Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

I wonder why it wasn't a problem in the past. When they released Thief: The Dark Project more than a decade ago, here we had a game that ran on integrity, a creative vision, and innovative risk-taking.

Dishonored is yet another example of the malaise that has gripped the entertainment industry. It has spread from television reality shows, to film, and now to videogames. A show, movie or game is made to *pander to a demographic* instead of standing on its own as a quality product.

Essentially what we have is a huge conflict between the creators of games and the publishers.

The heavyhanded decisions that publishers make with profit and marketing in mind tend to be in direct contradiction of what makes a truly good game deserving of a high score.
Games must be made extremely easy, so a kid with Down's syndrome would buy it and be able to win by bashing his forehead on the keyboard.
A mentally challenged person should be able to win at a videogame, since he paid for it. So should an 8-year old. So should a low IQ. So should a braindead moron. So should a veteran with only 3 fingers left.
They all paid for it right? Everyone's a winner!

Nevermind experienced gamers who crave a challenge. They don't count. Don't they just pirate the software anyways?


There exists an unwritten law that most new games follow. It is called the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) law. It dictates that all games released must be made as UNBEARABLY EASY AS POSSIBLE, especially if its a console, or else... if they dared to make it smart, challenging game... it might flop and not sell as much!

And Gamespot, too has followed this trend. I used to trust this company. Now it feels like the people writing reviews for them aren't serious gamers, or else are getting paid to jack up the scores.

It would have been so easy to make this game more fulfilling. The world is well-crafted, and I would be interested in exploring it... if it didn't feel like running a knife through butter.

The worst decision they made in this game was to take the "whirlwind sprint" ability from Skyrim and implement it into a stealth game. They didn't even bother to change the sound effect, making it obvious that this was a tacked-on feature (probably due to 'play-testers' deciding that the game was too hard)

You get 1 single ability that is completely gamebreaking. It is also sooo tempting to use.

Corvo doesn't need magical powers! He doesn't need the runes! Why the hell are there runes in this game! They ruin the game (no pun intended)

Gaming should be about challenges. I feel rewarded when I overcome a challenge using a limited set of abilities (such as in Thief). When you do something more complex with a higher chance for failure, it makes it that much more rewarding when you finally figure out the algorithm and get past a difficult section. I don't understand how this concept is lost on the executives and publishers (the Bobby Kotick/Jay Wilson types). I can't help but judge them as utterly incompetent -- the business geniuses who appreciate moneymaking more than they appreciate art. They're behind why games suck so much nowadays. You can feel their marginalizing influence in every new game that is released.

I do NOT feel rewarded by a happy ending or this asinine concepts of "Achievements" (which IMHO has no place in gaming whatsoever). Sure, you could play this game using stealth and not killing anyone, but there is no incentive to do so (other than the aforementioned "happy ending" whoopteydoo). They included so many shiny, pointed, wicked sharp weapons that every gamer is gonna be tempted to use them. (resisting the temptation and being the "good corvo" is the cheapest mental trick they try on us, and it sure as hell doesn't work in a videogame)
It takes a lot of suspension-of-disbelief (not to mention tedious saving+reloading) to try and play it that way. The game would be a lot more fun played this way, but the design does not support it sufficiently. They tried to please everyone at once, and came up with a marginalized, mediocre system.
This displays incredibly poor, compromised decision making by the designers.

It's amazing how much they squander the opportunity to make a truly fulfilling game, by giving you too many crutches and extraneous, overpowered flashy abilities. This could have been easily avoided, and yet they go and deliberately destroy it!

I could have methodically made my way through each level, playing like a true thief/assassin and slowly absorbing the rich atmosphere.
Instead, I was able to just tear through the game using nothing but Blink and dagger. The other weapons are just there for some extra fireworks. (grenades sure are fun)

I think the publishers look at other games (Skyrim, Bioshock, etc.) that sell a lot of copies, and then force the designers to implement the same concepts as those games.
They follow a model of "if this was profitable, then this is how it must be done"
This is why there is so little uniqueness nowadays, and everything comes out as a wash.

I got very, very close to the end but didn't even finish. I can't be motivated to fire up this game anymore. So much copping-out and squandered creativity. I hang my head in disgust. Do they really think we're that dumb?