Dishonored Preview: A Unique Mix Of Inspirational Themes And Features

Stealth as a genre has been a controversial and questionable subject matter in recent years, from casual gamers not seeing the attraction, to journalists not seeing the relevance, and the developer€™s response is not phasing it from existence from but instead burying it in other apparently favourable features that stealth games were just missing. Evidently, Assassin€™s Creed€™s building traversal and Splinter Cell: Conviction€™s emphasis on Jason Bourne like manoeuvres. This theory of genre €˜evolution€™ can be followed rather judiciously with my recent presence at the Guardian€™s hosted Dishonored event. The premise of this event was different in that its primary focus was on its concept art; odd, not only because the pre-production process is a hard element to convey in writing, but also because Dishonored€™s release date is just a week away from writing this. This bemusement was somewhat diminished once the event opened up with an informed and pretty picture supported presentation by Art Director, Sebastien Mitton and Visual Design Director, Victor Antonov. Dishonored€™s concept pictures depicted not only a game that exudes a world of steampunk, 19th industrialisation and 19th century gentleman, but a game that portrays a real focus on art throughout. An unexpected live gameplay presentation walked us through the game€™s oxymoronic style. Dunwall, the setting of Dishonoured, inhabits what I call the €˜Gears of Grit€™ outlook, this is where a lot of modern triple €˜A€™ console games take on the worn out, dark and industrialised landscapes. Dishonoured though swaps the browns for a much more washed out grey look, conjuring up a more polluted 19th century London than a muddy Havana. The demonstration started our hero, Corvo, out on a boat being lead up a narrow city centred river towards an assassination assignment. The other €˜differing€™ feature that jumped out here is that this game is played solely from the first person €“ a perspective last popularised from another stealth game called Thief. After being given a short briefing from your boat driver on your required removal of a certain party attending lady, Corvo gains control and is able to hop, skip and clamber around the city. Other than soaking in the intentionally sombre atmosphere I was given a rather vivid reminder of another stealth game, Hitman. For those who haven€™t played this respectful, yet brutal assassination focused title, Hitman threw you into a small hub of a level which offered the player a dozen or so way of taking out his/her target, while also having the freedom, if you were sick of tip-toeing about, to go guns blazing. Dishonoured replicated this quite accurately, although gave you more vertical freedom as Corvo jumped and leaped from walls onto roofs. I say leap, more disappear and reappear short distances, as Corvo is a magical assassin too. Dishonoured uses the popular modern €˜wheel scroll€™ to change weapons and magical abilities. There looked to be at least 10 or so powers to choose from, the most favourable seemed to be €˜blink, this was the disappear and reappear power used to scale walls and baffle guards, but there was also a stop time power, see through walls ability and even a €˜devouring swarm€™ ability, which was used with unnecessary purpose later on. Acquiring these powers can be done by purchasing using €˜Runes€™ and naturally gaining them through the game€™s progression. Though these powers are unlimited in use once acquired they€™re limited by a mana gauge, of which can be refilled using mana potions. So some common RPG elements are also present here. After blinking around buildings and making his way to the €˜party€™ mansion, of where Corvo€™s victim lies, Corvo was able to imitate yet mock Hitman€™s identity borrowing feature with the power of €˜possession€™. The player can jump into another human€™s body and take control of them, in this case a mansion guard and then wander with ease into the building itself. This power does have its limits though, the potential possessed must be unaware of the Corvo€™s presence before such heinous crime is committed, and if the possessed dies so does Corvo. Weapons range from crossbows, wheellock pistols and... a knife, which although seems dull also involves some brutal but arguably impressive killing animations, this automatically makes the self-praised feature of €˜completing the game without killing€™ either a breeze for the squeamish or a feat for the sadistic. Though there are layers of RPG, story based and action influenced content here stealth is still at the core. Evasion from sight can be accomplished by hiding behind objects, though enemies have set visible distances much of the sneaking had been the basic common sense of sitting back, watching guards repeat their patterned patrols and then whizzing by them. Of course, the slight oddity here is that it is first person and so hiding did mean the use of a €˜lean€™ to watch activity around corners. This did seem a tad awkward, but again the player wasn€™t forced to be super sneaky as enemies were relatively €˜forgivable€™ when it came to spotting, and it was relatively easy to dispose of a single guard if they were unlucky enough to spot you €“ you just stop time and stab them with your knife. As art was the focus for this event we didn€™t stop forcibly chewing on the eye candy that this game revelled in. If the outdoors of this game was the acquired taste of Chocolat then the inside was the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and for the misunderstood, this was where the oxymoronic nature of this game revealed itself as the inside was unexpectedly vibrant. Watching Corvo run about the place seeking, and with the occasional murder, time was found to take in colourful costumes, golden statues, confetti scattered floors and some of the weirdest, semi barbaric masks I€™ve ever witnessed, deliberate as Dishonoured doesn€™t seem to shy away from some dark humour now and again - an impression cemented after approaching an NPC requesting you to bring your target to him so he can keep her, forever. To summarise this game with just an evening€™s worth of content would be unfair, but if I can give any accurate glimpse, Dishonoured is a mix match of inspirational themes and features making it unique as a whole but quaintly familiar once broken down. We€™ve gotten a good idea of the 19th century pseudo-London look now; it€™ll be interesting though to see how the rest of this game plays and whether it can join the ranks of the evolutionary €˜stealth€™ bearers. But so far, it looks to be at the very least a casual romp of a game with a lot of pretty pictures to offer. Dishonoured is released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on October 9th in the US and October 12th in Europe.