Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

One of the greatest gifts a game developer can give a player is choice. Choice gives dimension to the game world, making it more real as it seemingly bends and warps according to the player's actions. Choice is the difference between living in a world and just reading about it. Some games are entirely built around choice, like RPG's and simulators, while others are completely devoid of choice by design, like rail shooters and fighting games. Arkane Studios' Dishonored is a game that is built around a platform of stealth adventure with a linear story, yet gives you just enough choice to make the game world a living, breathing entity.

Dishonored's setting of the city of Dunwall, an obvious but wonderful fictional version of London during the Industrial Age. The city is gorgeous but somewhat static with its empty streets and a few repeating textures. The banality of the large city maps is quickly forgiven not only by the story, which calls a consistent curfew keeping most citizens indoors, but also by the player's actions. Each new story segment throws you onto a huge city map with mazes of aging buildings and littered streets, which then lead to large building interiors with long, tall hallways and hidden rooms. These areas all become enormous playgrounds for sneaking, theft, and a myriad of assassinations or other mayhem. How hard or how soft you play is entirely up to you, and you can cleave your way across a map, leaving piles of bodies behind, or manage through the entire game without killing a soul, with the layout of the maps accommodating for either style with plenty of hiding places and vantage points. Either decision has effects not only as you proceed across the map, but also in the overall tone of the story as it continues, making it darker and more foreboding as violence escalates. Items to steal and side missions that can make the main mission more enjoyable or complicated are hidden in dark corners and hours can be spent just exploring and sneaking around guards before continuing on with the main story.

And what a story it is! Betrayal, sabotage, intrigue, kidnapping, plague, Weepers (zombies), a peeping tom incident, what more could you want? As the antagonist, Corvo, you're thrown into a power struggle and tasked with neutralizing certain targets to give control to the proper people, part of which may involve manipulating a plague that turns people into the walking dead. All this takes place while trying to figure out why you got into this situation, why was your child friend Emily kidnapped, and just how much of a monster do you want to become with your ability to sneak and kill. Dishonored takes you through wonderful cramped sewers and alleys, sneaking around decorated houses and halls, dodging observant guards, swarms of carnivorous rats and tripwire traps. By far the best mission was moving freely through a dazzling costume party, eavesdropping in on conversations and trying to narrow down a moving target. My stalking and planning were frequently interrupted by stopping to view the amazing costumes and interior designs and listening to the upper-classmen converse with a different perspective on details in the story.

The first person view is almost unique to some stealth games, as opposed to Thief and (the original) Assassin's Creed. The camera is more restricted and you're forced to turn around more and watch your corners rather than just manipulating the view. This can make certain parts of the game almost claustrophobic and definitely causes the pulse to pound. Bouncing back and forth between the shelves of a tall warehouse was a blast as I avoided roving guards, and slipping off the edge of a rooftop literally made my stomach drop as I plummeted below. My favorite use of the camera is during certain scripted moments when Corvo interacts with Emily. The sense of attachment he has for her is clearly displayed without Corvo uttering a word as he kisses her cheek or picks her up for a hug.

Early in the game you're granted magical powers to develop as you proceed, and teleportation, time delay, and even possession are just a few in your arsenal. All of these are powerful in your usage but not at all overwhelming to make the game too easy. These powers can be used ad nauseum or completely ignored for a variety of physical weapons like sword, crossbow with different arrows, and razor traps. The animation for each of these actions is wonderful, but the one I find most fun is choking people out. The first person perspective is really put to work as the target struggles briefly, then passes out. With that and the fluid swordplay, I actually felt like I was fighting at times. Using these abilities in combinations was certainly handy when, to maintain a stealthy status, I had to subdue two targets simultaneously. I slowed time, nailed each target with a sleeping dart, then teleported from the ceiling, grabbed a body, teleported back to my hiding spot, and repeated. I got both unconscious bodies out of the room before the guards, who entered the room almost immediately, suspected anything. It took a few tries to get the timing right but I knew what I wanted to do, how I wanted it done, and in the end was able to make it happen. I didn't have to consult a walkthrough on YouTube or give up for an alternative route. I could go back to that same area and have at least five other options for execution, granting almost infinite gameplay despite the linear storyline.

The graphics themselves have a wonderful hand painted feel to them. The characters have exaggerated features, like walking caricatures, and the costumes are vibrant and beautiful. Some of the environmental textures close up are very blocky on the PS3, but the rest are otherwise quite smooth. The game makes good use of colors in the dreary setting and keeps it from being too bland. I can't think of a single stutter in the game's performance or so much as a bugged NPC. At one point I climbed the highest point of a bridge and could see for miles under a gorgeous sky, all without a jitter on the screen. For some complicated graphics the game ran like silk.

My largest complaint for the game is the lack of a progress meter as you go. At the end of the game you receive a rating on being spotted, kills made, etc. and maintaining a zero body count can lead to a possible reward at the end of the game. The first mission took over an hour for me to complete, and when I got to the end I had a kill on my counter, yet I recalled killing no one. I read online that when you leave an unconscious body on the ground, sometimes it is eaten by rats (in a wonderfully horrible animation) and that counts as a kill. There is no way of knowing this has happened until the end of the map. I have to start all over from the beginning to complete without a single kill, and that is very tedious and disappointing. Still, it's a minor complaint compared to the hours of fun I had playing the game the way I wanted to play it. Truly, I will not mind playing that mission again and again. Dishonored is a blast to play.

One thing before I wrap this: I keep hearing the genre "steampunk" being thrown around in the description of this game, even by some of the developers. In my opinion, Dishonored is NOT steampunk. Go play Troika's masterpiece Arcanum for 10 hours, then come back to Dishonored and you'll see what I mean. Dishonored is clearly set after the Victorian era and is more "dieselpunk" than anything, with the costume design, machines running on electricity and whale oil (a staple in the game) and the use of magic which overrides much of the mechanical wonders in the game. Just because Corvo has a couple of gears in his mask and a folding crossbow doesn't make the game steampunk. This has no bearing on the game but it just bugs me how it was marketed. The iconic "Tallboys" don't show up until the late missions in the game, nor do they have much impact in the gameplay; yet another bad marketing angle.

Despite some minor cosmetic issues, Dishonored is brilliant. It's a new perspective on the stealth genre that doesn't have to be played as stealth at all. How's that for choice? It can be played as a stealth game, an action game, or a combination of both. People playing the game as a slice-and-dice blood fest are complaining that the story is too short. That's their problem. For me the story is taking forever as I creep about, hide in shadows, and watch the guards as they pace floors or pause to look out windows. I can wait until they're not looking before moving around them, choke each one individually and clear the area quietly, or slaughter them and risk sounding the alarm. The choice is mine, and I can't wait to see what choices Arkane has for Corvo and me in the future.