Dishonored Review

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If I’ve learned anything from playing Dishonored it’s that no digital foe is safe from my wrath even if I’m given the option to be a pacifist. Yes, I could have used a sleeping dart, but decided to use cold steel instead. Yes, I could have chosen not to summon a rat swarm to devour the corpse of a recently assassinated guard, but I had to get rid of the body somehow. I could have even completed the entire campaign without harming a single soul, but where’s the fun in that? To be fair, and so you don’t think I’m a psychopath, Dishonored gives players many more violent options than passive ones. Hence, most players will play in a similar fashion in order to experience all that Dishonored has to offer. Overall Dishonored is a great game in a fun and unique setting. However the game takes a few missteps along the way, and unfortunately the story is not better than the sum of its parts.

Dishonored takes place in the industrious city of Dunwall, whose population is being ravaged by a rat-borne plague. The city, having grown rich off of whale-oil, is now spiraling downward and is the scene of extreme political corruption and lawlessness. You play as Corvo Attano, a bodyguard to the Empress of Dunwall who returns to the city early after having been sent on an errand. Upon arrival Corvo is caught in the middle of the elaborate, politically driven, assassination of the Empress; for which he is blamed. With the Empress dead, and those responsible now in power, Corvo sets out on a path for justice and revenge.

First and foremost Dishonored is a game about stealth. You will lurk in the shadows, rewire security devices, and use a few supernatural powers to get the jump on your enemies. Going in guns blazing is an option, but you’ll miss out on most of the fun by doing so. Staying hidden is key, and to that end there are multiple ways to accomplish any given task. For instance, “Walls of Light” are electrified gateways found throughout the city that will incinerate anything not authorized to go through them. One way you could circumvent the wall is to simply scale the rooftops and go around. Alternatively you could possess a rat and use underground tunnels to bypass it all together. If you’re feeling a little bolder, you could walk up to the wall and remove its battery. However, by far the most entertaining option is to rewire the wall so that only you can pass through it; anyone who dares give chase will be fried like chicken at a cook-off.

The multitude of ways to accomplish any given task is staggering and you’re encouraged to experiment with different methods. For instance, in another scenario I was given the task of preventing the assassination of a Captain loyal to the former Empress. The corrupt High Overseer, who was also my assassination target, had poured poison into the honorable Captain’s drink with the hopes of a tidy murder. Once the two were out of the room I had a number of options. I could switch the drinks, giving the High Overseer what he rightfully deserved. If I were particularly sadistic I could have mixed the two drinks together, poisoning them both. I could have also spilt the drinks on the ground, ruining the High Overseer’s plan altogether. However, I did none of the above. Instead I slit the throat of a guard nearby and sprawled his body across the dinner table. Once the two returned, the Captain saw the body and ran like a bat out of hell, leaving the shaken High Overseer alone and exceptionally vulnerable.

How you play Dishonored will, in some ways, be determined by how you’ve customized Corvo. Dishonored allows players to unlock any of the game’s 10 powers in any order. Runes, which are hidden throughout the city, function as the currency of unlocking and upgrading these powers. Being able to unlock powers in any order is a refreshing touch for this genre. It allows players to build Corvo to suit their individual play style without having to unlock a plethora of unwanted skills first. Want to be a super stealthy assassin extraordinaire? You would probably focus on powers like Dark Vision, which allow you to momentarily see enemies, as well as their line-of-sight, through walls. Another power, Blink, allows players to quietly teleport from one place to another. Alternately, if you’d rather have power surging from your fingertips, you could focus on the Windblast power which allows you to literally blow your enemies away. Most players will probably be somewhere in the middle, balancing stealth and strength. Bone charms can also be found throughout the city of Dunwall and function by acting as ”perks” that can be switched out on the fly. These perks can be anything from better healing to increased attack speed and will further help define your character.

I don’t usually like to compare one title to another because I feel it can create a bias, or an unreasonable expectation for a title. However, in this case it may be worth mentioning. Dishonored plays as if Bioshock and Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a love child together. So much in fact that it’s safe to say if you didn’t care for either title, you probably won’t care for Dishonored either. One of the more disappointing aspects of Dishonored is that the individual chapters, which are great, do not tie in well with the overall narrative. It’s almost as if separate development teams worked on each chapter then tied them all together with a one sentence link. Combined with relatively poor character development and a cartoony art style, you rarely forget you’re playing a videogame. Despite excellent voice-acting from an all-star cast, Dishonored still has trouble fleshing-out its characters. However immersion faults aside, Dishonored is still a captivating adventure with glimmers of brilliance, and it is definitely worth experiencing.

We are at the end of the current generation of consoles and this is very much reflected in Dishonored. PC gamers will benefit from an increased field of view, better textures, and smoother edges over their console counterparts. PC load times are lightning fast as well. Dishonored is gorgeous on PC thanks to its use bright colors and fantastic lighting and shadows; though facial animations could be better. Oddly, characters also tend to have large disproportionally sized hands, and this can be a little distracting. Controls are fairly solid, and PC users have the added bonus of full Xbox360 controller support. Powers and weapons are selected to your left hand via a skill wheel a la Bioshock, and only one can be active at any given time. Your right hand always holds your trusty blade which you’ll use to dismember your foes and perform executions in gory detail. Blocking and counter-attacking are also performed using the sword, and when you’re not lurking in the shadows, the swordplay feels just right.

Dishonored is out now for the Xbox360, PS3, and PC.

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