So to the people that own both games. Which do you like more and why? I'm trying to make a decision, Dishonored seems like it can make you feel pretty powerful and has the stealthy aspect if that's what you're looking for. Where as from the QL, the gameplay in Hitman seems... off somehow. I'm leaning towards Dishonored, but I do love the idea of a pure sneaky game.

I finished hitman absolution in a few days of solid play sessions, i have abandoned dishonored because i got bored of its gameplay after 5 levels , but who knows if i will go back to it or not when the next games drought begins.

I think hitman and dishonored both bring something new to the genre of stealth games , they both enable you to finish a mission however you want , and dont overly punish you for choosing any particular play style. ,

Dishonored feels more contrived in the way that everything leads to the same conclusion, whereas hitman feels sometimes daunting in how many options you have at your disposal even for the smallest of missions.

if youre a pc gamer then dishonored may end up on sale very soon in the current steam sale , whereas hitman was just released so will stay full price for a bit longer .. so dishonored may tip the scales for you especially if they do a deep discount.

dishonored definitely has the feeling of power going for you , but to me that only encourages me to murder everyone and ignore stealth , because nobody can catch me.

these are just my random thoughts , i tried to cut out the majority of biased opinions as i am a hitman fanboy when it comes to it , but yeah .. theyre 2 totally different games and approach a similar genre in completely different ways , and i guess they both stand alone as worthy titles.

hope something here helps.. playing thru 2nd playthru of hitman now with jacked up difficulty , so clearly one game has provided me with much more "value"

TATORS,

I'm not sure an either/or is valid when they play so differently. Both are stealth games but in Dishonored all that magic means it can be very fast moving. Hitman tends to be more about patience although clearly play-style has a massive impact on your experience. If you're looking for value for money I think I'd probably have to argue Hitman as, if we assume that you'd enjoy both equally, that title has replay in the missions trying to complete all the challenges and also has the contracts mode to compete in. With Dishonored there will eventually be some DLC for what sounds like Batman-esque challenge rooms.

Dishonored.

@dudeglove said:

Dishonored is an odd beast. You're presented with all these options, and maybe this is just me, but you don't feel the need to exploit any one of them. In my first playthrough all I used was Blink 2 and agility. The unfortunate downside of this is not getting to appreciate all the streets and architecture, because you're trying to be out of sight as much as possible. Turn off all the hud stuff when you're playing, though, and rack up the difficulty. Save scumming is a bit of an issue too with it.

I'm almost too scared to ask what "save scumming" is. Seems these days were just coming up with more ways to put ourselves down for trying to have fun in video games.

I haven't played Hitman yet but I'd agree that Dishonored does indeed suffer a bit form presenting you with all these options that you honestly don't need. It is a fun game but by the midpoint if you have been going for all the runes to upgrade your abilities, Corvo is so amazingly overpowered that nothing is a challenge anymore. Stop time, teleport and possess anyone around you in addition to all the minor talisman bonuses. Once you attain the ability that turns any stealth killed enemy into ash you don't even have to worry about bodies (and technically the plague).

I think Hitman would probably be the more interesting of the two. Dishonored suffers from that Deus Ex syndrome of hiding all story in books and throwaway logs for you to read. If you're into that sort of stuff then go for it, otherwise you can potentially miss out on up to 40% of the story.

@Humanity said:

@dudeglove said:

Dishonored is an odd beast. You're presented with all these options, and maybe this is just me, but you don't feel the need to exploit any one of them. In my first playthrough all I used was Blink 2 and agility. The unfortunate downside of this is not getting to appreciate all the streets and architecture, because you're trying to be out of sight as much as possible. Turn off all the hud stuff when you're playing, though, and rack up the difficulty. Save scumming is a bit of an issue too with it.

I'm almost too scared to ask what "save scumming" is. Seems these days were just coming up with more ways to put ourselves down for trying to have fun in video games.

I haven't played Hitman yet but I'd agree that Dishonored does indeed suffer a bit form presenting you with all these options that you honestly don't need. It is a fun game but by the midpoint if you have been going for all the runes to upgrade your abilities, Corvo is so amazingly overpowered that nothing is a challenge anymore. Stop time, teleport and possess anyone around you in addition to all the minor talisman bonuses. Once you attain the ability that turns any stealth killed enemy into ash you don't even have to worry about bodies (and technically the plague).

