Dishonored, is a first person supernatural assassin action game brought to us by Akane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. If we were to say anything about this game it would be “Dishonored has re-invented the 
stealth genre and brings it back to life”. The control mechanics and gameplay will take some time to get used to, but to the avid gamer, it should be easy to get to grips with. For us though the most appealing addition to the stealth genre is the ability to blink, which encourages you to quickly teleport from one covered area to the next. We felt this was a great idea and gives you more opportunities to take down patrols or single target enemies.
When going through Dishonored we kind of felt that there where some similarities to games of the past, to be exact, Deus Ex, Thief and Half-life 2 , possibly due to the fact that the developers behind this game where in some part creative geniuses behind those games as well. When it comes to these types of games we expect a constant sense of atmosphere and the city of Dunwall is crammed with it, on top of that this city is in the grips of a major plague,disease and oppression under an evil dictator. A curfew is in effect from dusk till dawn (Not the Movie), bolt your doors, clamp your windows, if you go outside don’t expect to live, as the guards that are on patrol have their orders “shoot to kill”. During the day Dunwall is surrounded by an electrified field that controls the flow of people between its borders, anyone that touches it, expect to be frazzled and turn to dust.
They designers have captured the Victorian age rather well; poverty stricken people shuffling through the rat swarmed streets looking for any scraps worthy of being called food, while pompous rich men cladded in smart well stitched clothing are drinking their way through bars and sluts in the skanky brothels. The 
architecture has been well designed from the cobbled streets to the stone archways, much like ‘City 17 from Half Life 2’; it’s a disgusting era but such wonderful and atmospheric place to play through. When it comes to similarities within a game nothing stands out more than the ‘Tall Boys’, mechanical stilted vehicles that patrol and sweep the streets of the less than fortunate individuals.
You play as Corvo Attano ‘Royal Protector to The Empress of Dunwall’, well you use to be, as you return home to see The Empress she is attacked and murdered right in front of your eyes by some assassins. The Empress’ Consort then frames you for the murder before kidnapping the Empress Daughter and seizes power. You find yourself imprisoned within Coldridge Prison and with the help of some loyalists you find a way to escape, with just a few objective take vengance , find the Empress Daughter and clear your name.
Corvo is a highly efficient fighter as you will find out straight from the get go and is able to stealth and use supernatural powers given to him to the one called “The Outsider”. Corvo is able to use a variety of weapons and gadgets with high proficiently, with the like of range and melee weapons such as a sword, gun and crossbow. The use of gadgets will aid in hindering and/or controlling your foes, this I found good use for while crowd controlling larger groups.
Everywhere throughout the game is written you cannot outrun the rat plague; you can see the reason why you keep well away from the damn rats, when you watch them attack and consume your enemies in just a few seconds. 
What is even funnier is if you don’t wish for a body to be found just chuck it at the rats and its dinner time, it’s like watching a bunch of hungry midgets going through a KFC bucket of fried chicken with plenty of beans. What you must understand as well, is if you play the game as a gun toting crazed lunatic leaving bodies in your wake, you don’t really help the plague as there will be even more rats and diseased humans known as ‘weepers’ to hinder your game progression.
Corvo’s supernatural skills are bloody awesome and you do get rather a lot to play around with. There was one we especially used just for fun; summon a swarm of rats…. DIE!! There was one thing that kind of freaked us out; The Observer also gives us a messed up freaky mechanical heart that talks. Yes you heard us correctly a mechanical talking heart, with a woman’s voice except not the one from your everyday TomTom you can pick up from your local Halfords that reminds you of your wife, instead you get an eerie woman’s voice more suited to the darken shadowy streets of the Victorian era. If you can get past that the heart can come with its benefits; its guides you with its sexy voice to an area where you can find a rune, runes in turn can be spent on upgrades. You are able to upgrade your sword, gun and crossbow skills or spend runes on upgrading your supernatural abilities to increase the proficiency.
