RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS!

[Rosbjerg]

What was the verdict on Dishonored? The reviewers, as expected went ballistic but I'd like to hear an unbiased opinion.

 

It's a game that has (or should one say had) a lot of potential that isn't realized. The flexibility is great, you can possess people for a short time and yourself sneak in or them out that way, you can crawl through pipes and on rooftops or just go ballistic and hack everyone down.. But the story is a little too linear and a predictable, the setting seems absolutely fantastic, but you never really explore it outside of a few books, notes and some dialouge, but you get a real sense that there's a well thought-out world underneath.. The mechanics are good and it's easy to control, the powers are fun to use and abuse. So in short it's a game with a big heart that's wasted on a rather bland narrative (the ending is a little too abrupt for my taste too). Definitly worth one's time, but wait till when it's on sale.

[Raithe]

Dishonored - It wasn't overlong - its basically set up of 9 missions. But each mission really has multiple stages.

 

It really is a nice open way for you to develop different methods to achieve the goals and progress along. You literally cannot get all the possible powers maxed out in one game, so you have to go with powers that suit your style of play rather then try combining them all.

 

Some of the "nice" non-killing methods are actually much nastier and brutal then actually just killing the targets.

I mean seriously, shaving their heads, cutting their tongues out, then having them sold as slaves to mines that are half a mile under the ground?

Or rather then killing someone, knocking them out and letting their personal stalker kidnap them with a line of "yes, I'm going to take them to another country, lock them in a room and spend the rest of my life teaching them to love me..."

 

Figuring out interesting combinations of powers can be quite fun. The possession one has a few good tricks, and the time slow/freeze as well. The Blink (teleport) can make stealth somewhat easy once you get to grips with it.

 

The atmosphere is fairly rich and dripping and the background lore connects quite nicely.

 

Combat is fairly brutal, it only takes a couple of hits for you to be deaded so you do have to be careful in just how you go about it. But the stealth kills can be quite amusingly gory.

 

Also, being able to turn off portions of the HUD as you want to certainly adds something to it. Turning off the "go to here" markers makes exploration a lot more fun.

 

Edit: Also, what Rosbjerg said. It's got a lot of nice things and potential, but it doesn't completely satisfy. I will say it's a fair bit better then AC tho.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Raithe

[Malcador]

What was the verdict on Dishonored? The reviewers, as expected went ballistic but I'd like to hear an unbiased opinion.

 

Was an enjoyable game, the missions were fun to play stealthily and approach things in multiple ways both in the path you take or just the powers you use. The blink-grab is a fun thing to do. Did get kind of 'meh' for me after the twist in terms of the story and the way the missions work.

 

Should redo the missions where I gave up on being stealthy in favour of just murdering everyone stealthily (nothing like a guard seeing a pile of bodies and saying "Someone's down!" before I drop on him).

[Drowsy Emperor]

Sounds like Bioshock, only with better gameplay and worse story.

[Orogun01]

Sounds like Bioshock, only with better gameplay and worse story.

But it's actually a Thief wannabe with the worse design decision in recent history.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Well, it will hit the bargain bin at some point.

 

Besides, a game has no business being that short if it isn't made by Team Ico.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Hurlshort]

I'm not too far into Dishonored, but I like the atmosphere better than Bioshock, and find the story to be more developed. And yeah, the gameplay is pretty fun, it's a solid stealth based game.

[AGX-17]

What was the verdict on Dishonored? The reviewers, as expected went ballistic but I'd like to hear an unbiased opinion.

 

It's a game that has (or should one say had) a lot of potential that isn't realized. The flexibility is great, you can possess people for a short time and yourself sneak in or them out that way, you can crawl through pipes and on rooftops or just go ballistic and hack everyone down.. But the story is a little too linear and a predictable, the setting seems absolutely fantastic, but you never really explore it outside of a few books, notes and some dialouge, but you get a real sense that there's a well thought-out world underneath.. The mechanics are good and it's easy to control, the powers are fun to use and abuse. So in short it's a game with a big heart that's wasted on a rather bland narrative (the ending is a little too abrupt for my taste too). Definitly worth one's time, but wait till when it's on sale.

 

It should be clear from the start that the story and writing are not the focus of Dishonored. It was never being advertised as "a wellspring of lore comparable to the Elder Scrolls" or "the next Planescape: Torment." It was being marketed as a stealth/assassination game with broad freedoms and myriad approaches to achieving a goal and that's exactly what it delivered, and well.

 

I'm not too far into Dishonored, but I like the atmosphere better than Bioshock, and find the story to be more developed.

