Dishonored Game Review

The Arran Martin Review is back! This time Arran brings us the Dishonored game review that we have eagerly been waiting for. So listen up and give this man the respect he deserves!

Developer(s)
Arkane Studios

Publisher(s)
Bethesda Softworks

Designer(s)
Ricardo Bare
Harvey Smith
Raphaël Colantonio

Platform(s)
Microsoft Windows
PlayStation 3
Xbox 360

Release date(s)
October 9, 2012

Genre(s)
Action-adventure, stealth

Mode(s)
Single-player

 

Have you ever watched a game trailer, and literally start drooling with excitement for its release? I can honestly say that when I first watched the trailer for the Dishonored game, I was salivating out of pure joy. All I could imagine was a Steam Punk, Thief, Bioshock, and Assassin’s Creed mash-up, which is exactly what I received. I came into this game with extremely high expectations seeing as it was published by Bethesda, who are behind the Elder Scrolls franchise and developed by Arkane Studios. This is the same team behind Bioshock 2. Those expectations, however, diminished as I loaded the game and could not for the life of me figure out if my graphics settings were set on low by default or if I had done something to lower my visual setting to make game run better.

Upon starting the game and fiddling with the video options, I was fairly disappointed that I had everything at their highest settings yet the game still looked like it had been drawn by freshman graphical design students. I know the cell shaded look adds its own flair, and I will probably get some hate mail from this but I simply don’t enjoy this style of visualization.

Playing on, I began to understand that there were two different styles of game play that could be chosen. You can play through as the stealthy honorable type who kills only when absolutely necessary, or as a bloodthirsty savage, who likes to play pirate sword fight with every enemy you encounter. In my ever-constant struggle to improve myself morally, I chose the path of least resistance. I find that typically in morality choice games the ending on the “good” side seems to be more rewarding. Without trying to spoil the ending of Dishonored, regarding my previous thought I was completely… I’m not sure. The endings are fairly reminiscent of Mass Effect 3, where each ending is just a different shade with a mildly different vibe, one where you are good, and one where you are slightly evil.

As you progress you unlock more and more skills, allowing you to become a deadlier assassin. (Unless you are playing good in which case the only two skills you will use in the entire game is a long range teleport spell and the ability to see through walls.) Both of which become so broken, the only time I ever died was when I ran to get my pizza delivery from the door and forgot to press pause. This was to the best of my knowledge the only time my character died. The other flaw the game possesses is the pacing, which is regularly broken up my trips back to the safe house, where you can buy useless potions and upgrades that I didn’t get until the last level of the game, just for funnsies.

Being disappointed at the graphics, morality, pacing, and difficulty of the game, you would think I would rate this game fairly low. WRONG! Even with all of its glaring flaws, this game still provides what all video games are made for, fun. I enjoyed myself so much with the Dishonored game I would replay levels over and over trying to find new and exciting ways to evade enemies. The combat is smooth and makes your heart race when you are seen in a manner reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid with a loud chime every time an enemy spots the glimpse of your dagger darting behind a wall. If near flawless stealth action game is what you are looking for, then go get Thief or Metal Gear Solid 3. But if you want a fun game that will keep you busy for a week, I definitely recommend you pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

RATINGS:

Story: 7/10

The main character Corvo is not developed enough, and the characters you encounter are just to dry and robot like to really care about, however the overall story arc can en-capture you just as it did me.

Graphics: 7/10

The cell shaded look simply didn’t do it for me, and graphical glitches severely hurt my immersion.

Audio: 8/10

The sound effects add the nice level of excitement to the game, but can become fairly repetitive.

Game play: 8/10

Pacing was the main downfall of this score, but the enjoyment you receive when out of missions is unparalleled.

Re-playability: 6.5/10

After completing this game 100%, and finding all possibly routes through the mission, I cannot see any reason why you would want to pick the game up again, unless you are trying to play as a different morality.

OVERALL RATING:  7.3/10