Apart from send rats to mutilate AI, listen to a mechanical heart dropping hints for runes and of course have supernatural powers which are all good, what the hell are we supposed to be doing with all this? It’s a simple case of sneak, assassinate and bring justice to the dead while clearing your name. You will quickly 
find out the Dishonored is not a true open-world game, but rather a well-crafted set of levels and open sprawls. Each set piece will offer you many ways to take down the enemy, from the not be seen type kill using all your stealth abilities or the straight forward, screw this shit guns blazing type ‘Not recommended’ but fun. As you progress through the game you will be treated, that a lie, welcome to the end level bosses and these bosses will test your skills, there was not anyone boss we came up against where we had almost no supernatural power left to play with.
When you read the phrase “every player will have an entirely different experience within every play through” not many games have really managed to pull this off. Dishonored has done it quite successfully; for instance o our first play through we found one particular target within the cellar of a house, on the second play through we decided to hit the same area again, but no target was not there, we ended up finding the target on the balcony of the house. It may only be slight change to the game, but it does make a difference to your game and also adds little extra challenge as you will need to change your tactics with each play through. One of core things to this game are your abilities and being able to open them all up and use them all, so if you really wish to test them all, then you will have to play through the whole of the game all over again as you will not be able to open all skills on your first outing. Another good aspect to Dishonored is the ability to play the game how you wish to, the game never forces you to play the game to a certain play style; it is totally up to you.
Ok we are going back to the awesome rats now; it is said possession is nine tenth of the law, but I don’t think this is true for supernatural possession. Let’s give you the setting; a door into a room, behind the door is a guard, do we go in all guns blazing or maybe possess a rat and scuttle through the gutters and kill him… “Hmm tempting.” Depending on your choice whether you are 
morbid and fancy a rat fiesta or crazy enough to “leeroy” it, the choice is your just remember the game changes based on your play style, to decide wisely
If you are the type of gamer that likes to explore and discover everything there is to know about a game, then you will love this game. Everything I said before is a must, just to find your way around or find where to go next and everything is a clue to an objective, from books littered around to speaking and listening to the people around the place, each and everything could be a clue to something.
Overtime or if you do your homework you will find out that Dunwall sits within the Fantasy continent of Gristol, one of the known continents with in the Dishonored universe and is mainly powered by Whale Oil. This is a newly discovered source of power which is sourced from killing monstrous types of whales that roam around the dangerous oceans that surround Gristol. Whale oil is a very rare, which in turns plays a very vital role, as there is a lot of corruption surrounding this rare fuel mostly at the highest level. As you play Corvo you will come across this quite a lot.
We could go into more detail about the game, however if we did we would be giving way to much away and then you will not have the chance to find out how good this game really is and what you would be missing if you did 
not go out and buy this game yourself and experience everything it has to offer. We loved it and we know you will to, so without going into more detail we move to the technical boring stuff.
Graphics and we all know that I am am the type of person that likes to see next generation graphics within any PC game, does Dishonored deliver this to my door, NO! It uses DX9 and a Modified Unreal Engine, if they had used DX11 this game would look a lot more realistic just by using tessellation and if they had offered an upgrade DLC something like a HD quality graphics pack DLC, they could of given everything more detail, depth and feel to the game. Does this game work well, well we had it on max setting, everything turn on and had it running on a gaming rig with an I7 Intel Processor, HD6990 Ati Radion Card with 8GB of DD3 Ram with no issues at all.
The sound Quality is perfect, from the sound of the streets, to the bars and to the way your sword takes a stab into human flesh, all perfectly designed for the players delight. We used a SteelSeries Siberia V2 headset, which made the sound feel more realistic and gave it some depth, as with the engine built into the SteelSeries gear it allow the use of 3D sound effect.
Achievements & Trophies within Dishonored are sweet and will test any avid game, from the likes of completing the game without equipping any supernatural powers, minimizing casualties and go through the game without being detected. These achievements really push you to your limits and get you to think twice about every choice you make, on top of this you also have the standard Steam achievement system.
Overall is this game worth the recommended RRP, Based on the great gameplay mechanics, haunting atmosphere, eerie sound effects, re-playability and the way the artists have managed to create a 17th Century living and breathing world. The ability to upgrade skill is a must have in this game and adds a lot of depth and a good enough reason to come back to the game at the end of your first play through.
A mind-Blowing, truly impressive stealth game not seen since Thief from Eidos,
Highly recommended
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.