 

Edited November 5, 2012 by AGX-17

[Drowsy Emperor]

Sometimes good games lack "that certain something" to make them truly memorable,or simply the premise/setting/mechanics raise the expectations above what the narrative can support.

 

And also, many innovative games suck you in at the beginning only to drop the ball later in some way. So many good RPG's were ruined by devolving into the standard "ancient evil is back" routine, its not even funny.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm not too far into Dishonored, but I like the atmosphere better than Bioshock, and find the story to be more developed. And yeah, the gameplay is pretty fun, it's a solid stealth based game.

 

On second thought, that doesn't say much - Bioshock's storyline could fit on a business card.

[Labadal]

http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/business/businesswire/Reports+Fiscal+2013+Second+Quarter+Results/7501073/story.html

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth is delayed.

 

A shame because I think the reason for the delay has nothing to do with the game needing more polish. (I hope I'm wrong.)

[Hurlshort]

I'm not too far into Dishonored, but I like the atmosphere better than Bioshock, and find the story to be more developed. And yeah, the gameplay is pretty fun, it's a solid stealth based game.

 

On second thought, that doesn't say much - Bioshock's storyline could fit on a business card.

 

True, the only thing I really remember liking about Bioshock was the atmosphere, and at the end of the day that wasn't enough to get me through all the shooter stuff.

[Rosbjerg]

It should be clear from the start that the story and writing are not the focus of Dishonored. It was never being advertised as "a wellspring of lore comparable to the Elder Scrolls" or "the next Planescape: Torment." It was being marketed as a stealth/assassination game with broad freedoms and myriad approaches to achieving a goal and that's exactly what it delivered, and well.

 

True and I never expected a level of storytelling close to PT - but they made a very rich and interesting background for their stealth game, so interesting in fact that I was a little disappointing that it wasn't used and explored better.

 

 

The heart was one of the most interesting additions I've seen in modern gaming.. The execution of the idea was ok, interesting even, but fully realized it could've been a truly unique feature of the game.

Why did their oil come from whales? and why did the ancient civilization under the city worship them? Are they sentient? and what relation did they have to the Outsider (and is he really a whale god?)

Speaking of the outsider, having a demon/angle trickster could also have been used so much better - I really liked that character, but I know almost nothing about him/it or the void, or why he choose Corvo or any of the ones he choose for that matter - other than the fact that they were "interesting" .. Sure I can guess, and I do - but more hints and more lore exploration would've made the game so much better imo.

 

 

I was left with so many questions after the game and that was great - but I really wish they'd dug as deep as they clearly wanted to.

[Orogun01]

Sometimes good games lack "that certain something" to make them truly memorable,or simply the premise/setting/mechanics raise the expectations above what the narrative can support.

 

And also, many innovative games suck you in at the beginning only to drop the ball later in some way. So many good RPG's were ruined by devolving into the standard "ancient evil is back" routine, its not even funny.

Do not mistake Dishonored for innovative, it's a rehash of a previous formula that has never hit the mainstream. If you ever played Dark Messiah of Might & Magic you will see the similarities, which is not a surprise since is the same developer.

 

My experience with the game was ruined due to a few mistakes on the developer's side.

First, the game favors an approach heavily while rewarding you for the opposite. What I mean is that they reward you storywise with the good ending, a higher rating and less difficulty if you choose the pacifist approach but they equip you to kill and make it easier to do the bad ending. A far cry from Thief and Bioshock which balanced both choices well in terms of gameplay.

It also made the usual Bethesda blunders, they hired incredibly expensive actors for roles that are minimal, the writing is awful, 10 million of books of lore and things that have no bearing on the game, combat was a mess. You know, the usual.

 

 

I seriously can't tell people to stay away from this game enough.

[alanschu]

http://www.vancouver...1073/story.html

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth is delayed.

 

A shame because I think the reason for the delay has nothing to do with the game needing more polish. (I hope I'm wrong.)

 

 

Fortunately March is the end of their FY, so early FY 2014 is April-May.

 

 

Unless they see some advantage in deferring their earnings to the next fiscal year, however, I'm curious what sort of advantages you may think there will be by delaying it. Unless they just feel early March is a bad time for whatever reason.

[AGX-17]

It should be clear from the start that the story and writing are not the focus of Dishonored. It was never being advertised as "a wellspring of lore comparable to the Elder Scrolls" or "the next Planescape: Torment." It was being marketed as a stealth/assassination game with broad freedoms and myriad approaches to achieving a goal and that's exactly what it delivered, and well.

 

True and I never expected a level of storytelling close to PT - but they made a very rich and interesting background for their stealth game, so interesting in fact that I was a little disappointing that it wasn't used and explored better.

