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[KlotePino]

What you saying is more or less that the level design (and this includes the interaction between enemies and the player) isn't very good as balanced by what the player can do, but you just don't mind because you like what the player can do in itself and the atmosphere is good. That's a hard thing for me to forgive. I liked Blink too, but it is a very fleeting amount of fun as I saw the game's intricate level design fall apart in front of me. I recall all the games which don't fall apart so swiftly and had more virtues like more natural exploration or specialization.

This is kind of an old quote but I strongly disagree. I think certain level design later in the game like the bridge and the flooded district would be completely was designed with blink in mind and doesn't work without it. I think it allows for more unique vertical level design.

 

[beastmode]

SOMETHING must have triggered though.

However, come to think of it I wonder if that might be the real reason people didn't go up? They weren't assuming typical game logic "if they say I can't go up there I can't go up there!", but "if I go up there they'll all instantly know and want to kill me", which DEFINITELY makes sense with the way some games are where they just magically KNOW. And hell, it sounds like that's happened intentionally or not for some of you anyway.

Spoiler

If they know I'm up there or have been why is the party still going as planned? Why are all the guards outside still friendly? Why are the guests still OK with me until the guards notice? Why isn't there a popup saying "the area is now hostile"? Why is mingling with the guards and guests even an option at all with high chaos?

Did a guard on the main floor actually see me? Do they only have to hear you? Did a guard respawn and warn the guys downstairs after seeing some bodies? Is it as simple as one guard being alerted wrecks it even if you kill him? Does turning off the Light Wall do it, despite, being known to run out of whale oil?

Even if it isn't bugged it's poorly designed.

 

[KlotePino]

It happened to me too in the party mission

Spoiler

but I went "upstairs" with her in full view so when I went down I figured people were freaking out because I came down without her and they figured something must've happened...Didn't make a lot of sense to me either at the time but it worked out in the end. I managed to get her down to the basement without getting spotted so in the end it worked out, little harder than was necessary

.

 

[Dennis]

I nominate those plant-like things that spew acid at you in sewers as the worst most annoying enemy type since Cliff Racers from Morrowind.

 

[Sidzed2]

I nominate those plant-like things that spew acid at you in sewers as the worst most annoying enemy type since Cliff Racers from Morrowind.

.

 

[Dennis]

They are just not fun at all. Why even put them in there?

 

[Sidzed2]

They are just not fun at all. Why even put them in there?

It doesn't make any sense. Who's playing Dishonored to fight spitting Venus fly traps? It feels like a failure of design. Someone just forgot or neglected to say "no".

 

[subversus]

just run past them. They are slow and not accurate.

 

[Raytow]

It doesn't make any sense. Who's playing Dishonored to fight spitting Venus fly traps? It feels like a failure of design. Someone just forgot or neglected to say "no".

They are not venus fly traps they are molusks, does nobody reads the books =/

 

[Akai]

They are just not fun at all. Why even put them in there?

Because it feels natural to have more non-human obstacles in the way. They aren't even that difficult to fend off when you realize you can just lean around corners and have a clean shot without them being able to even touch you...

 

[mickcenary]

So, this is annoying as all hell. My Corvo pistol texture is completely busted. It seldom pops in; and even when/if it does, it goes back out as soon as you move, leaving a shiny, plastic-y mess behind.

I've applied all of the upgrades and whatnot, but nothing seems to trigger it. Such a ridiculous glitch. I'm on 360 with the game installed, by the way.

 

[NBtoaster]

I'm at 6 hours played, on the golden cat mission.

I'm killing everyone, the only reason I strangle or sleep dart is so I can kill in a more fun way, like throwing them off a balcony.

 

[mickcenary]

Also, OT should totally be renamed to:

Dishonored |OT| Blink and you just might miss it

 

[Sanctuary]

Something is completely off with the detection/corpse system in this game. I keep getting "kills" when I don't kill a single guard and I make sure to put the bodies in places where a) they cannot possibly be found and b) rats can't get to them. I'm also not doing accidental drownings. Yet whenever I replay a mission that I've already done, not only does the kill count GO UP somehow from the previous, so does the corpses/sleeping bodies found. This makes zero sense.

 

[Glass Rebel]

It happened to me too in the party mission

Spoiler

but I went "upstairs" with her in full view so when I went down I figured people were freaking out because I came down without her and they figured something must've happened...Didn't make a lot of sense to me either at the time but it worked out in the end. I managed to get her down to the basement without getting spotted so in the end it worked out, little harder than was necessary

.

