SHOULD YOU GET: DISHONORED?

I'll admit, stealth games aren't my specialty. I'd much rather shoot and/or stab an enemy than sneak around them. Even so, Dishonored managed to capture my interest, and I decided to have one more go at the stealth genre.

PLOT (Warning! Spoilers!)

In Dishonored, you play as Corvo Attano, former bodyguard to the Empress of the Isles. I say 'former' because, at the beginning of the game, the Empress is assassinated and Corvo is framed for her murder. It turns out that the Royal Spymaster, Hiram Burrows, was the one behind the assassination, and wastes no time in declaring himself temporary ruler for life, or "Lord Regent". After escaping from prison, you meet up with a group of loyalists devoted to rescuing and reappointing the true heir to the throne, Emily Kaldwin, who has been kidnapped by the same mysterious assassins who killed the Empress. Corvo wastes no time in taking out various key members of the Lord Regent's inner circle, before putting an end to the former royal spymaster himself. However, Corvo is caught unawares by the leader of the loyalists' sudden but inevitable betrayal, and must rush to the rescue of the young Lady Emily and assassinate the traitorous Admiral Havelock. At this point, either everyone lives happily ever after or everyone dies a slow and miserable death, depending on how many people you killed throughout the game.

A lackluster and clichéd plot, to be honest, but the myriad books and notes found throughout the game offer enough intriguing mysteries and stories that you often won’t be thinking about the main story at all. The mysterious wild continent of Pandyssia, the strange and eldritch whales, the hated yet ambivalent being known as the Outsider, and more, will be the primary focuses of the average player’s musings. The main plot may be rather forgettable, but the game’s setting is so intriguing that you won’t really care.

GAMEPLAY

Show anyone gameplay of Dishonored, and they’ll almost always draw comparisons to THIEF. A spititual successor to a great game like THIEF couldn’t possibly be bad, right? Well, sort of.  

In Dishonored, you can do most things that you can in every other stealth game. You can jump, climb, run, crouch, peek around corners, incapacitate guards both lethally and nonlethally, throw objects to distract enemies, and so on. In addition, early in the game you receive the ability to use mysterious powers, with effects ranging from short-range teleportation, to batman-esque detective vision, to summoning swarms of rats, to making the bodies of unaware guards vanish when they die. To start out, you have only Blink, which allows you to teleport-dash short distances. Additional abilities can be unlocked by acquiring runes, which are strewn throughout the game as rare collectables and side-quest rewards. The game is specifically designed with these powers in mind; each objective can be accomplished in multiple ways, depending on the powers you have acquired. Stealth is based on line-of-sight, and guards have several states of awareness. Combat involves attacking and blocking with the sword while using various tools, weapons and powers.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT

As much as I wanted Dishonored to live up to the hype it generated, there are quite a few factors that prevent it from being quite as enjoyable as it could be.

First of all, Dishonored places a great deal of focus on multiple paths, and the creative use of your powers to achieve your objectives. Unfortunately, from my experience, this doesn’t hold up well in the actual game. You have 10 different abilities, (6 active, 4 passive) each with an advanced version.  Only 2 of the 6 available active abilities will be used more than once or twice. I’m reffering to Blink and Dark Vision. Blink allows you to traverse the rooftops and corridors of the city of Dunwall several times more easily than without it, while Dark Vision is essentially detective vision, from the Batman Arkham games. In its first level, Dark Vision allows you to see NPCs through walls, and the advanced version grants the ability to see loot, collectible items, and security systems, as well as sources of sound and the field of vision of enemies.  Alongside these two abilities, you have Devouring Swarm, which summons a swarm of rats, Possession, which allows you to possess animals for a short period of time, Bend Time, which slows down time for a brief duration, and Windblast, which creates a burst of wind that can knock back enemies and break doors.

By the way, you’ll never use Devouring swarm, Possession, Bend Time, or Windblast. EVER.

Why? They’re not worth it, because your abilities use Mana, and only 20% of your Mana bar regenerates. Coincidentally, both Blink and Dark Vision cost exactly 20% of your Mana bar. In other words, if you let your Mana recharge after using Blink or Dark Vision, you will NEVER run out of Mana. The next cheapest ability to Blink and Dark Vision is Devouring Swarm, which costs double the mana of Blink or Dark Vision. In other words, using any ability other than Blink or Dark Vision will drain your Mana bar by almost half.

