If you have been following my game of the year list thus far, you would have seen my earlier rant during my Mark of the Ninja column about how stealth games have sort of sucked over the years. Thankfully, 2012 gave us two fantastic stealth action games, and Dishonored is one of them. Developed by Arkane Studios (housing some of the talent who were involved with the Deus Ex and Half-Life series) and published by Bethesda, Dishonored is a first person stealth action game that follows the footsteps of games like Bioshock and Half-Life by giving players open environments and the freedom to complete objectives in a multitude of methods by the player's choosing.
The thing that stands out the most about Dishonored is the art style and the clever use of powers that greatly enhance how players stealthily dispose of their foes. The art style is sort of a mixture between a cartoon and a steam punk distopia, with humans having slightly exaggerated facial features. The game's graphics are nothing to write home about, but the game's art aesthetic really shines on current generation hardware. Arkane Studios included a number of powers that the protagonist can unlock and obtain throughout the adventure by collecting hidden runes and bone charms that can be traded for upgrades, perks, and new powers. One power included in Dishonored's arsenal is a complete game-changer to the stealth genre, called Blink. Blink allows the player to teleport anywhere within the environment with the snap of a finger, given the player is trying to warp within the abilities' distance requirements. The use of blink makes sneaking up on and disposing of enemies much quicker and cooler by allowing players to cut out all of the time and tedium of waiting for enemies to wander around and place their-selves in the right spot at the right time; this ability is absolutely brilliant and makes Dishonored's stealth elements and exploration a pure joy.
Dishonored is all about choices and decisions of the player, and the decisions will effect how the game sort of plays out as you progress. Each mission basically consists of one main objective of assassinating a specific player in a giant web of conspiracies. How the player dispatches of this assigned target is solely up to the player. For instance, one could simply walk up and murder a target right up to their face, poison their drink and make it look like an accident, stealthily kill the target without their knowledge, recruit other NPCs to help dispose of the enemy, let the target live by shaming them for the rest of their lives, or other story-related events (like tricking one target into falling into his own trap). Hell, you can even choose to kill a guy with a plague of rats if you wanted. All of these choices allow the player to think about how they want to tackle each mission, which can make multiple playthroughs even more likely. Several missions had me actually fighting with myself to decide how I wanted to take care of an enemy, with many choices made due to how I felt about the characters personally. The whole mission set up and story integration is brilliant in Dishonored and other games that claim to do similar things do not even come close to this game's achievements.
Even though Dishonored is an extremely well designed game, it does not last long. The game can be finished within 8-10 hours depending on how badly the player wants to collect all of the hidden goodies and side quests. Luckily the game includes many incentives to have players return to this gritty world and the hope of future downloadable missions will even further raise the game's replay value. I honestly found the experience Dishonored gave me to be great enough to make me play through and experience it all over again, and the multiple paths, tools, and methods given to the player make those extra playthroughs even more likely. I also really enjoyed this game's story and the main character, Corvo (which is an awesome name by the way). Dishonored is an atmospheric, dank, grisly experience that makes the game one of the most memorable titles I have played this generation that has me begging for a sequel. An experience like this is why Dishonored is my fourth favorite game of 2012.
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