Spoiler

you might have been still trespassing. Happened to me as well.

 

[BKJest]

The party mission is definitely screwed up. I too had the experience of the guards going on high alert after going upstairs. I reloaded an earlier save and did it all again, basically in exactly the same way as before, and it worked out fine. Really sullied an otherwise fantastic level.

Spoiler

For me the party went hostile because I rewired the wall of light and a couple of minutes later a guard went through it. It took a while to figure out the reason as I was in a completely different place at the time it happened. How everyone magically knew it was me is beyond me. But luckily I had a save where I just could take out the whale oil tank in time without losing too much progress.

 

[Hawkian]

Uhm. He attacks you dennis.

He never even saw me.

 

[Eusis]

He never even saw me.

That's key, really. I just

Spoiler

tranquilized Campbell from my vantage point, picked him up and hauled him off in the chaos (while tranqing one other soldier to not alert them all to where I was), then branded him. Just stay out of sight if you're trying to do non-lethal, though the lethal poison route may require AT LEAST a crossbow bolt shoot wherever to screw with the AI once Curnow returns with others. Haven't tested that one though, I just know it was successful to keep an overseer from being killed by his compatriots.

 

[thefil]

Judging from this thread I am the only one playing this to maximum.

People rush through miss half the stuff. ALL my missions have been completed using alternative non-lethal means and getting the most involved and interesting outcomes.

Hence my playtime is long and I have gotten my moneys worth.

This is one of those games that actually expects the player to take responsibilty for their own enjoyment. You get out what you put in.

I know this rare these days and almost antithetical to the "I am the consumer, I paid money, now entertain me dammit" attitude.

I respectfully disagree that the non-lethal outcomes are the most involved and interesting. In fact, just the opposite.

 

[Zeliard]

But they clearly are not, as the layout of the game doesn't keep up for the most part. It is trivialized by Blink (and to a lesser extent Dark Vision and the heart). It is only when the game bottlenecks you does blink stay in check and even then it just remains the best (cheapest, safest) option.

Of course Blink would be feel smooth, it smooths out the game itself.


What you saying is more or less that the level design (and this includes the interaction between enemies and the player) isn't very good as balanced by what the player can do, but you just don't mind because you like what the player can do in itself and the atmosphere is good. That's a hard thing for me to forgive. I liked Blink too, but it is a very fleeting amount of fun as I saw the game's intricate level design fall apart in front of me. I recall all the games which don't fall apart so swiftly and had more virtues like more natural exploration or specialization.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't feel Blink ruins or trivializes the intricacy of the level design so much as it helps to reveal it, and offers the player a unique way of navigating those levels. Maybe it becomes more egregious in later levels, as I have not beaten the game yet, but so far I don't feel it really takes away anything that would have been there had Blink not existed. The game puts a heavy premium on exploration, and Blink just encourages you to be experimental in level navigation and thus exploration.

I also don't feel stealth games in general contain much in the way of major difficulty, as I was saying a while back, but tend to rather necessitate great patience on the player's part (which isn't something I mind at all, for the record). Blink in Dishonored essentially speeds the stealth process up and opens up avenues for inventive fun in conjunction with the other abilities you have, the latter of which is why I enjoy it. I really love Thief but I consider it quite a different game - much more of a pure stealth game - and that game also adds difficulty not so much through its core stealth element but by creating additional challenges on top of that as you go up in difficulty level.

The basic difference in Dishonored is that those challenges are largely self-administered by the player. I posted several pages back that I wish the harder difficulties in Dishonored had created different objectives for the player, Thief-style, but it's also not a breaking point for me and I find myself able to make my own fun it in.

 

[thefil]

I've finished my second run (clean hands/ghost/flesh and steel). Definitely ready for round 3, Rambo. And maybe after that a round where I finally use a rat tunnel.

 

[kuroshiki]

Wow the ending was such a let down.

 

[subversus]

Stealth isn't about sitting on your ass and studying guard patterns for 5 minutes straight.

Stealth is about being unseen.

When I slowed time, blinked forward immediately after that, ran to the sewer hatch, opened it and jumped down nobody saw me. Doing this with traditional stealth is stupid and nigh on impossible because the hatch is in the middle of heavily patrolled and brigthly lit road.

 

[GorillaJu]

The mollusk enemies were completely fine to me. What's wrong with having enemy variety in a game? They definitely fit the world.

 

[Hawkian]

Blink highlights the outstanding level design rather than obfuscating it. Being able to move quickly and efficiently through the world doesn't mean the world is incoherent, and the fact that you could play entirely without Blink demonstrates how well-crafted it ultimately is.

