Dishonored Review

Your review is pretty much how I felt after completing the game, especially the vagueness of the morality system; I skipped all of the lethal abilities because I didn't know what effect they would have on the story.

It also certainly didn't help that the AI was so lacking, even on the hardest difficulty. They don't even notice their buddies disappearing one by one 5 feet away. "Hmm... I could have sworn I wasn't the only guard on patrol in the city this evening — oh, well."

Your remark about the overabundance of consumables even on hard mode was spot on, as well.

All in all, it's a real shame, because a few balance changes to Corvo's powers and the enemies' behavior in and out of combat could have made this so much better.

Thanks for reading, glad you found it agreeable. I wanted to go over some of the goofy A.I. habits you mentioned, but you know, I've yet to play a stealth game that doesn't have some kind of unrealistic or predictable A.I. It's worse in some games more than others, and Dishonored still manages to be pretty challenging regardless, so I let it slide.

But I do hate when there's two guards standing next to each other and you can choke them one at a time. Even when they're facing each other I ran into glitches where I'm undetected but the guard is freaking out. Guess that's Bethesda at work.

The game really suffers from a Bioshock envious director. The morale system doesn't belong in a game that promotes you as an assassin and only serves to undermine the entire point of the game. About halfway through the game I said it and cut lose, tearing through guards that would otherwise just be a pain to subdue. This probably cut down my playthrough by a few hours, which makes it painfully clear that the system merely exists to slow you down. Those articles of the game being completed in two hours are no joke because it took me roughly six to beat after throwing stealth to the wind.

Perhaps if they had copied less from BioShock and more from Assassin's Creed, the game might have been good. As it stands, I couldn't recommend it to anyone other than for the art. The game and atmosphere are really wasted on a stealth game with an identity crisis.

[quote name='Jodou']The game really suffers from a Bioshock envious director. The morale system doesn't belong in a game that promotes you as an assassin and only serves to undermine the entire point of the game. About halfway through the game I said it and cut lose, tearing through guards that would otherwise just be a pain to subdue. This probably cut down my playthrough by a few hours, which makes it painfully clear that the system merely exists to slow you down. Those articles of the game being completed in two hours are no joke because it took me roughly six to beat after throwing stealth to the wind.

Perhaps if they had copied less from BioShock and more from Assassin's Creed, the game might have been good. As it stands, I couldn't recommend it to anyone other than for the art. The game and atmosphere are really wasted on a stealth game with an identity crisis.[/QUOTE]


Well, the morality system in Bioshock was a complete joke as well (maybe that's not what you meant.) You were rewarded materially for your choices, and the rewards were one-sided, making it even more pointless.

But, yes, I mostly agree. However, it's not a terrible play if the player goes in with certain expectations, and probably the intention to not kill. It will last longer that way.

I'd just not recommend it for a high price because of the glaring balance issues.

While the plot and the world will forever live in Bioshock's shadow I did feel that this game was original in the way that I've yet to find a game that uses vertical elements in the levels as much as this game did. You were looking up to actually find ways to continue the game, not just for collectibles or out of boredom...