587 réponses à ce sujet

[slimgrin]

 The art lead is clearly a fan of the old masters. The game is full of scenes right out of a Vermeer painting.

Modifié par slimgrin, 30 novembre 2012 - 06:16 .

[Addai]

The architecture is heavily influenced by Edinburgh, Scotland, I recall- they did not find enough medieval looking structures in London, but when they visited Edinburgh said that it had just what they were looking for and they took 3000 pictures on their trip.  You can definitely see it.

Harvey and Raf are answering questions on Raptr this afternoon.  The only thing new I saw is that they have a third, story-based DLC in the works after the first two that were already announced (Dunwall City Trials in December and a story-based one about Daud in the spring).  Harvey did re-iterate that they deliberately left some story and character elements vaguely sketched so as to allow player interpretation and inference.

Modifié par Addai67, 09 novembre 2012 - 08:26 .

[sympathy4sarenreturns]

I would LOVE a full fledge RPG in Arkane's next game, preferably in the same world, preferably involving the rat plague and an even more sinister plot overarching. In texts it heavily inferred the rat plague didn't originate in the docks, but the poorerst districts. There is also the entire continent of Pandyssia.

[sympathy4sarenreturns]

I want to dig into a non-lethal playthrough soon. But right now there is a lot of gaming on my plate. I already miss playing Dishonored. It deserves GOTY.

[slimgrin]

Just beat it....****Spoilers ahead****








Do all game develpers have a secret pact to make every f*cking game end like sh*t? I'm just wondering. Thoroughly sick of devs squandering great ideas, and Dishonored is no exception. A brilliant game that totally fizzles into nothing at the end. The mistakes?

- Who the f*ck is Corvo!? We don't know. Ever.

-A contrived plot, and some wooden dialog to go along with it.

-Mustache twirling bad guy. Yet again.

-Lack of depth in gameplay. Awarding upgrades through exploration is ultimately a mistake. Some skills are only obtainable far too late.

-Loot has little meaning. Don't auto convert items into coin, give them a history and let me trade each item with Piero.

Despite it all I love the game. But I'm frustrated. I think it could have been much more. The biggest mistake is making Corvo a non-entity. He's not even there; his motives, his history, his alignment, anything about him. You don't do this in an action game. The result is a protagonist who is no more than a shell.

Modifié par slimgrin, 11 novembre 2012 - 06:35 .

[Addai]

I can only agree on the moustache twirling bad guy- that did disappoint me. Corvo definitely came together for me, especially in relation to Emily, which I think is the best part of the game story.

I thought the level up was fine- you have to pick a few powers to concentrate in.  Others for other playthroughs.  I knew beforehand you couldn't get all of them so I saved up runes for the few I really wanted.  If you didn't know that, it could be frustrating to not be able to get level II of something.

Out of curiosity, did you get low or high chaos ending?

Modifié par Addai67, 11 novembre 2012 - 07:04 .

[slimgrin]

Addai67 wrote...

I can only agree on the moustache twirling bad guy- that did disappoint me. Corvo definitely came together for me, especially in relation to Emily, which I think is the best part of the game story.

I thought the level up was fine- you have to pick a few powers to concentrate in.  Others for other playthroughs.  I knew beforehand you couldn't get all of them so I saved up runes for the few I really wanted.  If you didn't know that, it could be frustrating to not be able to get level II of something.

Out of curiosity, did you get low or high chaos ending?

I think I did botch leveling up to be honest. I got the high chaos. I dunno, still a great game. I'll play it again,

[Addai]

Oh, usually it's the low chaos ending that people find bland/ anti-climactic. LOL Oops. The story just may not be for you. I don't like how they handled the twist, either. I knew something was coming but a mass turn towards stupid evil is not good story development.

Modifié par Addai67, 11 novembre 2012 - 08:42 .

