An open ended Assassinate-em-up allowing you to kill (or not kill) any way you see fit in the form of Dishonored from Bethesda

Going into thisar game was one that managed to tempt me into getting it in the Steam Christmas sale of 2013. I was told by a few others who has played it that it was short and fun so I decided to give it a try. These days as time becomes a scarcer commodity, I find myself preferring the shorter, fat-free games that do not have much padding to them and are just all pure enjoyment. This may well be why 17 out of 20 of the games remaining on my current backlog are very lengthy RPGs....

Going into this game, I knew that one could take either a stealth approach or a murder approach and which one you did would affect the ending of the game. Going through carefully and not killing people unless necessary would net you a good ending but bad game finale whereas murdering everyone would give you a bad ending but better finale. Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually prefer to murder everyone I can clap my eyes on, so this was the route that I went for.

The basic plot is one of revenge wherein within you play a royal bodyguard called Corvo who within the first 4 minutes is framed for the murder of those that he is guarding and is therefore Dishonored. So naturally, you drum up some allies and go about extracting revenge on those that wronged you. But naturally, things are never that simple and murderous hilarity ensues.

Each main chapter of the game is focused around killing one main figure head in the plot against you. You must gain entry to where your target is by whatever means you see fit and then do the deed. There are any number of ways that you can move your way through areas and to your objectives from shooting and swordplay, knocking people out, hiding in the shadows, possessing enemies and animals or just setting up accidents. You can acquire a number of magic like skills to help you on your way such as the ability to slow time, teleporting, possession, adrenaline fueled instant kills and many more. Once again, preferring the killing route, I took as many powers that would allow me to kill more enemies harder, better, faster, stronger and spent the majority of the game sprinting full speed into battle with every enemy I could see blasting and cutting open every enemy I could clap my eyes on in a slow motion rage and adrenaline fueled rage whirlwind of murder, lead and steel. This of course was immense fun but actually lead to me accidentaly killing my main target on more than one occasion when they would rush in along with a pile of other normal goons due to the chaos and noise and I would shoot them in the face before knowing who they were. I thought this was a nice change of pace from the likes of games such as Assassin's Creed where your main target was always sealed away somewhere that you had to get into. It was interesting to see the "boss" come to you to be killed for once.

You can choose from a wide variety of equipment that can be both augmented and upgraded as you go through. You always have your basic sword in one hand and a gun of some kind in the other if you so desire. While the sword itself can not be upgraded your skill with it can. I thought the swordplay was one of the better aspects of the combat even if the enemies sometimes seemed to have an unfair advantage in terms of stun recover and blocking abilities compared to your character. You can also carry a variety of firearms, explosives and non lethal projectile weapons for your other hand which can be upgraded both in performance and your ability to use it.

The art design in Dishonored is quite unique and interesting and follows a semi realistic/semi cel shaded style. The architecture, character and equipment design follows a sort of pseudo industrial/steampunk (don't like to use that word, but it fit) look which makes it feel what Bioshock could have been like had it been set in Britan in the 1940s. Everything looks crude yet artistically engineered at the same time and is genuinely interesting to look around and gawk at.

As mentioned before, I went through the game just killing everything, so that meant that my run through was quite short (under 6 hours). But if you were to take the more stealthy route, it would take you a lot longer. As is standard with all new games now, there are also dozens and dozens of hidden mcguffins and collectible whachamagiggers that don't really do much over than give achievements and boost powers higher than you need them to be so I didn't really go too far out of my way to get many of these.

Dishonored provides lots of rampaging action and sneaky stealth and while it was enjoyable for what it is, nothing really seemed too exceptional about it in my opinion. It was fun while it lasted, but it seems unlikely to provide any lasting memories or desire to return to it for another play through. A little underwhelming overall considering the hype and build up for it.