Suskie's Dishonored review

A good review. I have had Dishonored recommended to me. Honestly, one of the things I liked about it was the silent protaganist. It's extreme, but I'm looking for any way now to stop people who can't write from writing. I've seen too many video games now where the game is completely overpowered by the "video" aspect. I accept that in cases where that's the entire point (like Journey, or Heavy Rain—both of which I thought did it well besides, or at least in an interesting fashion) but I've grown pretty tired of the cutscene in general at this point.

Anyway, after reading your review I see it's an entirely different kind of game than I thought it was, so my positive silent protaganist argument sort've bites the dust. I'll probably keep holding out for a new game until Mass Effect comes out, though.

Yeah, the morality stuff is also getting old in games. Usually because it's not done with enough foresight or critical detail.

I haven't read this review yet, because I plan to write my own reveiw and I want to go in fresh, but I couldn't help but notice the comments and I have to say: I'm slicing and dicing. Like... everyone. If someone comes across my path and means me harm, that head is coming off at the neck. Arms will leave shoulder sockets and rats will feast. I'm not a stealth player, and going through the whole game all stealthy-like is not in the cards, not for me.

I should note that I don't think silent protagonists are a lost cause at all, as I've been bigging up the Half-Life series as the poster boy of good interactive storytelling for a while now (though recently I think Spec Ops: The Line may have usurped it in that regard). But at no point in those games did everyone turn to Gordon and say, "Obviously you're responsible for the alien invasion, you traitor!" No plot points in the Half-Life series were made possible only by the main character's inability to speak. It's an inherently ridiculous concept to begin with, and the question of whether or not it can be spun into something believable is the difference between good writing and bad writing.

The first Dead Space is another good example of this being done poorly. Isaac is just a faceless avatar who takes order from his commander and does what's required of him in a tense scenario; fine. But then suddenly at the end of the game he has to start expressing emotion, and it looks unbelievably silly.

Thanks for reading, by the way! Except you, Jason. You buffoon.

It almost sounds like Dishonored was supposed to be satire on the genre but... isn't.

I've been looking forward to the game since E3 and finally got around to pulling myself away from RE6 Mercenaries to play a little over half the main campaign. Easily one of the best games this year. It feels like Human Revolution meets Bioshock meets Half-Life 2. Every mission is like a playground to mess around in. The art direction is great.

Read the review. Can't really comment on the morality aspects yet, but I agree on at times wonky physics. It's more reliable for example to just teleport to the ground and slit someone's throat than trying to fall on top of them precisely enough to do the assassination drop or whatever it's called. Probably my biggest complaint about the game so far is Dark Vision kinda makes the stealth approach a bit too easy (especially since you can pretty much use it infinitely).