Genre: First Person Stealth
ESRB: M (cartoony blood and gore)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 20/8
Developer: Arkane Studios
Silent protagonist? Maaaaan. Corvo Attano, the player character, has a set name everyone calls him by and a face (he wears a mask, but you do get to see it) and a pre-determined past giving him opinions on certain characters in the game. Why not just give him a voice and a personality? Blarg. Ahem. Anyway... I didn't feel this was the most impactful game it could be, nor was it really bad. Sometimes a game is just a game, like Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. But let me talk about why it wasn't as easy to recommend.
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| Yup. Stealth happens. |
I have a problem with stealth games. Mostly because they rely on patience. Although I did love Deus Ex one and three a whole bunch. Luckily Corvo has a sword in his hand at all times, so I decided to make him a swashbuckler! The game does allow for this by having a few dedicated powers, items, and upgrades that are less than beneficial to a straight stealth player. But it doesn't let you go all Arkham City on everyone; easily fighting simultaneous enemies with flawless kung fu prowess. Instead it just lets you outsmart them with tools, and overpower them with ridiculous bullshit. The funny thing is, I played on hard (3 out of 4 difficulty setting) and was being a drunken idiot through most of it yet I still had a pretty stuffed inventory. So if you want a hard stealth game or are just experienced in the genre, I'd probably recommend using the max difficulty right out the gate. All in all, there's some creative stuff in here. Probably more so than Deus Ex 3. But I just wasn't as drawn to it. Everything fit together too neatly, and so many options are too easily laid out. Basically, every level feels like there's no wrong answer. I like having multiple ways to beat something, but it's unsatisfying to have a notion that it really doesn't matter what I choose to do.
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| Although both of those Deus Ex's did have a super pistol... |
The setting doesn't do much for me either. The whole steam punk thing had to be a major deal, you know? They were probably banking on that community to really get behind this game. I'm not any kind of authority on the subject, but I don't feel like this influenced the game in a big enough way. My understanding is that steam punk works well when at least one of two things happen: the technology is well thought out and offers a silly but oddly plausible way for the world to work OR the technology fits a feeling of a simpler time and has a kind of outdated charm to it. The latter one can be called "retro-futurism" and can be seen if you were to watch something like the old Flash Gordon serials. Obviously we know none of that stuff works, but there's a cute innocence behind the ignorant minds that created that schlock. Dishonored doesn't really do either of these. The world runs on whale oil... and that's it. There doesn't seem to be any downside to rampant whaling, nor is there any logic in how it advances the world. Somehow, whale oil both gives us an industrial age while also giving us electricity walls and sentry turrets and dudes who have really long stilts. There's no connection there. If the world ran on, say, diesel fuel, we might expect big vehicles with loud, clanky engines driving down the street. How did we get to lightning bolts and stilts? And that really feels like the end of the list, too. Iunno. Maybe I didn't dig deep enough. As far as old timey silliness? The game is gritty and cynical. So no.
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| According to Flash Gordon, you can just crash a rocket into stuff to get everywhere. |
What does this mean for the story? Well, it's functional. Like I said, Corvo can't talk. So forget any kind of, like, characters having human interactions. It's very "point A to point B," and wastes little time on frills like "How did these people get so organized so fast?" What puzzles me is why the game starts with Corvo coming home from some mission. Why couldn't we play or at least see that mission so we can understand why he's so good at being a stealth video game guy? Then there's this deus ex machina guy who keeps showing up and rambling some cosmic nonsense. He has no purpose. Just an excuse to give the player cool powers. And without getting into spoilers, a large part of the story is actually oddly like something that happens in Deus Ex one. It's weird because it's oddly specific. Like, it's not something you'd expect in a steam punk game, but of course it works in a cyber punk game. So my reaction to all of this is just to shrug my shoulders.
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| I found this on the internet to explain my feelings on this story. |
Conclusion:
Still a good game with no real faults. But I don't really feel the urge to recommend it for any particular reason. If you really dig stealth games of all kinds, though, go ahead and give it a whirl.
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| Although... there's another stealth game out recently that features a dude who can say words. Haven't played it yet. |
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