore method rendered all of those runes and bone charms pointless, and there were no significant upgrades to make the money worth collecting either (including the stealth boots). If you’ve killed one guard, or been spotted even once in the play-through, there’s no incentive to reign in your exuberance because by the game’s ruling you’ve already done things half-measured. You may as well storm ahead - blow shit away with the crossbow or fly past it with your upgraded Blink.

 

Sure, you could take the middle ground and plonk for the ‘good’ low-chaos ending, but the body-count parameters are restrictive to the extent that you’d incur a serious loss of enjoyment in the attempt, because you’d have to monitor your kills and abstain from using most weapons and items placed at your disposal, which means they’re left sitting there. The potential pay-off attained from a good ending isn’t enough to justify that self-regulation. If there were intermittent moments of consequence related to your blood thirst then perhaps it would work, but the ending is the only thing at stake (other than the volume of weepers in a level, and that doesn’t actually matter).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, playing exclusively in a ghostly, humanitarian fashion would be incredibly tedious. You have to ditch variety at the front door. There would be even more waiting around and you’d have to save more frequently in the event of blink mishaps and the like, which are bound to happen. I’d be saving constantly.

 

The pacing is shot to pieces in two major ways:

1) The game appeals to your OCD side. It encourages you to scavenge for items in every nook and cranny of the environment. For me this meant I enacted a policy of dispatching every guard in the area before turning the place upside down for trinkets. This is a boring stuttering period that all completionists will feel obliged to put themselves through in the hope they don’t miss anything. Yet it prevents players from coasting through the level at a steady pace. It completely breaks the flow. It isn’t an issue in open world games like Fallout for reasons that should be obvious to gamers.

 

2) For the majority of the game you have to revisit the rebel complex after each mission. This means more moments where you aren’t in control of your character, because you’re either stuck in a boat or you’re engaging one of those patent archetypal traitors. The game doesn’t need further slowdown, but you get the impression the game required some sort of padding solution and unfortunately this was it.

 

The world/story they were going for also fell short due to the shoddy implementation of lore and interaction. There are far too many books and notes in the game. Story-related information should be drip-fed to the player, here you’re inundated with the crap. Conversation eavesdropping was another technique used to bleed narrative into the game, but seldom was the chatter interesting. Exposition was also painfully blatant. Take the moment you collapse from poisoning for example, the characters responsible stand over your semi-conscious body and rattle off stupid dialogue like ‘look, our plan worked. He is not around anymore. We will look heroic. This means we have legitimate power.’ Why the fuck are they talking like this, as if the consequences of their plan have only just dawned on them? Rubbish.

 

And don’t tell me the world was special, because you know it wasn’t. It was dead static. It was crying out for more instances like the one in the penultimate mission when the freight carriage dumps dozens of corpses off in a run-down corner of the district, and a nearby citizen can be seen despairing over the condition of his plagued friend. A city in ruin demands those touches at every corner, but they were so very very rare. It had no soul. If you don’t pack the environment with stuff like that of course the bland textures are going to stand out.

 

The numerable similarities it shares with the latest BioShock haven’t been kind. Infinite pulls off everything with panache, it explores more avenues of storytelling, and it possesses a degree of polish sadly absent from a dystopian title that appeared to promise so much more.

Edited August 25, 2013 by dwarf

[MindFreak]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-16-final-dlc-for-dishonored-the-brigmore-witches-gets-release-date

 

Final DLC for Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches gets release date, 13th August, 800 MSPoints/£7.99/€9.99. Awesome. Hopefully, they will run a deal for getting both DLCs cheaper.

[Jimbob]

Finally got back into playing the game, after a long period of time not playing it. Had to restart due to not remembering where i was, how i got there and what not. So instead of going for a complete kill frenzy on every guard/enemy i come across, if the opportunity to stealth them is available then i go for that. By stealth, i mean put them to sleep wherever possible. And only killing if it's inevitable/no choice. I seem to be finding that more enjoyable.

[The Peeps]

That's generally how I try to play. I try not to be seen but it seems impossible at some times - especially in the DLC!

 

Oh and I've just seen the new DLC is out now, for some reason I was thinking it'd be the 16th. Good thing I have a day off tomorrow