What Did We Play Yesterday?

So, Dishonored.

I would like this game better if it didn't make a point of emphasizing how shitty mcGrimdark everything is as often as possible. The treatment of working class female characters is abysmal, they are experimented on, raped, murdered, and forced to wear dumb maid outfits. There is a scene in which the otherwise decent (?) Piero is caught spying on a woman while she bathes. The scene apparently exists so Korvo can either admonish the peeping tom or dismiss his actions. Piero leaves after this interaction, giving the player the opportunity to ALSO peek through the keyhole if they are so inclined. You have to recruit the guy who is experimenting on women in his lab (though you can feed him to rats during his interrogation).

Charming, right?

Once I ranted about this and got it out of my system I enjoyed the game more.

One of the positives of this game is each target has a nonlethal option, and some of them are significantly more challenging than assassination. The nonlethal options can be cruel. The Pendleton brothers have their tongues cut out and are forced to work in mines until death. Lady Boyle is handed over like chattel.

Ultimately, I feel like Dishonored encourages a chaotic playthrough. Avoiding death as much as possible resulted in a low-chaos final mission that was amazingly anticlimactic. I arrived at the lighthouse to find Admiral Havelock had poisoned the other conspirators. I shot him with a sleeping dart and... that was it. I read enough to know that a high-chaos ending is much more dramatic, with infighting among the conspirators as they barricade themselves in various parts of the lighthouse.

My low-chaos first PT on casual difficulty was challenging, even after I got the hang of the mechanics. I avoided assassinating any targets or killing any civilians, but there were deaths (I could never resist rewiring the Wall of Light to fry my enemies without a trace, if it hadn't vaporized the bodies I wouldn't have done it).

My high-chaos second PT on normal difficulty is a lot easier. Partly because I have a general idea of the maps, so I'm not completely blind, but also because it is so much easier to slit throats and be done with it, especially after acquiring the Shadow Kill perk, which means unaware victims disintegrate on death. A series of careful crossbolt head shots can clear a room, leaving no evidence behind. Most of the time I can't charge into a situation guns-blazing (or in my case, sword-slinging-crossbow-wavin) but being able to lob a few grenades onto a cluster of guards on the street below makes life comparatively easy (and is fun, I'm sorry to say). My original intent was to be as bloodthirsty as possible (sans civilians), but there are a few scenarios where it's easier to be stealthy, so I don't go out of my way to kill people, but I am trying to collect as many runes and bone charms as possible.

I would like to attempt a third low-chaos ghost PT on hard, if I'm still up for it. I think I can manage no kills, but I doubt I can complete every level without being detected. One of the biggest hurdles for a no-kill playthrough is the fact that sleeping darts are capped at 10, whereas other types of ammunition can be upgraded all the way to 30. If I had 30 sleeping darts it would be a breeze.

The game provides non-detectable options for assassination and I have tried to locate these in my second PT. Like the non-lethals methods, hints are offered in ambient dialogue.

Overall, I think the core game is fun, obviously. The play control is good, the mechanics are good, and aesthetics and world are kind of neat. A competent writer could have done something better with this script. I headcanon Korvo as female, which actually works with some of the in-game dialogue because generally Korvo wears a mask. There's something weirdly romantic about fem!Korvo scaling the rooftops, her lover's magically-preserved still-beating heart strapped to her chest, occasionally taking the heart out to listen to the Empress whisper about the environs

I was ranting about Dishonored (don't worry, you'll get to hear all about it) and P joked that I should have a blog called Casual Difficulty Gamer and post walkthroughs like:

• Sneak up on Guard
• Accidentally hit wrong button and make a sound, drawing the guard's attention
• Forget which button is attack

Anyway we tossed it back and forth and I ended up with Shitty Casual Gamer, Hates Games. Seems appropriate. I'm saving my Dishonored rant for when I finish the game, and it actually has nothing to do with the difficulty level, though I admit I will probably have to restart the Dunwall Tower mission due to sheer fuckuperry. After dying repeatedly, and finally "sneaking" into the tower itself, I finally decided fuggit and started shooting everyone in the face, and now I'm out of ammo (all kinds) so... yes. As I said. I'm a shitty casual gamer who hates games.

I have no idea why I started this two days before Trespasser comes out, BUT I DID. Buzz about Dishonored 2 put it on my radar because I was interested in Emily on sight.

I am extremely terrible at this game (hello casual setting, my old friend). I had no idea how reliant I'd become on HUD maps (or any kind of map, really) until now. But I love that I can try to avoid death as much as possible. Sometimes I can't get around it, but I always try, and I thank the developers for sleeping darts.

I like that much of the exposition is delivered through overheard conversation, even if these conversations tend to be long-winded and ham-fisted. I don't know why there are so many white dudes in this game. I think I have seen a grand total of two (scratch that, four) women so far, outside the royals.

It uses the Unreal 3 engine, same as Mass Effect, but you can't pull back for a third-person perspective. For me, the first person takes a little getting used to ~~because it gives me Doom flashbacks~~. I only played about 5 minutes of Mirror's Edge because I found the first POV disorienting. I might return to that one and try Thief after this. (I was going to say, "And Assassin's Creed," but somehow I don't have those games in my Grand Old Steam Sale Pile and I honestly find that difficult to explain.)