Some months ago Bethesda revealed the trailer of Dishonored. The trailer showed player running across the rooftops of the houses that looked like from industrial ages. Reaching over a house and killing a guard by jumping on him with the sword and killing few more enemies by freezing them. With awesome graphics and animations, this trailer raised curiosity among the people about this game. Bethesda has revealed the release date for this game as on 12th October 2012. This game will be released for Xbox 360, Playstation as well as PC.
The game is about a bodyguard who used to protect the Empress. The Empress is killed and the bodyguard is framed for this. The story of Dishonored revolves around the bodyguard who turn assassin to avenge the death of the Empress and to take revenge against the people who framed him. The skull shaped mask becomes the identity of the assassin and brings fear in those who encounter him. You as a player have to take the role of assassin and explore the plague ridden world, fight against the evil and the corrupt to find the reason behind the betrayal. Your actions and decision can change the world for good.
You have to play Dishonored in first person view and complete objectives innovatively by utilizing the gadgets and skills you have. You can eliminate your target ruthlessly in cold blood as well as silently without anybody knowing your presence. Be a ghost and move like one and you can leave a path of destruction without anybody knowing about you. You will be offered bribes and will be taken on path of corruption, but avoiding it, you need to proceed. Every action will change how the mission proceeds. Outcome of every mission will decide where story will take you and from which direction. With open world for exploration, you can hit your target from any direction possible. The environment and the cities of Dishonored are cross between industrial age buildings and mystic world.
People who got their hands on the Demo version of Dishonored stated that game was much tougher than they thought. The first mission was about kidnapping a physician Anton Sokolov. This target is well hidden inside a mansion protected by guards and Tall Boys. One of the people I met said that as the missions of this game can be completed in multiple ways, he chose to play it stealthily. The first plan was to enter the mansion use his abilities and weapons to reach to the target without getting caught. Make him unconscious and escape with him on my shoulder. But he also told me that, it took him more than seven attempts at the mission to successfully complete it. From what the game has been described, let me tell you about it.
The game is meant to be open world with us exploring any part we wish to. It doesn’t offer many small spaces to hide and run into. But by using powers like teleport and blink, we can reach the places and heights that enemies cannot notice or think of. We will need to take many decisions regarding the objects available in environment. We can utilize many of them to benefit our game style. In Dishonored, you can kill an enemy in many ways possible. The style in which you can kill an enemy ranges from normal to gruesome. You can simply shoot anybody dead or maybe stab him to death. But there are also some gruesome options available like summoning plague ridden rats that will start eating your enemies. If you wait around to watch, you can see rats eating his clothes and skin to kill him. But if you wait for too long, the rats will start attacking you. Some of the best ways to kill I found were by possessing an enemy. After possessing, we can make the enemy to walk to some ledge and jump to death or maybe jump from height. Another great way is to slow down the world and kill the enemies. Once slowed down, you need to shoot in mid air, the bullets will find the track and you just need to release slow time. Also the environmental objet can be broken as per our need.
One of the best powers that I found in Dishonored was Blink. It is a teleporting power which helps us to teleport at short distances. We can teleport on roofs heights that enemies can’t reach or see. If some enemy is coming towards you, you can teleport behind him and kill him. We can even teleport on the ceiling fans and then jump on an unsuspecting enemy to kill him. This power is of great use to find secret parts of the environment. Another great power in this game was to possess any living body. Possessing bodies is fun in this game. We can posses the person next to the target and kill him or after killing a target, possessing one of the bodyguard who comes to protect is more fun. One of the players demonstrated a good use of possession, actually this is an understatement. What he did was to kill a target in a balcony. When he realized that bodyguards were coming, he jumped out of the balcony and possessed a civilian walking below. The jump which he took from balcony was at very good height and he did a free falling. One thing about possession, when I said ‘any living body’, I meant it literally. Possessing isn’t restricted to humans only; we can possess a fish too. This fish can be used to spy on the activities of enemies and then take decisions. But beware; possessing a smaller living thing might get you crushed under guard’s feet. Another power available is to activate vision cones. This means, enemies eyes will have visible cones, which will let us see the range of their visibility. We can sneak around by evading coming into enemies’ sight. But don’t think that enemies can’t hear, one wrong move and you are attacked.
When told about the powers available in this game, many people think that, Dishonored will be easy as child’s play. Just kill the target and slow the world and escape, maybe teleport where enemies won’t see us. But let me tell you, ‘With Great Powers comes Great AI’. Yes, the AI of Dishonored is made very intelligent. It might be easy to kill a single enemy, but when they attack in group; your powers might fail to help you escape. The person who played this game said that in one attempt, he successfully tranquilized the target he wanted to kidnap. But escaping with his body was tough. A lot of enemies clustered around the area where he was standing. It was like a single target is protected by an army. An army is given a good intelligence. This combination of intelligence and force in number makes the game difficult. This game will have a single hideout when not in mission. Not many details have been revealed, but yes, a bar will be hideout where we can buy and upgrade items. Talk with allies to get information of happenings in gaming world and accept missions.
One thing that impressed me about the game was way we get alternative way to complete a mission. For example, we want to kill some noble men, but find it difficult because of heavy number of bodyguards. Then game will give you another option. We can ask favor from some crime lord who will ask us to do some task for him. When satisfied, he will kidnap the targeted noble men, shave their hair and diminish every proof of their identity and make them slaves in their own mines. Now I found this fun and something new. One thing I didn’t like about the game’s preview was that it doesn’t have boss fights. Boss fights where we enter an area and a powerful enemy reveals himself/herself. He then lets some minions lose on us and we have to fight them along with big attacks from the boss. This part is not present in Dishonored.
Some other things that impressed me was the involvement of AI in the world. In almost every game, we see that normal enemy that includes minions or guards to be standing like zombies until they detect threat. Some of them will talk, but will stop after sometime and act like a dummy. But here in Dishonored, an enemy will keep interacting with objects as in real. For example, if you see an enemy walking down a corridor, he will comment or talk about some painting or statue in it way with another enemy. This will not be pre-programmed, but if you wait at same place, you will see same enemy talking about different things or events. Usually, in a game which offers choices during gameplay offer just two or maybe three. For example, spare your target and he will tell you his boss’ hideout or kill him to have his gang members attack your hideouts. But here, in Dishonored, just two or three decision isn’t given. We will have vast number of decision which will change game in most unexpected manner or way unimagined.
After getting to know about Dishonored in such a detailed manner, I think I will add it on my ‘Games to play before 2013’ list. Now I appreciate Bethesda and every person who is directly or indirectly related in production of game for bring us such a great and innovative game. So for now, all I am doing is to wait till 12th October 2012 when I will get a copy of it for myself.
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