I think Hitman would probably be the more interesting of the two. Dishonored suffers from that Deus Ex syndrome of hiding all story in books and throwaway logs for you to read. If you're into that sort of stuff then go for it, otherwise you can potentially miss out on up to 40% of the story.

Somewhat unrelated, but Deus Ex doesn't really do the "hide the story in the books" part. It's little world-building things. Technically, Dishonored also doesn't put major story points in optional books, but almost ALL of the world building is in them. It's definitely a weakness, but on the plus side, Dishonored lets you get on with the damn game. Hitman's writing is awful, and I've found myself starting to skip cutscenes around halfway through because I just can't bring myself to care at all, which is very rare for me. I'll agree that if you play Dishonored stealthily, a lot of the abilities are kind of useless, but even then it's a far better stealth game than Hitman, imo, which also discourages you from killing by docking points.

Dishonored is far better imo. It's not without its faults, but I'd strongly recommend waiting until Hitman is a lot cheaper. Dishonored will probably be on the current Steam sale, too.

@Humanity: save scumming is more an old roguelike term , but applies in the regards that you can easily work out the best path thru rapid trial and error , then reload and do it all perfectly.

In roguelikes with permadeath doing this would usually break the experience and usually involved some sort of trickery , hence scumming. But its just an inherent problem with games with quicksaves etc.

Hitman, Dishonored was and is pretty over hyped. Really wasnt impressed with it at all. Been enjoying Hitman a lot more.

Dishonored is a super easy "stealth" game. Great sense of place, ending is terrible.

Hitman is a super hard stealth game. Can be super frustrating. I'm still only on 3 mission, after like 6 hours because I keep restarting if ANYTHING goes wrong. Fucking hotel..

Dishonored is a super easy "stealth" game. Great sense of place, ending is terrible.

Hitman is a super hard stealth game. Can be super frustrating. I'm still only on 3 mission, after like 6 hours because I keep restarting if ANYTHING goes wrong. Fucking hotel..

Playing hitman on hard or above can be extremely challenging (at least for me). You can get caught very easy and can't really shoot your way out of a situation. It is very satisfying though.

I absolutely loves Dishonored, but it really isn't very challenging at all. However, I played through it 3 times in a row, which I rarely do.

@Oni: I'd argue Dishonored is actually worse because instead of just docking you points, killing a lot of people will actually result in you getting the "bad" ending which makes you out to be this huge asshole. If I chose bad story archs then yah, I'd be cool with being a bad guy, but just because I killed a bunch of guards from an oppressive regime all of a sudden I'm a monster, thats not so well thought out.

I guess the main appeal to me for Hitman is that it reminds me a of Thief, which are some of my all time favorite games. Bah, I'll just wait till both go on sale and judge for myself, thanks guys.

@Humanity said:

@dudeglove said:

Dishonored is an odd beast. You're presented with all these options, and maybe this is just me, but you don't feel the need to exploit any one of them. In my first playthrough all I used was Blink 2 and agility. The unfortunate downside of this is not getting to appreciate all the streets and architecture, because you're trying to be out of sight as much as possible. Turn off all the hud stuff when you're playing, though, and rack up the difficulty. Save scumming is a bit of an issue too with it.

I'm almost too scared to ask what "save scumming" is. Seems these days were just coming up with more ways to put ourselves down for trying to have fun in video games.

Save scumming isn't a particularly new term, it really just means saving every few minutes so that you can make sure you have a perfect run. Finished that fight with half the health you started it with? Go back to your last save and do it again without so much as scraping your knee. That's save scumming. Once you start doing it, it's a trap that's really hard to stop doing.

On topic: this decision would be easy for me. Dishonored. I've played neither but I have no interest in Hitman. I'm actually kind of turned away from it by the scantily clad murderous nuns I've seen in a lot of the ads.

Both were kinda boring - but i'd go with dishonored

Go with hitman.