[sympathy4sarenreturns]

I started a non-lethal playthrough. Finding new paths I somehow missed the first time. I've also heard rumor that evidence is mounting that the Outsider is actually an ancient whale of the deep. Any validity in this hypothesis?

[Addai]

An in-game book puts forward that theory. Anyone's guess if it's true.

One nice little tidbit we got from Harvey Smith's Twitter was that Jessamine will be free from the Heart "once there's no one marked by the Outsider for whom she feels intense love/ protection." So J is Corvo's bodyguard. I thought that was pretty awesome.

[FedericoV]

I finished the game yesterday. I played a completely ghost/pacifist playthrough (at least I tried: I have killed 4 or 5 people and only a couple intentionally). So I can't judge it as a pure action game but just as a stealth one.

The game is not bad at all and I applaude the attempt in an era dominated by cloned shooters... but may I say that it's one of the most bland and dull game of the recent years?

Mind, gameplay wise Dishonored does a lot of things really well but those things are just re-booted from the classics. There's no evolution from Deus Ex and Thief. No surprise at all. Well, looking at the limited nature of most levels there's been quite the de-volution. Watching vids on youtube, the killing stuff is fun at least but the stealth part is boring, under developed and hardly proactive.

The greatest failures are on the narrative side of things. The setting is imaginative and full of crazy ideas but it's easy to have crazy ideas. Harder to create something organic out of them. It's nice to boot a narrative sandbox. It's quite harder to make it work and find a reasonable motivation for the player. Point is: I never cared for Emily, Dunwall, the Outsider or personal's revenge.

In general, after the first few missions, when I realized that the game was going nowhere in terms of storytelling, I haven't felt a lot at all. Ok, they are killing wales but what's the point. I never seen a whale in the whole game. Ok, the Outsider walks among us and probably he is behid the whole mess... but what's the narrative resolution?

I play games to be emotionally engaged and the game failed me. I always felt like there's a point where too much mechanical and narrative freedom determines an experience that borderline lack of meaning (and the strict nature of the finals makes even less sense considering the absolute freedom you experience previously). Probably Dishonored has crossed that line and it's a shame because the game has so much potential and raw talent behind it...

PS: Must say that the art style it's great, organic and consistent on any level. That's the greatest achievment of the game. Artistically the game has a lot of personality.

Modifié par FedericoV, 27 novembre 2012 - 11:00 .

[sympathy4sarenreturns]

Bethesda's Pete Hines has said that Dishonored blew away their sales projections and that they are extremely happy with how it sold. He even went as far to say it looks like it'll be a new franchise. Good to hear!

[Addai]

Sorry to hear it was disappointing overall, FedericoV. I had some problems with the story but was satisfied overall, probably because I already was invested in the PC before the game came out. I loved Emily's development. Gameplay wise I had no complaints. Haven't played Deus Ex but I did not feel the levels were more restricted than Thief II, not at all. If anything there was more freedom. Blink is addictive.

[FedericoV]

Addai67 wrote...

Sorry to hear it was disappointing overall, FedericoV. I had some problems with the story but was satisfied overall, probably because I already was invested in the PC before the game came out. I loved Emily's development. Gameplay wise I had no complaints. Haven't played Deus Ex but I did not feel the levels were more restricted than Thief II, not at all. If anything there was more freedom. Blink is addictive.

Maybe my problem is just that I played DX:HR in September as a pacifist/ghost too. There's even something as too much stealth in gaming . I played DX and the Thief series at the times so maybe it's just rose colored glass on my part. I just felt that the level were bigger and more varied in terms of overall shape in those series. 

I would just have loved as a stealth player to have more tools, more interesting tools and not only passive ones. In general I expected a bigger evolution in terms of gameplay from the classics. I expected the various stealth oriented powers to be more organic with the level design.

As I said in the previous post, Dishonored is one of the best games I ever played in the recent years in terms of artistic design and that's a big pro.