 

[Deleted member 102362]

Wow the ending was such a let down.

It definitely could have been stronger. It didn't leave much of an impact on me.

Spoiler

Reminded me a bit of Bioshock 1's ending where the little girls take care of you late in your life.

 

[DukeBobby]

Yeah, the River Krusts are fine. I also love the design of the Tallboys. However, I do find the magic blocking overseers to be completely pointless and irritating, though.

 

[mickcenary]

I'm really not enjoying revisiting

Spoiler

Dunwall Tower

at all; it seems like a complete chore at this point. For some reason, the game's mechanics are slowly beginning to grind my gears.

On paper, the game is amazing and appeals to me on every level, but there's something that I can't quite put my finger on preventing this from being reflected in reality. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have seen a lot of cool shit - shit that you just can't wait to replicate on your own - and now I'm sitting here somewhat deflated, reloading my save for the 20th time and feeling as if all that cool shit is for show; that I have to go out of my way and parody the very essence of the narrative/feel/whatever-have-you to keep things interesting.

I love being a good assassin in video games, but to me, more often than not, it seems that being a good assassin in Dishonored consists of Blinking interspersed with Blink assassinations; and hey, that's cool and all, but when I could be freezing bullets mid-flight and whooshing rockets back at stilt men, I start to yearn.

Why don't I just do all of that, you ask? Well, it's as if there's a little man inside of me screaming, "HAVE SOME FUCKING FUN!", to which I can't help rebut with, "this is ostensibly a stealth game; there is fun to be had in sneaking about as an assassin".

It's that rebuttal that doesn't always sit right with me, I guess. Do the game's stealth-minded mechanics have enough substance to hold their own in isolation? Is it clever or detrimentally antithetical that Arkane have masterfully crafted systems that allow me to have fun, but only whilst more or less laughing in the face of espionage, planning and tact?

I dunno. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm torn on how to play this game. It's a catch-22. I stealth'd DX:HR and I never ran into this sort of a wall, but then again, I didn't have the options that I have with Dishonored; I didn't have this creative freedom that is simultaneously liberating and crippling.

 

[Dyni Crippler]

I dunno. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm torn on how to play this game. It's a catch-22. I stealth'd DX:HR and I never ran into this sort of a wall, but then again, I didn't have the options that I have with Dishonored; I didn't have this creative freedom that is simultaneously liberating and crippling.

You should just play as you want. That's the point of the game.

 

[aeolist]

Curious about a couple things for my second playthrough:

Spoiler

Do Weepers count against the Ghost achievement?

Also can you possess Tallboys?

 

[Remachinate]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't feel Blink ruins or trivializes the intricacy of the level design so much as it helps to reveal it, and offers the player a unique way of navigating those levels. Maybe it becomes more egregious in later levels, as I have not beaten the game yet, but so far I don't feel it really takes away anything that would have been there had Blink not existed. The game puts a heavy premium on exploration, and Blink just encourages you to be experimental in level navigation and thus exploration.

I also don't feel stealth games in general contain much in the way of major difficulty, as I was saying a while back, but tend to rather necessitate great patience on the player's part (which isn't something I mind at all, for the record). Blink in Dishonored essentially speeds the stealth process up and opens up avenues for inventive fun in conjunction with the other abilities you have, the latter of which is why I enjoy it. I really love Thief but I consider it quite a different game - much more of a pure stealth game - and that game also adds difficulty not so much through its core stealth element but by creating additional challenges on top of that as you go up in difficulty level.

The basic difference in Dishonored is that those challenges are largely self-administered by the player. I posted several pages back that I wish the harder difficulties in Dishonored had created different objectives for the player, Thief-style, but it's also not a breaking point for me and I find myself able to make my own fun it in.

I agree with this 100%. I think a lot of what's getting in the way of some people's enjoyment of this game is the comparisons to previous games in an attempt to frame the experience. It has vibes reminiscent of Thief, Deus Ex, Bioshock, and others, but it is trying to do something new, which is what makes it so compelling.

I can see how Blink could be seen as detracting from level design if you expect the game to be a pure stealth-em-up like Thief. But that's not the intent, which should be clear from the fact that Blink is the one power already given to you, and has no mana cost. It's a wonderful mechanic that lets you maneuver and explore in a way just not possible in Dishonored's predecessors.