@believer258: I hope you're more turned off by the gameplay rather than just a silly ad campaign. Those "Nuns" are only in one mission and they aren't even that scantily clad. Some of them have short skirts, thats about as sexual as their outfits get. They're actually more dressed up than your typical female villain in a videogame. Cortana in Halo 4 is way more sexual with her entire breasts technically just out and about, yet apart from a tiny Halo fanbase minority no one has really commented on it.

I've only just started Hitman, but I would probably prefer Dishonoured... Probably. The differnce in mechanics would come down to personal taste, one is not better than the other. Though I really like the world, environment and story of Dishonoured, these in Hitman feels - meh.

@Humanity said:

@believer258: I hope you're more turned off by the gameplay rather than just a silly ad campaign. Those "Nuns" are only in one mission and they aren't even that scantily clad. Some of them have short skirts, thats about as sexual as their outfits get. They're actually more dressed up than your typical female villain in a videogame. Cortana in Halo 4 is way more sexual with her entire breasts technically just out and about, yet apart from a tiny Halo fanbase minority no one has really commented on it.

Oh, it's not the fact that they're scantily clad. It's that they look fucking stupid.

That and I have Blood Money and didn't like it a whole lot. Can you save mid mission and leave the game in Absolution?

@believer258: I haven't played it myself but it uses a checkpoint system from what I saw in the Quick Look. On average console game rarely let you save wherever you want and leave - and this is a console game now, like most major releases these days.

@believer258: I was a little suprised by all the offence that was taken by that advert. It was stupid and ill-judged and all the worse for the fact that they barely appear in the game at all.

I guess it's inevitable that people will come up with terms to be derogatory about other that (shock! horror!) save more than they would. Personally I've never liked quick save systems and always regarded games like Hitman as to be about trying to get as far as you can without copious saves, for me that was the challenge. That's partly why I've been a bit suprised by the reaction against the checkpoints in Absolution.

@Humanity said:

@believer258: I haven't played it myself but it uses a checkpoint system from what I saw in the Quick Look. On average console game rarely let you save wherever you want and leave - and this is a console game now, like most major releases these days.

but blood money was on consoles.

in fact hitman has been on consoles for over a decade.

so you're talking shit

I love hitman more. i really dont enjoy Dishonored and have not gotten past the 4th or 5th mission

but really i think it depends on how much you like stealth games. i think hitman does it better though neither of them are perfect at it

and granted you can treat dishoned as a fps

but if your leaning towards Dishonored allready go for that on

@envane:

I felt the same way about Dishonored. It's a well crafted and beautiful game (except for everyone's Truckasaurus hands, Holy Christ WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!), but I didn't feel challenged at all and ergo didn't get any real sense of satisfaction. Corvo is also a vacant character by design that I wasn't really feeling the immersion of playing as him. If you're going to force me to play as a pre-defined character and not my own, you need to give me a reason to care. Stopped playing after Hitman and Planetside 2 came out since my game time is somewhat limited, and if I wasn't really entertain with the first six or seven hours of it, it probably wasn't going to redeem itself for the remainder of the game.

Hitman is a bit more entertaining so far a few missions in, but it's not knocking my socks off yet.

If anything, Dishonored just made me want Thief 4 even more since they "borrow" numerous aesthetic and audio qualities from it.

@Bell_End: Make me a list of all console games that let you save anywhere you want like classic PC games used to, and then compare it to a list of all the console titles that use checkpoints.

Unless you're talking about the fact that Hitman has been on consoles for a while, then my apologies, I must have missed the context when you were too busy coming up with ways to be rude and condescending rather than constructing a well thought out sentence that would challenge my post and engage in a civil discussion.

@Humanity said:

@Oni: I'd argue Dishonored is actually worse because instead of just docking you points, killing a lot of people will actually result in you getting the "bad" ending which makes you out to be this huge asshole. If I chose bad story archs then yah, I'd be cool with being a bad guy, but just because I killed a bunch of guards from an oppressive regime all of a sudden I'm a monster, thats not so well thought out.