But there's not a lot to redeem the narrative. For all the cool ideas, it does not offer any kind of interesting development/resolution. The storyline lacks in terms of motivation (same problem of DA2: I cannot care about the death of charachters you presented just a few minutes ago... I cannot feel on a revenge mission if I do not know a lot about the charachters I'm fighting... moreover, it's hard to feel you are doing the right thing when is clear from the beginning that your allies are going to betray you ).

There's not even a moment of wonder in the whole game. I don't know... what's about a big white whale coming out of the ocean and looking at you? No to say that I have even some problems on how the game portrays woman. The non-lethal resolution to Lady Boyle's mission is disturbing.

Mind, I'm happy we will probably see a sequel. The setting and the gameplay have lot of potential as I already said and normally the second game is the best one in a series . I did not even expected a lot from Dishonored. It's just that I have not felt a lot during the whole game.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

This. The game was slanted towards a combat playthrough. The fact that you couldn't even get the "silent boots" upgrade until the third or fourth level (at which time, you've already got 15-20 hours in under a different playstyle) is silly.

Was not a fan of this game. I haven't had time to get through to the end yet (maybe there is some redeeming grace in the ending), but overall, I found the story to be pretty bland and predictable. Gameplay was interesting, but not all that memorable for me. The characters were all pretty ugly to me and the art style was not that impressive. I never got around to playing the Thief games, but this reminded me, in a light way, of the DE games, which were not my favorite, either.

[FedericoV]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

^

This. The game was slanted towards a combat playthrough

Yup! That's the whole point at the end. Stealth is underdeveloped compared to combat and low chaos was underdeveloped in terms of narrative (on most levels). Ironic that you get the best ending by playing the game that way... infact I felt that the good ending do not belonged a lot to the overall experience I had previously. Golden Age? Seriously? When I just slugged my way out of ruins, flooded districs, corrupt guards and politicians, zombie and mad cultists for the entirety of the game? It's even more ironic when being "good" consists in act like condemning a woman to a life of slavery because her fault is being liberated and politically savy.

[Addai]

I did both high chaos and low chaos (twice) and cannot say that I agre that low chaos got short shrift.   I personally prefer the low chaos for various reasons, and I don't understand your comment that it is "under-developed." It seemed pretty much the same attention given to both, and even more emotional payoff for low chaos, especially in Emily's drawings and comments. Since Emily and Corvo are the heart of the story for me (not to mention, er, the Heart), that's why the narrative is still satisfying to me despite the clumsiness of the betrayal.

Even if you didn't respond to Emily and Jessamine as readily as I did, I really can't understand the idea that there is no motivation for Corvo to get revenge. He's been imprisoned, tortured, falsely accused, the common people believe he's a monster, and his only chance at survival is to either leave the Isles or eliminate his enemies. Who could be more motivated than him, apart from the fact that his enemies also have his daughter?

I really have to push back on the idea that the game's treatment of women is out of bounds. I've seen that criticism online and disagree strongly. You're supposed to be disturbed by the moral choices, and by oppression in the world. And it's not as if you aren't working on behalf of two powerful women. Corvo is the one who has no standing of his own, and is discriminated against because of his ethnic background.

Modifié par Addai67, 28 novembre 2012 - 08:55 .

[slimgrin]

Emily's drawings and comments, what she becomes as a result of your actions, is brilliant. It reminded me of Alvin and Geralt's relationship in The Witcher. I really loved it. But story stuff aside, the final confrontation should've had more punch, more impact. 

The art style, most of the game mechanics, the unique atmosphere (a refreshing break from HollyWood influences which are a scourge on gaming) I'll defend to the death. How many FP games even have a decent melee system? Or object traversal? To me it was exhilarating to play berserk and start chopping off heads if the alarms went off, instead of making it next to impossible.

Modifié par slimgrin, 29 novembre 2012 - 01:33 .

[Addai]

Reading PC Gamer's reviews of Assassin's Creed III and Hitman: Absolution, I realized I hadn't read their Dishonored review yet.

