Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Disappointing"

Story: The Story takes place in a Industrial Steampunk city known as Dunwall. Dunwall is currently being over run by a deadly rat plague and has already claimed millions of lives in the city. Players assume the role of Corvo Attano, a body guard for the Empress of the city. Shortly after his arrival the Empress is killed and her daughter is kidnapped by a mysterious group of assassins. Corvo is then blamed for these actions and is sentenced to death. After escaping from prison he meets with a group of people who have the same goal as him, take down those responsible for the murder. Eventually Corvo is contacted by a mysterious supernatural entity known as The Outsider. He gives Corvo his supernatural powers to help him in his quest to insight revenge or justice on those that well... dishonored him (pun intended). Who is The Outsider, Why was the empress murdered, why did the outsider give you these powers? All these questions and more will NOT be answered in this game. The story doesn't really answer any of the questions that I had at least. Nothing is explained and a lot left me scratching my head on a number of different questions. The characters are also nothing special and I didn't really feel connected to them because they are not all that interesting and are given little back story. I am also not a huge fan of Corvo not having a voice because you can't connect with him at all and that should be key with most video games, being able to connect with the characters. There is also a twist half way through the story, but honestly I saw it coming from a mile away. Now thats not to say that the story is awful, the voice acting is very well done for the most part, the atmosphere is very well done and is probably the best part of the story. You can also find books and audio logs that give more back story to many different aspects of the story. However the actual story is very straight forward and nothing really special. A good atmosphere is the only real thing that makes this story slightly better than average.

Graphics: While the graphics are mostly great, they do have their bads. First the good. The style of semi cell shaded, semi realistic looks great, the design of the game looks very different from most games on the market. Like before the voice acting is great and the rest of the sound is well done too. The effects like your powers and the fire all look pretty nice. The blood looks really nice and this game can look pretty brutal at times. The animations are all nice and smooth and the raw power is pretty good. The bad is really that the character models don't look all that great at times, I know its cell shaded, but they could look better. The environments tend to be the same, abandoned sewers and streets with one really nice place in the distance to infiltrate. Finally there are some minor glitches like clipping. Aside from the environments looking all the same, which is a big problem, the game looks great for the most part.

Gameplay: Well this section can really make of break this game. All the previews point to this being the most sought after part. Can Dishonored pull through? Well mostly... The best part of this game by far is the level design. There are a number of different ways to tackle a situation. You can go in guns blazing killing everything insight, sneak in through the back door. Posses a guard and slip through their ranks, create a distraction to avert the guard's atteniton, do a favor for a NPC. There are a number of different ways to tackle each problem, and this offers a good amount of replay ability if you want. Hows the actual gameplay? Well pretty good for the most part. The controls work well and are responsive. Now there are a few weapons and a handful of powers at your disposal. Your first weapon is a sword which can be used to preform stealth kills (lethal) or to fight off enemies if your in a tight spot. Then you have two fire arms, a mini crossbow, and a pistol. Both have their ups and downs, like the pistol does more damage but the crossbow is quitter. Both have different ammo types and can be used in a number of different ways. then you have your powers, some of which are: being able to slow down time, being able to posses animals and people, teleporting a short distance, being able to see though walls, and a couple of more. Now with all these different things at your hands there are a number of different ways to tackle a situation. Now lets get down to the core gameplay. The sword play is not bad for a first person game (much better than Skyrim) the enemies will do more than just stand there, they will dodge your attacks and attempt to counter you and throw you off balance. The gun play works well too and the game has a lock on system that makes it easier to use. The stealth works well enough, its no Splinter Cell or Assassin's Creed, but it works. Now onto the bad, I will start with the minor problems than go onto the bigger ones. A minor one can be that the AI isn't the best, meaning that sometimes one guy will see you and everyone in the area will know where you are. A bigger problem is the shear lack of variety in the almost everything: enemies, weapons, locations, mission types, and areas to explore. There are only three weapons in the game and only about eight powers to use, all of which can be upgraded but there are nothing special. There are only about a handful of different enemies in the game, There are guards, Tallboys, Weepers, thugs, attack dogs, assassins, packs of rats, and thats pretty much it. The missions really boil down to kill this guy, or dispose of him. Not a whole lot to go by. Now a big thing I was let down by was the lack of exploration in the world. The developers created this really awesome world, but the game is very linear and it doesn't really let you explore a lot. Considering this was done by the same guys that gave us Deus Ex where you could explore cities and interact with the world. In this game you are given mission to mission without any real sandbox elements that I would have liked to have seen. Lastly the game is surprisingly short, I was expecting this game to be a good 15 to 20 hours long, instead it is only about 10 hours at max. You can still do side missions and collect all the collectables to increase the length of the game but I am usually done after my first play through. In a way I may seem like I am bagging on this game, and I am, it is still a great deal of fun, but it could have been a lot better.

Story: 6.5 Other than having a great setting, the story is pretty average with very little explanation.

Graphics: 8 Some great deigns and a great atmosphere cover a lot of its short comings.

Gameplay:8 For every step forward there was one step backward in a number of different aspect of this game.

Enjoyment: 7 Don't get me wrong I did enjoy my time with Dishonored and there is already news of DLC and there is most likely going to be a sequal because of the high sales. But I just wasn't amazed like I though I would. I hope that they do make a sequal and fix a lot of the problems this game had.

Final Score:7.3 (7.5)