I consider Dishonored to be an exploration game with stealth mechanics more than a stealth game, where the difficulty is self-imposed by the player. That said, my first playthrough has been Mostly Flesh and Steel/Clean Hands/Ghost, which has been plenty challenging (and why I've only finished 6 missions after around 25 hours), and very enjoyable. It's not a perfect game, but it's a great game, and it owes a lot of that to Blink.

Why don't I just do all of that, you ask? Well, it's as if there's a little man inside of me screaming, "HAVE SOME FUCKING FUN!", to which I can't help rebut with, "this is ostensibly a stealth game; there is fun to be had in sneaking about as an assassin".

This is the mistaken framing I'm talking about. The powers are there to be used. If you play stealthily, it has to be because the achievement of overcoming the self-imposed handicap is where you're finding your fun.

 

[aeolist]

Going full stealth non-lethal in your first playthrough seems like a huge mistake to me. That's something you should save for your second or third time through.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Wow the ending was such a let down.

it was def anti-climatic but it could've been worse. Would've liked to see

Spoiler

the coronation ceremony or something awesome like that

 

[Hawkian]

Going full stealth non-lethal in your first playthrough seems like a huge mistake to me. That's something you should save for your second or third time through.

That's what I'm doing. I haven't loaded a save. I try to go unseen, and when I'm caught I make the best of it: attempt escape, then failing that I fight to kill, then failing that I die. I'll occasionally take out a worthy target lethally as well. My second playthough I think I'll be strictly nonlethal.

 

[mickcenary]

This is the mistaken framing I'm talking about. The powers are there to be used. If you play stealthily, it has to be because the achievement of overcoming the self-imposed handicap is where you're finding your fun.

I most certainly agree with you; it's just something I'm struggling with. I just really don't like this level thus far. What's the general consensus on it?

 

[Remachinate]

Going full stealth non-lethal in your first playthrough seems like a huge mistake to me. That's something you should save for your second or third time through.

For most people, I'd agree. But I'm compulsive about playing as hardcore as the game will let me, which means playing with these handicaps without the benefit of knowing the mission layouts. For me, it's not getting in the way of enjoying the exploration, and I'm still very much looking forward to a Rambo playthrough where I get to play with all the toys.

I haven't loaded a save. I try to go unseen, and when I'm caught I make the best of it: attempt escape, then failing that I fight to kill, then failing that I die.

This is my plan for the second playthrough, with the masochistic twist of restarting the mission if I die.

 

[spindoctor]

Going full stealth non-lethal in your first playthrough seems like a huge mistake to me. That's something you should save for your second or third time through.

Absolutely. If there was one piece of advice I'd give anyone starting Dishonored, this would be it. Limiting yourself to a single strategy right at the beginning of a game that allows for multiple styles of play is a disservice to the first time experience.

 

[protonion]

Finished it minutes ago.

I give it 7/10. It's a good game but those early reviews overhyped it for me.

Two are my main issues.

-Bad AI. AI is the alpha and omega of stealth games. They failed at this. What's weird is that AI is better when in combat...

-The mission stats screen/trophies/chaos/two endings. Just see the posts here with torn gamers on how to play the game. Cut this shit developers. Just have the game react to my style. Npc comments or difficulty adjustments are enough. Study Deus Ex people. It's still king for a reason.

On the other hand

-nice world and atmosphere
-a lot of fun tools to use
-good level design
-great variety without overwhelming the player

I'll be there for their next game.

 

[Rickenslacker]

Absolutely. If there was one piece of advice I'd give anyone starting Dishonored, this would be it. Limiting yourself to a single strategy right at the beginning of a game that allows for multiple styles of play is a disservice to the first time experience.

As someone who actually is going full stealth on first playthrough I disagree. I mean sure I could go do it on a second playthrough when I've hacked and slashed my way through the first and gained knowledge of the missions, but with my experiences going in blind and doing stealth is far more interesting and only possible once.

Definitely a slow burn for me though.

 

[Hawkian]

Aren't there more than two endings?

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Aren't there more than two endings?

far as I know its:
low chaos -

Spoiler

Emily the Wise

high chaos-

Spoiler

Emily the Despot

 

[Deleted member 102362]

Going full stealth non-lethal in your first playthrough seems like a huge mistake to me. That's something you should save for your second or third time through.

I completely disagree. Full-stealth non-lethal is always how I play games that give me the option to do so, and it's the playstyle I personally enjoy the most.

 

[spindoctor]

As someone who actually is going full stealth on first playthrough I disagree. I mean sure I could go do it on a second playthrough when I've hacked and slashed my way through the first and gained knowledge of the missions, but with my experiences going in blind and doing stealth is far more interesting and only possible once.