Comparing them gives a good sense of what Dishonored did right in the gameplay department.  They do hit Dishonored on the pacing, but the smoothness of controls, the fun of getting out of "oh crap" moments, and fluidity of the gameplay are things they liked.  I think it gives some perspective on complaints about gameplay which people make by comparing it to Thief and Deus Ex.

Score comparison- 92 for Dishonored, 72 for ACIII and 66 for Hitman: Absolution.  Probably they are cutting Dishonored some slack for being a new IP and for being a good port, which is so rare that it deserves the kudos.

Modifié par Addai67, 30 novembre 2012 - 05:33 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

slimgrin wrote...

Emily's drawings and comments, what she becomes as a result of your actions, is brilliant. It reminded me of Alvin and Geralt's relationship in The Witcher. I really loved it. But story stuff aside, the final confrontation should've had more punch, more impact.

I absolutely love how Emily reacts and responds to Corvo's actions. I don't know if you've played on High Chaos, but later on in your playthrough Callista makes a remark that Emily is becoming more "aggressive" in the way she acts and converses, which clearly is a result of Corvo's actions influencing her. It's heavily implied that she looks up to Corvo and imitates his personality in certain aspects. But that doesn't stop her from being the little girl that she is, like when she asks Corvo (High Chaos) how many people he killed one night, with a sad look in her face (which, while a nice touch, was kinda awkward).

The art style, most of the game mechanics, the unique atmosphere (a refreshing break from HollyWood influences which are a scourge on gaming) I'll defend to the death.

Agreed. I believe the art style was an inspiration of several things, but they seem to have mostly based it off of Victorian London.

Modifié par Fiery Phoenix, 30 novembre 2012 - 06:56 .

[Addai]

They started it with London 1666, a plague year, then it got more Victorian. Then they ended up basing a lot of the visuals on Edinburgh, since London's cityscape was too modern. I remember reading that the devs took 3000 pictures on their trip there. If you image search Edinburgh skyline, there's a lot of Dunwall-looking stuff.

Modifié par Addai67, 30 novembre 2012 - 06:47 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

Yeah, I can see how Edinburgh resembles Dunwall. Quite impressive.

[slimgrin]

Fiery Phoenix wrote...


I absolutely love how Emily reacts and responds to Corvo's actions. I don't know if you've played on High Chaos, but later on in your playthrough Callista makes a remark that Emily is becoming more "aggressive" in the way she acts and converses, which clearly is a result of Corvo's actions influencing her. It's heavily implied that she looks up to Corvo and imitates his personality in certain aspects. But that doesn't stop her from being the little girl that she is, like when she asks Corvo (High Chaos) how many people he killed one night, with a sad look in her face (which, while a nice touch, was kinda awkward).

I ended with high chaos. Emily in my game is a cute little dictator in the making, ready to rule with an iron fist.

[Fiery Phoenix]

slimgrin wrote...

Fiery Phoenix wrote...

I absolutely love how Emily reacts and responds to Corvo's actions. I don't know if you've played on High Chaos, but later on in your playthrough Callista makes a remark that Emily is becoming more "aggressive" in the way she acts and converses, which clearly is a result of Corvo's actions influencing her. It's heavily implied that she looks up to Corvo and imitates his personality in certain aspects. But that doesn't stop her from being the little girl that she is, like when she asks Corvo (High Chaos) how many people he killed one night, with a sad look in her face (which, while a nice touch, was kinda awkward).

I ended with high chaos. Emily in my game is a cute little dictator in the making, ready to rule with an iron fist.

An Empress rising on a throne of dead corpses...

[sympathy4sarenreturns]

Emily in a lot of ways is the ending. How did you influence this innocent, cute little girl who has been through so much? What person will she become? It's up to you, how you acted as she looked to you for influence. Exactly!

Modifié par sympathy4sarenreturns, 01 décembre 2012 - 02:18 .