In addition, besides being costly to use, most abilities just aren’t as good as Blink or Dark Vision. While Possession can be useful to get into certain areas, Judicious use of Blink will work just as well, with less risk of being stepped on or killed. Devouring Swarm can dispose of bodies. Great. So can you, by picking them up and Blinking to a secluded area. Windblast can only break wooden doors, which are surprisingly rare, and creates a stupidly large amount of noise. Bend Time is the least useless of the powers that aren’t Blink or Dark Vision, but it costs so much Mana that you’ll almost never use it.  Even two of the four passive abilities, Vitality (additional health) and Blood Thirsty (melee fatalities) are practically useless, with Agility (increased movement speed and jump height) and Shadow Kill (unaware enemies turn to ash when killed) being the only useful passive abilities.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Sure, most of those abilities aren’t much in empty areas, but wouldn’t they be useful in combat?”

Well, let me put it this way. This is the first rule of combat in Dishonored:

DO NOT ENTER COMBAT IN DISHONORED.

The combat is arguably the weakest part of Dishonored. First things first, if you have not been detected, everything’s good. You can stab and shoot crossbow bolts into your enemies to your heart’s content.

If you’re detected? Reload your last save.

I’m not kidding. While being undetected allows you to hit your enemies with sleep darts easily or knock them out by hand, dealing with enemies nonlethally after being detected is almost impossible. Your limited supply of sleep darts are less effective on aware enemies, and almost all of the gadgets and powers that you have are lethal, so if you want to get the good ending, combat should be avoided at all costs.

In addition, combat is loud. Undetected, your options for taking out enemies include silent crossbow darts, backstabbing, and other such sneaky things. In open combat, your options generally include grenades, razorwire traps, and an obnoxiously loud pistol, along with the clashing and clattering of swords. Basically, if you’re fighting one enemy in an area, you’re fighting them all, because everyone and their brother will hear the commotion and rush over.

Finally, combat is difficult. If you don’t have all sorts of fancy gadgets and powers, you’ll have to make do with your sword. Essentially, sword combat involves swinging your sword with the left mouse button, which will inevitably be blocked by any competent enemy, and rather than using the right mouse button, blocking with the left control key. Really, the awkward positioning of the block key is what kills sword combat in Dishonored, forcing you to stretch your hand and taking your attention away from the enemy which has just pulled out a pistol and WHAT THE HELL WHY IS HALF MY HEALTH GONE

Essentially, despite being referred to throughout the game as a master of combat, you can abrely deal with one or two enemies without being slaughtered.

So, the obvious thing to do is to avoid combat, right?

Well, that’s not as simple as you would think either, thanks to the stealth mechanics. While NPCs allegedly have multiple states of awareness, in reality it’s more like an ON/OFF switch.  Here’s an all-too-common example:

You’re in a room, and your Dark Vision power allows you to see that there’s a guard standing a short distance away outside the room. You cleverly devise a plan: You’ll hit your sword against the wall, thereby drawing the guard over and into the room to investigate, at which point you’ll creep up behind him and stab him. The only problem is, when you hit the wall, the guard turns towards the room and walks a few steps, before stopping. He stares at the room’s door for almost a minute, before walking back to where he was before. Hitting the wall multiple times gives the same result…until he arbitrarily goes to maximum awareness, and charges into the room and enters combat with you.

This is the main problem with stealth in Dishonored. The NPCs are so inconsistent, that you have no way of knowing whether or not an NPC facing away from you will randomly detect you. In addition, once an NPC has detected you, he’ll almost always alert every single other NPC in the level, leaving you completely unable to get through the level sneakily. Even if you lose the NPC, if you’ve been spotted even once before in the level, the remaining NPCs will be so alert that detection is almost instant. The only effective way of getting through Dishonored is to travel primarily by Blink, systematically backstabbing every hostile NPC you come across. For a game based on multiple ways to accomplish objectives, it’s almost impossible to do anything outside this strategy without copious amounts of reloading saved games.

WHAT’S RIGHT WITH IT

Despite all the previously mentioned flaws, Dishonored is still fun. The powers, though useless in many situations, are incredibly fun to use, and while using powers other than Blink and Dark Vision may not be the most effective way to play, it’s definitely the most fun. The open-ended level design allows you to ignore a lot of the game’s flaws, and the game’s fascinating setting is more than enough to keep you interested. The game’s appeal largely comes from the powers – even after you’ve done it a million times, Blinking behind a guard and stabbing him in the back never gets old.

In addition, the aforementioned flaws in Dishonored are purely from my perspective. As a person who is unfamiliar with stealth games and hates wasting resources, my comments about the Mana cost of the powers and the implausibility of stealth may not be entirely accurate.

IN CONCLUSION

Dishonored is not THIEF. Those of you who expect heavy focus on stealth and secrecy will likely be disappointed. At the same time, Dishonored is a game where you can pick up a tin can, attach a razorwire mine to it, and then throw it at an enemy, then summon a swarm of rats to eat the corpses, before possessing one of the rats and scuttling away to safety. If you enjoy multiple paths and rapid-fire teleportation, this is the game for you.