Dishonored (XB360): Stealthing its way out of my memory.

As you found out from my Black Ops 2 review I recently learned that Redbox rents games, which is super helpful now that I am not gainfully employed at my local Derpstop, (thats a joke, nobody is gainfully employed there). But in this continued quest to branch and try games I don't normally play, and partially because the only other option was Borderlands 2 I decided to step into the steampunk universe of a game marketed out the ass in....

DISHONORED:(XB360)

In Dishonored you play as silent protagonist Corvo Attano, assassin and bodyguard to the empress Jessamine Kaldwin. The game picks up with Corvo returning from a dignitary mission to the surrounding foreign lands seeking aid from a plague infection affecting the Dunwall empire. After your boat docks you meet up with the empress and her daughter to report on your mission.

After a brief few seconds of conversation, teleporting assassins descend on you and you get a very quick crash course in the combat where you fend off 2 or 3, and then the empress is killed in front of you. The assassin's make off with the empress's daughter Emily, and with her dying breath the empress implores you to find and save her. Of course this is shot immediately in the foot as Lord Regent enters and blames you for her murder and are promptly arrested.

Corvo is held and tortured for six months before the Lord Regent reveals that he was in on the murder and you will be executed to be made an example of. After being thrown your cell, you receive a letter and key from Empire Loyalists who help him escape and request his help to save Emily and return the empire to the proper bloodline.

Ok Bethesda Games, really? You know what? No. You guys are suspended from me ever trying your games again. This is now the 3rd game of yours I've played where you start off as a silent protagonist who is captured and near executed before the game actually starts. I know it must be hard to write a story but you can't keep using the same goddamn opening for all of your fucking games and expect me to keep giving a shit. 

So as the savvy gamer can already tell, this is going to be a first person western RPG like all Bethesda games are. But I will say this one breaks the established convention I've come to expect out of this developer. At a glance, I could say that this game is the ungodly offspring of an orgy between Assassin's Creed, Fable 3, Mirrors Edge, and Bioshock over a skeletal structure of a Bethesda RPG.

Its visual design definitely borrows the most from Fable 3. Lots of bright colors in a tightly confined steampunk city with character models that are seem a bit too cartoony for the violence this game has. They are a bit more grim and dark than say Fable 3's character models that look like they have been ripped from a Sims title. The game starts with one of those "set your brightness for the proper play visuals" but I don't know why its there. Pretty much every stage is brightly lit with little issues of visuals. One last little visual side note about the game, watching bodies getting picked to the bone by swarms of rats never loses its charm with me. That was fucking awesome.

Dishonored's overall play style feels like a hybrid of the Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge parkour. The problem I have with this is the game is strictly first person, and I feel that inhibits that style of running game play. They spruce things up by giving you different magical abilities like blink teleports which allow you to zip to the tops of ledges or from building to building or to swoop in for a kill.

One of the abilities allows you to see through walls so you can track your target better

It may be why the NPC guards that wander around seem to be kind of dopey and seem to have a pretty generous margin for error. But what bothers me is if they spot you once, it takes FOREVER for them to stop looking for you so you can complete your mission. It can be somewhat aggravating  and even more so if you are trying to play the game via non-lethal methods. 

First person combat and I never get along. Even in games that I love that have it such as Left4Dead 2 the melee combat never feels as smooth as I would like it to. Admittedly, Dishonored probably has some of the cleanest first person combat I have played in a game but its still not great. Again, the margin for error seems kinda big here as guards really telegraph their attacks long enough for you to fumble your way to the block button and then allows you to mash the trigger all to hell. I did not have the game very long but I never felt I got to the point where I could fight without taking damage. Perhaps that is by design so you are forced to try to stealth around.

This is where Bioshock's meager influence pops up aside from the steampunk setting. Littered throughout the stage are cakes and candies and snacks that you can pick up to restore your health through out most of the stages. Generally all the looting you do pretty much pays out in cash for all the items you pick up along the way which you use to upgrade your health and items and such.  

The combat is pretty visceral though and to that end its actually pretty enjoyable. Scoring a well placed block or a sneaking up on some unsuspecting doofus results in you watching your blade wedge deeply into their neck or spine. But if there is more than two or three people on, you might as well just chalk the fight up as a loss.

I found myself not even worrying about the stealth after a while because once you unlock the slow time ability, there really didn't seem to be a need to use anything else. I would get caught, let them chase me a second, slow time, then cut the lot of them to fucking ribbons before I broke a sweat. If you are going to try to make this a stealth game, then you really shouldn't give me abilities that render sneaking pointless.

Some of the quick kills are very satisfying to watch.

Dishonored has been getting really solid reviews from all the major outlets, but it certainly isn't going to get one from me, I found this game to be really insubstantial. Maybe I am an overly rigid judge of games, or maybe I just can't be convinced that this boring style of western RPG that people seem to enjoy is actually fun. But I sat down with this game for a solid 8 or 10 hours, and much like other Bethesda games I've played like Oblivion, Skyrim, or Fallout 3 I just found myself trudging along from mission to mission in a half lulled state of sleep. I was constantly getting distracted by Internet videos or instant messages or even just staring out my window and usually that is not a great sign of the game. 

I think if this game had given me a 3rd person option much like Skyrim did I might have been a bit more favorable to it. Bethesda has shown me that they can do it and make it work, because it got me to play Skyrim to the story's end. But instead I got a slow paced parkour RPG with some decent combat mechanics but not engaging enough to keep going.

Dishonored shot itself in the foot with me because after Dead Island I don't trust game trailers that don't show me game footage and all the trailers I saw of this were all fully CG with no game footage. I was right to stick to this belief, because if they aren't showing me game play footage then even the devs know their game is lacking. Had I seen actual gameplay prior to playing it, I wouldn't have wasted the 2 bucks to rent it. I'm sure Dishonored will find its crowd, its reviews will see to that. But this game does nothing for me and I don't intend to pick it up again.