Dishonored Review
I tried starting this game a few times over the years but it finally clicked in 2021. It's complete package -- fun, great to look at, incredibly creative, unique -- but there's some thematic dissonance and a story that doesn't pay off.
This is like a lite version of the Deus Ex/BioShock genre of "Immersive Sim" with some pretty cool traversal and combat and fantastic level design. There are a multitude of paths and player choice is the center of the game at all times. The "lite" commment comes from a near complete lack of dialogue -- this is a shooter, not an RPG like Deus Ex. In many ways it improves on a game like BioShock in it's functional level deigns and ability to find new paths, and the free flowing combat is in some ways more fun than that game's clunkier movement.
I imagine that if I'd played this back in the day on 360 it would have been a top 5 game for me in the year it came out. It holds up fairly well now 8-9 years later though certain aspects do show their age.
Truly memorable art, levels, and setting. I enjoy the setting and the characters more than the plot itself, especially given how the ending is just a slideshow... not a lot of payoff!
I'll mirror a common complaint about the game: the way the narrative plays out based on your gameplay style is a bit frustrating. Arkane made a game where you're able to be a powerhouse slaughtering your enemies, then punishes you if you choose to do it. I think it works thematically and it's an interesting feature, but for a player like me it ended up driving me to play in pure stealth, completely avoiding the (really fun!) combat. I wish they had a better solution for this than "play thru the game again". I like that multiple playthroughs can play out very differently and that your choices impact the world but I feel I missed out on some really fun, cool kills and kills chains due to the restrictive stealth-based approach required to get the "Good ending". Considering I don't' have time for multiple playthroughs I'll just have to leave that for a potential future revisit some years down the line. It'll probably be even more fun that my first playthrough. And ulktimately, they didn't write a story or give you any payoff at the end of that story to make "getting the good ending" worth it. I wish I'd played more aggressively, looking back. I ended up playing Dishonored 2 as a stealth player -- even completing with zero kills. What do I get in that game? Another slideshow at the end. Lame.
Play the game the way that you think is most fun, and don't worry about the story and how it plays out. Kill em all, or don't.
3.5/5
