dishonored | Leo's Life

It took about 16 hours to finish Dishonored on a “low chaos” setting. If I recall, I only ever had to kill 1 enemy for a sub-quest and a bunch of spitting plants. Every single boss, including the last, has a non-lethal solution. Let’s get to that.

It’s no mass secret that Dishonored is about being betrayed. How often that happens is perhaps a secret but a poorly kept one after 10 minutes of play. You know the outline just not the details. And the details are good.

The final mission, or set really, test your ability to get around without being seen. Where the first missions had you jumping from roofs to avoid people, the last few have you running in the open with massive robots and teleporting ninjas all around. The second last zone is quite taxing.

The final zone has 4 enemies to avoid before the boss. Took a few tries but I got through.

When you reach the boss, you aren’t yet acknowledged so the door is open if you will. I shot sleeping darts, moved on up and opened a door to end the game.

I can tell you that after having subdued the first boss at the start of the game, pulled him across what seemed like 5 miles of corridor and branded his face, this last fight was perplexing.

But then I looked at it from a lore/story perspective, and lacking the want to spoil it, the ending made perfect sense.

I picked up Dishonored during the Steam sale this weekend and I’ve put a few hours into it. Think a combination of Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed and Thief together.

Where in most stealth games there is but a single path, with perhaps a few options along with dozens of reloads, I find that Dishonored doesn’t follow that path. You seem to always have ways to subdue enemies without killing them, even if they see you. You have 2-5 different ways to get to your goal as well. Heck, the goal isn’t even static as most quests give you a kill or don’t kill option depending on actions.

The difference is in the impact of the decisions. Kill everyone and the world turns darker, with more rats and “zombie-like” enemies. Play cleanly and the world gets brighter with less much around. Combat isn’t easy by any means. Some game have enemies queue up to kill you. Dishonored sends 2 guys against you and odds are you’re going to die. I like that mistakes aren’t instant death and that they are survivable but not so much so that I can simply walk around dancing and singing a tune.

From what I can tell, I’m about half-way through. The mini-collection quests along the route (runes, charms, signs and paintings among others) make you hunt down odd passages and explore more than you would think otherwise. If I were to ignore them and simply take the obvious route, I’d probably end up being a worse player with a more complicated experience. It’s odd where a game is able to integrate this side-game without being a complete distraction (*cough*batman*cough*).

I’m having a lot of fun. People should give this game a shot. It hits all the right notes, has a good voice cast, interesting setting and smooth gameplay. Happy hunting.