Honorable Discharge: Dishonored (360)

I didn’t know if I liked Dishonored until the last third of the game. Leveraging the Unreal Engine, and set to the default brightness settings as directed in the initial startup, Dishonored is a washed-out low resolution mess. Individual pixels can be discerned within groups of shaded art making up a wall in a mess of greys and browns. I dropped the brightness down a few notches to create deep black shadows, hiding the transitional colors.

The art style is distinctive and inspired, but initial off-pointing. Thick angular extremities taper towards the body, with odd features over-emphasized as they jut from a character’s head. Turn of the century architecture of brick and glass reaches for the gloomy sky as steampunk technology inspired by a world run on whale oil provides energy weapons and barriers. A terrible plague burdens the city/state of Dunwall, leaving the poor to be dumped into quarantine zones as they transform into walking shuddering wretches that vomit black clouds on the unwary.

Playing as Corvo, the titular bodyguard framed for the death of the body he was guarding, Dishonored initially guides the player through a linear path of escape. Only as Corvo mutely joins a merry band of insurgents within a hub level of sorts does the game open up. Environments are reused to good effect though the scale of the game seems small until the final map, a sprawling island fortress. Until that point, four or five of the base levels are visited at least twice, allowing Corvo to stretch any newly acquired abilities gather along the way.

Blink is a fundamental necessity in Dishonored and as a mechanism fixes the single largest issue facing first-person platforming, traversal. Functioning as a nearly instantaneous teleport, Blink allows Corvo to zoom from perch to perch, ascending or descending the environment at will. Only the highest heights are unreachable, though the indicator of what is scalable can often be confusing. Other abilities include stopping time and possessing animals and people, and all of them can be leveled by gather charms and runes within the environments. More a scavenger hunt than the chore many games make of collectibles, it offers opportunity for multiple play-throughs, as does upgradable equipment. Upgrade paths taken can determine possible strategies, but this concept is not communicated well by the game. Only by finishing it does one fully realize the depth of the paths not taken.

What is unfortunate about Dishonored is the empty shell of a narrative that is offered. Borrowing from Bioshock 2, a surrogate daughter learns from how Corvo conducts himself in the world. Play as a violent murderer, killing everything in sight and the girl becomes ruthless in her world view. Practice mercy and stealth, she become benevolent. An excellent mechanic is robbed entirely of meaning as there is no emotional connection to the girl or to any character in the game. Drowning in bad writing delivered in a vacuum by bored or confused celebrity voices, Dishonored is done a disservice, rendering the game an exercise in strategy rather than an experience to become immersed in.

Heady with upgraded powers I raced through the final moments of the game, skipping an environment entirely and accidentally triggering a scripted event. I chased the event and when presented with an ultimatum I simply executed a multi-power combo that resulted in the enemy killing himself literally in a blink. By this point the game I was so highly leveled the final encounter was a trifle, and that is a shame.

Dishonored is a fine successor to Thief and Deus Ex, offering player agency, and open environmental puzzles but is ultimately hollow.