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Cast Down The Heretic

Dishonored review by Alyssa

Written on Feb 18, 13 10:42 pm | PC Playstation 3 XBOX 360 Neoseeker Related Gaming Related 0 comments | Like +my favs

Round 70 of the Articles Of Excellence ends with Alyssa delivering what would appear to be a dishonorable review of the smash hit, Dishonored. She describes it as a game that lacks a good and compelling narrative with some haphazard stealth elements in what is primarily a stealth game and graphics uglier than Quasimodo. There is some silver lining - it is at least fun to kill people with Corvo's special powers, although when a game advertises itself as something, wouldn't you theoretically want to get that right? That's what made Alyssa not like the game as much as the critics did.

Dishonored Score: 6.5/10
Genre: Stealth
With no real incentive to sneak around outside of some forced moral elements, it's more appealing to play as Corvo the powerful sorcerer, master of the universe, and son of god.

quote Alyssa
Despite what any paid reviewer will tell you, the stealth genre is practically dead. Most of the old guard have degraded into action games with maybe the odd stealth segment or some minor stealth influence – the biggest offender being Splinter Cell: Conviction. Ugh. That's not to mention the fact that Metal Gear Solid 4 was more concerned with boring you to death with 30 minute cutscenes than actual stealth gameplay. Worst yet, I'll probably be collecting social security checks by the time Thief 4 comes out. But there's always hope. Meet Dishonored, a product by Arkane Studios... who brought to you Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic (which is a pretty good RPG if you ask me). But whilst being marketed as a stealth game, you can play this as either that or an action game, and unfortunately, the action route is significantly better. Not that the stealth route is bad because it's still playable, but playing it like an action game is undoubtably a million times better.

One thing I didn't like is the story. Corvo is the royal protector of the empress of Dunwell. But after he returns from a trip elsewhere to find out a way to stop a plague that's killed half of Dunwell, he finds out that the empress had been assassinated and her daughter got kidnapped – and to top it all off. he got framed for it. From there, he has to take revenge on them while rescuing her kidnapped daughter. The story's biggest strength is its lore. As you explore around the city, you'll find various sidequests, books, journal pages, notes and audio files laying about that will tell you more about the background of where you are and what situation you're in. However, when it comes to the present and future, it's not quite there. Revenge is often a good beginning point for something bigger, but Dishonored sticks with it throughout the entire game with maybe a twist towards the end. Said twist is... pretty bland as the characterization beforehand is virtually non-existent and the delivery felt like it was written on toilet paper after the writer ate McDonald's.