Why Arkane Studios' Dishonored will ruin my life

I'll come straight out and say it. I'm a liar. I lied. To you.

When I started this blog, I wanted to stay true to my cause. To only play games that were heavily discounted at my local GameMaster because until my fan fiction of Mario boning the three boobed chick from Total Recall gets picked up by a major publisher, I can't afford to buy new games every few weeks.

(Damn right you're punching the sky, you randy little plumber)

But that was before I started getting a virtual and real life hard on for Dishonored, out on Oct 9th. Seriously, have you seen that shit? 

(Film: That shit)

The protagonist Corvo Attano is one real mean motorscooter, and in the trailer above that came out back in April he looks like the baddest sonofabitch in town. The supernatural powers he's bestowed in the chokey kinda help towards that.

Framed for the murder of the Empress, Corvo goes out and does the thing that looks so fun in games and movies but in real life leaves you looking like a real dick in the silent pub as the broken pool cue falls from your hand and everyone makes a promise they're never going to touch your little sister again, are they Carl?

That's right people, we're talking revenge. The dish best served dead. (You're welcome Arkane.)

Watching some of the level runs that have been put up on YouTube makes the steampunk world that Dishonored inhabits look like the beautifully polished offspring of Bioshock and the inside of a clock. 

The game is not open world. That kinda sucks because after Skyrim everything should be open world. But it does promise a whole heap of ways to overcome obstacles found in each level. Think Deus Ex Human Revolution. Or don't. Whatever. I'm not your mum. 

(If I was your mum, I'd be this one.)

The action relies on traditional swords and super powers like teleportation and stopping time. Hey, it doesn't redefine the stealth genre but it does promise to be adding to it pretty freakin' well. 

There's a power where you can call on rats to eat your foes. This sounds a bit too hammy to me and makes me think of some shitty Dr Dolittle-type guy running around Oldey Worldey Victorian England with a pocket full of street urchins or wherever Fagin kept those children he molested. 

(You've got to pick a pocket or...HOLY BUBONIC SHITPLAGUES!)

The other power that isn't working for me in theory is possession. This skill lets you posses animals (later people if you spend talent points in the skill) and lets you wander around in their skin like a steampunk Hannibal Lector. This is cool. I can dig possessions. I'm down with Paranormal Activity.

But in Dishonored, you can use possession as a de facto teleportation. Falling off a building? Just posses that fool on the ground and then reemerge a second later and walk away. Easy peasy and no deaths! (Except months later when the formally possessed man is found with a note after failing to reconcile the brief period where another man was deep, deep inside him.)

(Unless you posses certain people. PIC UNRELATED)

Mike you stupid drunk, that sounds awesome! I can hear you saying ineffectively at your computer screens. But the thing I don't get is, if you can posses people like that, where the fuck does Corvo's body go? Like, inside the thing he's possessing? 

What about all his weapons? Or that badass mask he wears? Do they all shrink down into the size of a rat or a fish or a bird or something? It all just feels a bit too 'you can do this, because wizards!' to me. 

If you don't understand this reference, I'm a sad panda for you.

These are only two small gripes in a game that looks to be incredible. I feel sorry for my girlfriend because she is going to be missing out on more lovin' in the week Dishonored comes out than when my old guild first started raiding Molten Core (look it up, kids). 

Deus Ex Human Revolution roundabout review

When I play games I crank that fucker to the hardest level. Why? Cos as I've mentioned before  I'm an adult with real things expected of me that take up my time. If I'm going to play a game, I'm only playing it once, and I want that first time to be as awesome as a pre-RNC speech Clint Eastwood lighting a cigar with a £50 note.

                                         (Awww yeahhh!)


So when I rolled the hardest level on Deus Ex Human Revolution and then decided to up that ante by rolling through the game without killing a single person and instead using humane takedowns, I knew shit was about to get real.

                                      (Pictured: Shit getting real)

I pranced about like a Matrix version of Solid Snake, springing out from the shadows to break arms and knock people the fuck out rather than riddle them with bullets. Deep down, I guess I like to think of myself as a nice guy.

The difficulty was uneven across the game. Some of the bosses seem infinitely harder than anything you've encountered up to that point.  I guess this is good as it fulfills the boss' job but it'd be nice if some of the lead up enemies were real tough nuts too. Instead, the average goon is easier to ditch than Tails in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

                                             (What an asshole!)

And that leads me to the problem I had with this game. RPGs kick serious arse. Life is boring, we all know that. In life I have to do shitbastard things like pay bills or watch RomComs in the hope it'll get my girlfriend in a sexy mood (side note, I don't understand girls)

                                  (This is what girls are like, right?)

But in RPGs I can be freakin' anybody. I can totally be a pacifist ninja strolling through the Blade Runner-style streets and punching noses, just as I can be a total asshat that puts bullets into everyone, even Unnamed Guard #3 who is just one day from retirement and has been given the job of watching Some Useless Door.

So it pisses me off when a game lets me think I am free to pick almost any route, but you're actually boxed in. Deus Ex Human Revolution is pretty naughty for this. It lets you think you can take any route you want, hell, here's an interview with one of the (hot sounding) designers that says as much:

But if you chose to not kill a soul - to be the Ghandi of half man/half robot badasses - you still have to kill at least seven people. I'm not going to be a dick and say who because spoilers are super lame, but at the end of the day there will be seven distinct screams haunting Jensen's dreams from now on.

It's just such a shame that when designers put as much effort in to a game as the team at Eidos Montreal did, they don't seem to think this shit through. In fact, the designers even apologised for the boss fights.

Notice how I haven't mentioned anything else yet? I haven't mentioned the graphics? Or game length? Or depth of game, voice acting, or weapons?

No?


That's because this game does all of those elements so beautifully, that the only flaw I can think to pick out is that I had to kill people in an FPS. #firstworldproblems

Buy this game. It is a gem and fully engaging.

                                      (I suck balls at metaphor)

The graphics are crisp and smooth and there's some very nice touches in how you can approach missions. Even though I bitched and moaned literally two seconds ago about not having enough choice about killing folk, the game does perform in letting you take things as you want elsewhere. Do I pop the guard in the face with my shotgun or do I sneak around him through shafts? Or do I sneak halfway around him and then reprogramme the crazy-ass gun turrets to open fire on him and his mates? What to do, what to do.

Some of the rooms are a bit too linear for my liking. They're very clearly a box with some obstacles chucked in that you have to work your way around. Anyone who has played either of the Batman Arkham games will know the feeling. And to the one of you that hasn't played that game, it's cool, we'll wait while you catch up.

The mainstay of the RPG game - the leveling up - comes through the Praxis point system. This works in a similar way to the talent point mechanism in World of Warcraft. Generally speaking, one level up equals one Praxis point, though some can totally be bought if you're feeling flush. I picked the stealth tree and ended up missing a lot of the combat skills, which was cool because I would just Predator-vanish woop pow enemies with my moody leather jacket and robo-arms. But I got the sense while playing that if you were a dithering imbecile and went half and half between combat and stealth then you end up with a gimped character that will struggle against the challenges ahead.

One of the most important elements for me is length of game. Nothing makes me want to take out my misplaced anger on the workers at GameMaster more than getting settled into a game only for it to end within a couple of hours. Human Revolution does not do that. It lasts freaking ages. Around 40 hours by my count and none of it felt like I was going over old ground.

The story has a strong arc that follows some good ol' fashioned SciFi themes of free choice, technology vs nature and just what I would do if I had the power to turn myself invisible.

                                        (Be a bike, I guess.)