 

 

The heart was one of the most interesting additions I've seen in modern gaming.. The execution of the idea was ok, interesting even, but fully realized it could've been a truly unique feature of the game.

Why did their oil come from whales? and why did the ancient civilization under the city worship them? Are they sentient? and what relation did they have to the Outsider (and is he really a whale god?)

Speaking of the outsider, having a demon/angle trickster could also have been used so much better - I really liked that character, but I know almost nothing about him/it or the void, or why he choose Corvo or any of the ones he choose for that matter - other than the fact that they were "interesting" .. Sure I can guess, and I do - but more hints and more lore exploration would've made the game so much better imo.

 

 

I was left with so many questions after the game and that was great - but I really wish they'd dug as deep as they clearly wanted to.

 

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/10/10

[Tigranes]

The thing about many recent actiony-RPGs is that they lack real substance, the meat of gameplay. They're all very pretty, and there's enough fun gameplay to hold up a playthrough, but after that you realise just how hollow and shallow it quickly gets. DX:HR was very fun the first time, but the gaemplay was already wearing thin after half the first playthrough; I'm getting the vibe that Dishonoured is similar. Whereas the proof is in the pudding where games like Thief aren't necessarily more complicated but the basic mechanics hold up.

 

It's like these days the games you play remind you all too well that you're just sitting there pressing some buttons, and heck, sometimes you might as well not press any. Whereas older games, having more in common with pre-digital games, had a good set of foundational dynamics that took on an importance in their own right, and you could easily forget it was just a series of button pressing.

 

Anyway, everything I've heard about Dishonoured is that it's interesting has many good bits, but ends up being rather shallow, 'one fun romp' kind of deal. I'll wait for a bargain sale.

[Nepenthe]

On second thought, that doesn't say much - Bioshock's storyline could fit on a business card.

I was tempted to point that out, but decided not to since there were some pretty neat things there, in any case.

 

Bioshock's one of a very small group of games that I've liked on the first playthrough, but have been completely unable to replay ever after. I hit a similar point with DAO after a couple of playthroughs, most games I own I could just pick up and play again...

Edited November 6, 2012 by Nepenthe

[pmp10]

I'm not too far into Dishonored, but I like the atmosphere better than Bioshock, and find the story to be more developed. And yeah, the gameplay is pretty fun, it's a solid stealth based game.

 

On second thought, that doesn't say much - Bioshock's storyline could fit on a business card.

 

True, the only thing I really remember liking about Bioshock was the atmosphere, and at the end of the day that wasn't enough to get me through all the shooter stuff.

Bioshock at least created 2 memorable moments in narrative.

Dishonored for all it's lore couldn't provide me even with a single one.

[Labadal]

http://www.vancouver...1073/story.html

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth is delayed.

 

A shame because I think the reason for the delay has nothing to do with the game needing more polish. (I hope I'm wrong.)

 

 

Fortunately March is the end of their FY, so early FY 2014 is April-May.

 

 

Unless they see some advantage in deferring their earnings to the next fiscal year, however, I'm curious what sort of advantages you may think there will be by delaying it. Unless they just feel early March is a bad time for whatever reason.

 

I think South Park release was moved up because Jan-March 2013 has too many releases.

 

God of War: Ascension

Gears of War: Judgement

Tomb Raider

Devil May Cry

Dead Space 3

Bioshock Infinite

 

These are some examples. None in the same genre, but still games that will steal some of the attention.

 

[Nepenthe]

Bioshock at least created 2 memorable moments in narrative.

Dishonored for all it's lore couldn't provide me even with a single one.

You've just gotten more jaded in between.

[Drowsy Emperor]

On second thought, that doesn't say much - Bioshock's storyline could fit on a business card.

I was tempted to point that out, but decided not to since there were some pretty neat things there, in any case.

 

Bioshock's one of a very small group of games that I've liked on the first playthrough, but have been completely unable to replay ever after. I hit a similar point with DAO after a couple of playthroughs, most games I own I could just pick up and play again...

 

That's true, I tried to replay Bioshock at some point but gave up at the very beginning. Its a very fire and forget experience.

 

Probably because there is no real depth to it, no emotional pull of any sort - once you're over the nice atmosphere and pretty visuals everything else is hollow, all style no substance.

 

But the FPS genre is not exactly one to set standards for unforgettable storylines and memorable characters anyway.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Nepenthe]

Good point, the only FPS I've played several times is Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

[HoonDing]

Cortana's ass must be the only memorable FPS character.

[Tale]

Cortana's ass must be the only memorable FPS character.

She's a sapient, not a piece of meat! That's extra true in her case.