Definitely a slow burn for me though.

It's important to make a distinction between stealth and a non lethal play style. Playing in stealth is fine... it's not like you have to walk down the middle of the road for a violent playthrough. It's the non lethal part that I don't recommend for the first time.

It's not like non lethal stealth is challenging in this game, especially not with quicksaves. Whenever you approach any area, there are multiple ways you can deal with the obstacles and enemies on your way. If however you are beholden to a single style of playing the game, your only options are to sneak past or knock out enemies with your hands/darts. Compare this with the multitude of options you have if you don't have issues with killing people... all your weapons, all your supernatural abilities and how they interact with each other and the environment. There are some really interesting and cool ways to solve the problems that the game throws in front of you if you're not forcing yourself to avoid combat.

One of the best things about the game is how it is designed to let you to approach it in different ways. I just don't think it's advisable to limit yourself to one way of playing it before you even start the game and sticking with that single playstyle right to the end.

 

[Dyni Crippler]

Finished it minutes ago.

I give it 7/10. It's a good game but those early reviews overhyped it for me.

Two are my main issues.

-Bad AI. AI is the alpha and omega of stealth games. They failed at this. What's weird is that AI is better when in combat...

-The mission stats screen/trophies/chaos/two endings. Just see the posts here with torn gamers on how to play the game. Cut this shit developers. Just have the game react to my style. Npc comments or difficulty adjustments are enough. Study Deus Ex people. It's still king for a reason.

On the other hand

-nice world and atmosphere
-a lot of fun tools to use
-good level design
-great variety without overwhelming the player

I'll be there for their next game.

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with the AI? I mean, it's bad, sure, but it's not worse than a random Hitman. Never gave me problems, and they actually change their routines when something's off.
I know I look like I want to defend the game on every single aspect, but I'm serious.

 

[Dennis]

The Stop Time power aka the cheat button.

Ridiculously overpowered.

 

[Almighty]

Well finished my first play through as a homicidal maniac that left piles of corpses in his wake. It was pretty fun and I am glad I went with that style first. Being free to mess around with some of the powers was pretty fun. I will be using it as a baseline to compare to the stealth play through I am about to start. I think I might even go full opposite of my first play through and go full nonlethal.

Just a quick question before my stealth play through when does the game consider you being spotted or the AI being alerted at? Is it when you get that first little pip pop up or do you have to get all three? Just wondering because I might try for ghost as well.

 

[EatChildren]

I think the main thing to remember with Dishonored, re: stealth, is that it's not trying to completely emulate Thief and other stealth games like Splinter Cell. In those games sneaking is a methodical, introverted experience where you really must pay very, very careful attention to your placement in the game world and how the game world is reacting around you. Dishonored is a lot more flexible and deliberately so. You're supposed to have a full grasp of your borderline broken powers and use these in appropriate scenarios. Stop time, run past guards. Possess, walk guard into secluded area, choke 'em. Sleeping dart the fuck out of everybody.

Sometimes I think to myself "I wish this game had a proper shadows and sound mechanics implemented into sneaking", but it doesn't really need them. It's not Thief. It's not Splinter Cell. It's not trying to be the same kind of game, even though it does borrow a similar feel and some mechanics.

I think this also ties into the combat, which is another important mechanic to remember. Many of your powers double up as effect battle tools as well. Unlike Thief and unlike Splinter Cell you are, end of the day, an assassin. You're armed to the teeth with equipment and magic that makes you an unstoppable killer. And I think that's part of the point, trying to tip toe the line between the temptation of using your killing abilities and simply ghosting through the game.

I could pick apart the game for various balance and design issues, but when I do I try to steer away from the lazy complaints that tend to fall back on "It's not Thief/Deus Ex". It's not really supposed to be.

 

[IOnEI Falcon]

far as I know its:
low chaos -

Spoiler

Emily the Wise

high chaos-

Spoiler

Emily the Despot

Or...

Spoiler

no Emily at all

.

 

[TheOddOne]

Kill Screen went in with their review:

Dishonored is the latest and worst example of the “Swiss Armification” of video games. This design theory holds that the more awesome shit you give a player to do, the more fun they will have. Take all your ideas. Throw them in. Don't make players specialize; don't make players wait or work to unlock the best. Just design an open world and let them loose.

In practice, this is about as exciting as the punch bowl at a Romney family wedding. The vast arsenal of outlandish abilities makes each feel mundane individually. The hero is so powerful that the enemies in his way become annoyances, not challenges.