But the way the game plays and how the world is set up, you would be an asshole. You can get away with killing some guards, but going out of your way to clear out rooms of guards gives you a bad ending and so it should. From a realistic point of view what did the guards do? Their jobs. Following their orders. They didn't help the regime in any way shape or form and have no idea about the corruption going on behind the scenes. You could easily get through the game killing the targets and the really corrupt people you come into contact with as well as the few guards that truly get in your way without much of a problem and still get a good ending.

However I do see some of your point. It's why I broke Dishonored up into two playthroughs. My first one I literally killed everyone. Civilians included. I would murder everything in a level and then roam through it to collect all the runes/charms as well as any other items hanging around. This would also enable me to get a good view of the level structure/design, where the sneaking points are and all that other stuff. This justified the bad ending to me. My second time around I'm just going strictly non lethal. Now that I have a good idea about the layout of the missions/levels it feels much more plausible.

As for which the original poster should choose, I agree with a previous statement that it's hard to do an either or with this. I feel despite it being a stealthy type game Dishonored differs in how it plays regardless of your style than Hitman. I'd go with the route of getting Dishonored first on steam stale and then picking up Hitman later when it comes on sale. If you like the "stealth" genre from what I've played both do enough to manage to be completely different entries into that style without feeling at all similar.

Dishonored.

Absolution is probably the worst Hitman-style game in the series but a pretty decent game in it's own right. Great for new-comers to Hitman, not so great for fans of the series.

Dishonored, I really struggled with at the beginning (the art style, the difficulty, the combat) but it really grew on me to the point where near the end I was desperately wishing the game was longer.

Both are intended to be stealth games but can be played as action games as well. Dishonored allows you to be play more balanced as your powers give you the option to engage in or disengage from combat pretty much instantly whereas in Hitman the shooter route is pretty much a 1-way ticket.

@Devise22: I get where you're coming from and agree to a certain degree. Not all German soldiers were evil monsters during WWII - a lot of them were just young men forcefully drafted into the army. For me the issue is, as you have also identified it, that in the open world game full of choices you get forced to play a certain way. The chaos meter actually forces you to make the decision between being a silent shadow or a deadly knife in the throat. I normally play my stealth games without raising any alarms but I always loved to methodically take out all guards and pile them up in a room, then stroll through the level like I own the place. Dishonored kind of places a restriction on the player in that if you want to get the good ending you have to play stealth, but non-lethal stealth for the most part. I don't like that part - I still got the good ending and I wonder if the power that turns enemies to ash make it so that you don't get a high chaos rating since technically those bodies won't spread the plague? I was getting a little bored of sneaking and did the last level full on assault and it was pretty fun that way too.

Dishonored is $25 at Walmart on Black Friday. If you're in the US, that may influence your decision.

I would say both games utilizes pure stealth gameplay, of course if you intend to be stealthy and stick to the "shadows" in both of those games. In my humble opinion i think Dishonored have more options to how your missions and targets executed.

If you prefer dense stealth game with somehow contrived environments then pick Hitman.

If you prefer otherwise what lacks in this new Hitman game, which is open levels with assassinations aplenty then choose Dishonored.

@Osaladin

I suggest checking out both games, whichever is cheaper or accessible first get that one. Or you could do what I did and rent them, then make up your mind.

@dudeglove said:

Dishonored is an odd beast. You're presented with all these options, and maybe this is just me, but you don't feel the need to exploit any one of them. In my first playthrough all I used was Blink 2 and agility. The unfortunate downside of this is not getting to appreciate all the streets and architecture, because you're trying to be out of sight as much as possible. Turn off all the hud stuff when you're playing, though, and rack up the difficulty. Save scumming is a bit of an issue too with it.

Save Scumming sounds more like a personal problem. Do you really want the game to not allow you to save wherever you want just because you yourself can't stop reloading saves?

It depends what you're looking for in a stealth game. I beat dishonored, it was ok, I'm enjoying Hitman right now but this one feels more like a splinter cell game which I kinda don't like. But if I had to choose one it would be Hitman, having the powers and stuff is cool but I like the somewhat realism of Hitman more

As a long time Hitman fan, get Dishonored

It is close but i think Dishonored is a better game. Just make sure you play on hard as it is easy. Get both if you can though!