Review: Dishonored

I think I've finally figured out why I have such a high standard for sneaking games.  If done well, they are my absolute favorite genre, but it's very easy to make them drive me insane.  Sneaking games let me indulge my meticulous side, but if the guards' don't walk in patterns or my sneaky character walks into an ambush during a cutscene or it isn't clear why I got spotted, I will inevitably make the game infinitely harder on myself by being determined to still knock out everyone using stealth and then I will resent the game for not letting me play it right.  Fortunately, Dishonored does no such thing.

The men and women of Arkane Studios have done a wonderful job of truly letting the player decide their own playstyle and having it work throughout the entire game.  There are never any zombies that always spot you no matter how sneaky you are.  Cutscenes never place you somewhere you wouldn't have gone yourself.  There are always at least three or four paths to your destination (unless it takes you into another area, these are generally funneled into one or two entrances).  If you want to fight your way through, you can.  If you want to sneak past everyone on the ledges, go for it.  If you want (or need) to go through every avenue, then you can.

The choices you make can also affect the story, but sadly, this isn't as rewarding as the gameplay itself.  Essentially if you're not playing the sneaky, nonlethal game, you are going to make the game harder on yourself later on.  So although the game lets you play how you want, it definitely rewards one playstyle over all the others.  On the one hand, this is a good message.  Killing is bad.  It will make your life harder.  But from a gameplay perspective, this is kind of harsh for players who want to cut a swath through the city of Dunwall.

Another interesting aspect they added is that if you knock out a guard and then they get killed, it counts as you killing them.  So you have to be very careful when placing knocked out bodies lest other guards spot them, a rat swarm eats them, or they are lying in an inch or two of water (apparently the water won't wake them up and instead they drown).  This not only added some strategy to my playthrough, but it also created this game's OCD moments where I'd try to put the guys somewhere safe, but also somewhere where it would be funny to think of their reaction when they wake up.  So one guy went on the Lord Regent's bed (ruler of the entire city) along with one of his maids - hope he wakes up before getting caught!  Other guys would go in piles on top of each other or as close to sitting on chairs as I could make them.

If you enjoy sneaking games in the least, then I highly recommend this one.  It's the first (in my memory) to let you be completely sneaky from the beginning of the game to the very end of the game.  It's also pretty rare for a game where you're an assassin to let you play through the entire game without killing anyone, but this one manages it.