Dishonored - "stealthy" route.

Dishonored (PC, X360, PS3).

First of all I would like to say that there is lots and lots of good parts in the game, but some of them spoiled
A LOT by relatively small design choices. Regardless of the somewhat low score I'm going to give it,  I AM waiting for an sequel where they'll hopefully fix all those small issues and leave us with pure ... ahh... good stuff. pure good stuff. yeah.
Also note that even if it sounds that way, i'm not really spoiling anything for you. just things from the first 5 minutes into the game.

edit: when this was written i was planning to go for a second playthrough. but never finished it. you'll understand latter why i'm mentioning this, but please consider this as a review of the "Good" route only.


Story 1.5/3, polarization: +0.5, -0,5.
You are Corvo Attano, the personal bodyguard and person most trusted by the empress.
You where sent to an important diplomatic mission in another country by the advice of the royal spymaster.
... wait ...
It sounds fishy doesn't it?
Anyway, you where sent to ask other countries for a cure for a completely new kind of plague that stroke your lands.
... wait ...
it sounds fishy as well doesn't it?
as expected you don't achieve anything in your mission but you do manage return two days earlier then expected. This is told to you by the spymaster before meeting with the empress. Few minutes latter both of you attacked by an teleporting assassins that kill her and knocking you out. You wake up only to be accused (by the spymaster) of killing her and kidnapping her daughter and get thrown to prison to wait for your execution.
... something is suspicious about that guy, right?
Anyway you get some help and escape prison.
End of first, out of nine chapters.

So far so good right? well its kinda gets stuck there.
Lets list a few bad designs by the developers.
Very early in the game you are told by an tutorial message that killing too much people will give you the bad ending of the story. Because rats eat corpses and spread the plague.
That's right, they spoil you the ending by an tutorial message.
Because of this the game gets out of its way to give you non-lethal options to deal with your targets and their lackeys (more of that on the gameplay section).
This theoretically have an large impact on the city (i'll tell you more when i'll see the other option).
But you know where it should have had the largest effect? in the cutscenes. and it doesn't. The game gets out of its way to make natural cutscenes and dialogues so that they can be used both for whatever you killed your targets and spared their lives.
And you know what? it sucks in doing so. It kinda assumes you killed your targets.
I'll give you the bluntest example. (minor spoilers, you probably won't mind)
At some point, you are tasked by a nobleman to kill his own elder brothers to gain their vote in the parliament. He isn't too happy with the idea but he thinks it's for the good of the city and even tells you to go do it quickly before "he'll change his mind".
You can kill them, or you could ::avoiding spoilers:: make sure that they won't be seen again but kept alive.. even if not well.
When you return to the nobleman he tells you how it "had to be done" and how he going to get drunk now. but when you'll go to your room latter, you find a note (with two large gold ingots) where he thanks you warmly for keeping them alive.
... i know that voice acting is expensive but Jesus.. you can't reuse the same scene just by not saying out loud that you killed them!
except for those pitfalls the story is more or less ok. not great like in some games (Darkness 2) and a bit predictable, but isn't truly bad either. the twist was predictable, but at least there was one.

Gameplay 2.5/4, polarization: off the charts.
Think steampunk deus ex.
At your arsenal you'll find tons of interesting gadgets and magic.
But you were told at the very beginning that you'll get the bad ending for killing people, so can't use large chunk of them. (i'll report how fun they are on the 2nd playthrough)
You can't use any of the grenades, guns, arrows, mines nor your offensive magic.
How that for an design flow?
If you want to keep your enemies alive the thing you'll do the most is sneaking on them from behind and choking them till the'll faint (lasts till the end of time) and hide their bodies.
It doesn't mean that you won't use any neat stuff at all.
You get sleeping darts and see-through-walls spell. and you can teleport around and (after saving enough points) stop frigging time!
One of the cool spells you can learn is possession. At first level, you can use it to posses rats, fish and guard-dogs and move them as you see fit. Then pop out in a convenient spot after passing through that mouse hole/river/guarded post.
At the 2nd level you can posses men and make them collect items and press switches.

still it feels that you have an private arsenal with you that you never access.
hell you can't even steampunk-computer-hack stuff, because this will cause them to be very not friendly to your enemies. and somehow this is a bad thing.
As for the stealth, they went back to the old kind of it. You are attacked on sight. No crowd blending like in Assassin's creed. No elegant disguising like in Hitman.
Just don't be seen even if you have to stop friggin time to do it. still fun. but lacking.


Graphics 1/2, polarization: +1
Lets start from the fact that the graphics is updated and pretty. really goes well with the steampunk style.
so why 1/2? you guessed it. design flow.
Remember that see-through-walls spell i mentioned earlier? well.. it is good! really good!
You can't do very well in a stealthy palythrough without keeping it always on.
It shows you both the enemies and all the items and loot right through walls and in the process both saving your life, the life of the enemies you don't want to kill and filling your pockets all in the same time! It even shows you enemies line of sight and how much noise you are currently making.
problem is that means all the game, instead of looking like this
http://tinyurl.com/opnvkqr
http://tinyurl.com/o3t444c

is going to look like this:
http://tinyurl.com/oxzgyyk
http://tinyurl.com/ptl4sar

yup. you won't see the beautiful graphics because you'll be staring at the whole world with yellow X-ray eyes.
The so called (by me :P) Batman-Arkhem-Asylam-Detective-Vision syndrome.
your alternative vision is so good that you will only use it and won't see the real graphics of the game. they did fix it in Arkhem City by nerfing it.
Anyway, got side tracked. the obvious solution will be not use it so much. and that is what i'm going to do when i won't care about their line of sight or how much noise my grenades are making. muhahahaha

Replayability 0/1
edit: couldn't finish the 2nd playthrough. this means bad right?

hmm... sum all the points and you'll get 5/10.. that isn't right. it feels better then that. i'll resort to cheating.
"Better then the sum of its parts": +1.0
"Great potential": +0.6

This gives it final score of 6.6/10. but as i said, 3 major aspects of the score can change really drastically in the noisy playthrough. i'll review them again when i'll finish it.
oh, and after my hard work for the good ending? it was boring.

edit: well.. at least you might enjoy it more if you'll start with the noisy playthrough right of the bet.
final verdict: Dishonored "good" route sucks.