Defenders of Swiss Armification will no doubt invoke the totemic pleasures of “player choice.” Everyone likes choice, until you're perched on a ledge, trying to choose whether to kill a guard by teleporting 20 feet and slitting his throat in mid-air, or by summoning a throng of rodents to devour his still-living corpse. Who cares?

Creative director Harvey Smith worked on 2000's more sensibly variegated Deus Ex, which informs Dishonored's fluid mix of stealth and action. Unfortunately, it also step-parents the game's single worst idea: a vague, trend-hopping moral binary that distinguishes between “lethal” and “non-lethal” methods of success. Despite a plot worthy of Charles Bronson (1. You're the empress' bodyguard 2. The empress is killed; you're framed 3. Revenge), Dishonored attempts to be ambivalent about murder, threatening players with dire consequences like “a darker ending” and “more rats.”

This system might have more heft if it was supported by even a shred of context. Instead, the player is simply set loose in Dunwall, a preposterous, plague-ridden steampunk confection that mixes Victorian Britain with mid-20th-century fascism and adds whale oil. Dialogue is mostly limited to “go here, kill him.” Players are expected to flesh out the world for themselves by reading reams of discoverable literature, which is hackneyed when not boring and vice versa.

Credit to the art directors at Arkane Studios, who create a magnificent, grimy dystopia that looks as if it's been painted in gouache. Research on location in London and Edinburgh results in tortured, old-world architecture in the grips of an imaginary Industrial Revolution. The game's visual Britishness is everywhere; according to Eurogamer, the developers had an in-house anatomy expert “to ensure that the morphology of the game's faces” was a faithful representation of Albion the Fair. The main quest hub is a pub: “The Hound Pits.”

This effect is instantly torpedoed by the game's first line of dialogue; characters in Dishonored speak with American accents. The mistake is compounded by the criminal misuse of a spectacular voice cast. This is a game that manages to make Susan Sarandon, Michael Madsen, Lena Heady, John Slattery, Carrie Fisher, and Brad Dourif sound boring and forgettable.

No one pronounces the main character's name – Corvo – with any conviction; Slattery sounds like he's ordering an unfamiliar Italian red. Billy Lush is half-asleep as “The Outsider,” Corvo's severely undercharacterized supernatural sidekick. Worst of all is the decision to cast Brad Dourif as Pierro Joplin, the obligatory “buy more bullets” shopkeeper. By the eighth time you hear an actor of Dourif's quality say the equivalent of “what can I do for you, Corvo,” you'll want to throw the game disc out the window.

Joplin is the designer of Dishonored's distinctive mechanical skull mask, an object which neatly sums up the game's essential flaw. When he first hands it over, Joplin explains that that because Corvo is a wanted criminal, he needs to wear a mask so that the citizens of Dunwall can't recognize him.

Of course, Corvo could wear a bandana. Or grow a beard. Instead, he must don a supremely uncomfortable-looking metal mask. And, as it turns out, there are no citizens! Only anonymous guards, thugs, and assassins that Corvo spends his time a. hiding from and b. murdering (or, c. putting in sleeper holds).

So why does he wear the mask? Because it looks awesome on the front of the box. Everything in the game, from the overstuffed ability wheel to the wasted voice cast to the telegraphed twist to the cliched final climb up a tower feels like another ingredient haphazardly tossed into the roiling stew of “this will be awesome!” with no thought to whether the tates will complement one another. Dishonored has “Weepers,” barely explained plague victims that act like zombies. Zombies are awesome still, right? Can we make Corvo possess fish? Awesome! How about, when he slows down time, he attaches booby traps to people! More decapitations? Why not? What if, when Corvo...

Sorry for copying all of the article, but it was intresting coming from them.

 

[EatChildren]

Kill Screen went in with their review:

Sorry for copying all of the article, but it was intresting coming from them.

You know, everybody is entitled to an opinion, subjective taste and all that, passionately, even if I disagree. But man does it grind my gears when reviewers start throwing around falsities as part of their whine. Take this for instance:

And, as it turns out, there are no citizens! Only anonymous guards, thugs, and assassins that Corvo spends his time a. hiding from and b. murdering (or, c. putting in sleeper holds).

Except there are several citizens you encounter throughout the game. Including an entire mission full of citizens.

Like, okay, you wanted more interaction. Or you thought the mask idea was stupid. Cool, whatever. But this reasoning is either evidence of someone who didn't play the game, didn't pay attention, or is simply lying to buff their complaints.