Dishonored

Also got a funny(?) stats for 4th mission...0 kills, 0 body found, ghosted...1 alarm?

How'd that happen?

Maybe there was some kind of story-enforced alarm that was impossible to prevent and thus didn't count?

I discovered Four things about Blink.

1) It basically costs nothing so long as you're patient

2) With the first Agility, it makes it possible to get anywhere.

3) If you blink past someone, it will throw them. I learned this when I accidentally threw one of Slackjaw's thugs over a railing.

4) It is possible to blink onto someone without them noticing. Found that out at the Golden Cat.

2:...unless there's an invisible wall.

Finished my first playthrough, wanted to be stealthy but after two accidental high chaos missions I just went "God of Death" mode as I call it and just murdered and spread fear everyway I could. Gotta say, Possession is like the best "Get out of a bad situation" power I've found (didn't upgrade Slow Time, 8 runes is a lotta runes man).

Time to be a precise assassin on this second playthrough.

Unless there's an invisible wall, but I've only encountered like 3 of them, all at the tops of buildings.

Been playing a bit.

's fun.

Much like in Metal Gear, I keep trying for a pacifist run, but then I get spotted and I start knifing people in the throat and everything just goes pear-shaped on me.

Yeah. its fun but very very easy.

Even on Hard.

Also I saw the twist coming a mile away.

HAH. Thief Tutorial Reference.

edited 11th Oct '12 12:57:44 AM by Thorn14

Blah, killing the assassins in the prologue count against Clean Hand...shit...finished the game and didn't get it...

Also, what's the ending for high chaos with Emily dead? Or there isn't one?

edited 11th Oct '12 1:58:36 AM by onyhow

Something interesting I've heard: if you take the non-lethal option with Campbell, he apparently appears later in the game as a weeper, carrying a letter cursing Corvo for what he did.

^ Wait, what? Non-lethal? But I saw him in the ending! Do you mean high or low chaos?

edited 11th Oct '12 4:00:16 AM by onyhow

I have no idea what you're saying.

Also, this is an anecdote I'm relating. I don't know what that player's stats were.

^ Wait, I misunderstood, sorry...I confuse him with the guy you can rescue in that mission too...

Yeah, I remember knocking out a weeper in the Red High Overseer cloth...although I'm not sure if that's Campbell or not...

OK, so I just did my Steam-preorder and didn't notice there was bonuses until I checked my downloads: wtf is Arx Fatalis and is it any good?

Arx Fatalis is the first game made by the company that created Dishonored. It's generally viewed to be good, yes.

One thing I really, really like about Dishonored:

Both endings are completely viable, and they're both a good conclusion. It's like...In most games, the evil ending means you go completely off the edge - Start kicking puppies and burning down orphanages, that kind of thing.

Not so here. The High Chaos ending isn't the 'Bad' ending, or even an ending that implies you're kind of a dick, the way Mass Effect's Renegade options tend to. It's a darker spin on things, all right, but I actually found it a lot more satisfactory.

Is it like in the High Chaos ending, Corvo becomes a darker version of Batman or Konrad Cruze?

edited 11th Oct '12 8:02:55 AM by theLibrarian

So, I've finished this. When does Carrie Fisher turn up, I think I missed her. She's certainly not whom she was advertised as being, unless I forgot that she was a man.

Overall: mostly good. Sound effects could be better, and the voice direction manages to encourage some depressingly wooden performances from an extremely talented cast. John Slattery and Susan Sarandon were particularly unenergised at times.

There's a great deal I liked about the story. It's shamelessly derivative at times, particularly of Dickens (I even caught references to Bleak House, A Tale Of Two Cities) and of Thief — unfortunately the religious cults in this game don't hold a candle to the ones in that series. But it's all intelligently done, with a strong awareness of class and politics with the barest minimum of silly plots. And there's a huge amount of side dialogue available. Huge. And nearly all unique.

It's all bolstered by a beautiful world, a well-considered setting and scads and scads of world-building. Even the whale-oil stuff isn't as obnoxious as I first feared, given that the story doesn't use it as a crutch or even as a narrative conceit. I do wonder if some of the more mythological elements don't get in the way of the story somewhat — one level in particular feels more relevant to it than to any kind of story that the game is attempting — and in retrospect ends up being somewhat irrelevant.

Oh, and as an aside, the setting isn't Steampunk. I can see why people would make that assertion, but they'd be wrong. Lack of steam, for one.

The game plays very well. The weapons feel right, combat is fun and (at times very) challenging. The stealth is also quite challenging. The game never makes full use of all the enemy types it provides (and it provides a lot of them), so there's an unfortunate lack of tallboys, dogs and musical overseers. The game's paced fairly well too, though the ending level is kinda drab, and the much touted Masquerade level is ridiculously easy for the stage that it turns up in the game.

And I know that the art designer has Half Life 2 pedigree, but some of the similarities were ridiculous. I was expecting a twist, or at least an injoke, that revealed how Dunwall was the Combine's home territory.

But yes, I liked it. I felt that it needed to be longer, that it needed to be more complicated and occasionally deeper, that they should have fired their voice director and occasionally smacked their art director, that they needed to get rid of those FUCKING PLANT MOLLUSC THINGS WHO THOUGHT THEY WERE A GOOD IDEA, but it was good. Great even.

Go buy it if you're on the fence.

Edit: That said, occasionally way overwritten and pushing down heavy on the exposition. Could have done with a lot less of that.

edited 11th Oct '12 1:28:42 PM by Nicknacks

IMDB lists her as "The Broadcaster", haven't played yet so it doesn't tell me anything, of course.

OH, yeah, I know it says that. But the game's quite clear that the Broadcaster is a guy.

I agree, the plant things that spat what I can only assume was acid or something at you are a major annoyance. Turning a corner to see a few those was a surefire way to make that mission get more obnoxious.

QFT

Fucking hated those things. Many a profanity was flung at my television whenever I encountered those.

So, can I get a yes or no answer:

What should I get, this, or XCOM:Enemy Unknown?

Um... yes?