by OL » Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:33 pm
Dishonored.
It's already been widely-publicized how much freedom the gameplay affords you in accomplishing your goals. And it's already been said how incredibly deep and well-thought-out the history, mythology, and lore for it is, elaborated on through countless books, notes, letters, and diary entries throughout the game.
Indeed, it deserves praise for both of these things. It's a remarkable game overall.
One thing that I hadn't really heard anything about prior to playing it, though, is the extreme sense of melancholy it presents. On first inspection, it may appear to be an uber-stylish supernatural stealth-actioner, and as such you might go into it expecting a kind of "Hollywood blockbuster" popcorn feel to it -- the kind of thing most games seem to aim for these days -- but the truth is completely opposite. Sure, you can play it as a flashy action game, considering all the freedom you're afforded to do things as you please, but the setting, characters, and overall tone are pretty damn depressing. There's rarely any sense of hope floating in the air, even when speaking to your allies in the inbetween-levels hub area. Most of the characters are presented with their worst traits front-and-center, rather than going out of their way to be likable. One of the most interesting items in the game is a mechanical heart that you can aim at people to hear secrets and extra information, and this makes things seem even bleaker than they were to begin with. The heart almost never tells you anything nice about people. It's usually all about how impure everyone is. And even when it tells you something redeeming about a person, it's usually somewhere along the lines of "She goes hungry so her children can eat," or something like that. It's all incredibly downbeat.
Not to mention that the game takes place while a deadly plague is afflicting the city, which leads to even more downer material. One level in particular has you coming upon a dumping site for plague-ridden corpses, and you find a couple of survivors crawling out of all that horribleness, lamenting their situation and wondering if they'll ever see their families again. It's not exactly the lightest of material. And even though the game never does anything unnecessarily exploitative with its subject matter, the atmosphere still remains incredibly thick with sadness everywhere you go.
As one more example, there's even a scene where you stumble upon one of the characters spying through a keyhole on a woman bathing. I think most games would handle this as something funny and comical, but not so here. The guy is embarrassed and doesn't know what to say, and the whole situation makes you view him with pity, rather than providing a giggle.
While some of this might make it sound like a bad thing, it actually makes me appreciate the game even more. The game has been criticized for having a "predictable" story with an abrupt ending. And while, to an extent, that absolutely is true, I think the atmosphere makes up for anything like that, because it's just so damn effective. Yeah, I saw the "twists" coming, and yeah, the ending was a little quick for my tastes. But in my eyes little of that matters since I think the real effort was put into producing a unique, downbeat tone. And in that regard it's absolutely brilliant.
I've only finished the main game at the moment (which I plan to eventually replay, since I chose to go non-lethal for my first playthrough), and still have the DLC packs to tackle, which pretty much amount to an entire second game. Taking a break now to play a couple other things first.
I do have to say that the initial complaints from people about how short Dishonored is are ridiculous. There are 9 levels, and each took me around an hour to two hours to beat, playing things stealthy (as the game is mainly intended, considering the influence it takes from Thief). I felt completely satisfied by the end of it. I don't see at all how this game isn't long enough for people.
OL has received a thanks from: Axm
