Dishonored Full Review

When a player hears the word "freedom" tossed around lightheartedly describing a game it may give them reason to pause. How much freedom can we expect in a video game?

Games themselves are simply a set of rules and scenarios presented to a player in the hope that they will take and apply those rules in the intended ways. Dishonored, however, sought to break the mold of its predecessors and allow the player a high degree of freedom to move through the game in a way they see fit.
So what is Dishonored? If you were to categorize it then you'd label it a stealth action title. But it's more than that, Dishonored took the standard stealth game formula and ran with it, giving birth to an incredibly intricate mission based stealth sandbox.

The gameplay is a fluid mix of physical weaponry and supernatural abilities, a combo reminiscent of Bioshock’s combat systems. Players can upgrade their physical arsenal in significant ways using currency and can augment their supernatural abilities by finding hidden items called Runes. This customization can be pursued to the player’s liking; allowing Corvo, the protagonist, to become anything from a walking supernatural armory to a shadowy assassin armed with nothing more than a blade. The choice is entirely the player’s and Dishonored doesn’t demand that any of these abilities be used to complete the game.

The plot the other hand, draws from many tried and true themes and plot points with heavy emphasis on betrayal and consequence. Much of Dishonored’s themes, however, are communicated through a visual medium, as you take control of the silent protagonist, Corvo, and guide him through the ruined remains of the once great city of Dunwall, now reduced to a shell of its former self by a brutal plague akin to the Black Death.

Corvo’s story is, in part, left up to the player. It can be a story of vengeance and death, as Corvo becomes part of the chaos he seeks to destroy to exact his revenge on those who took both family and dignity from him. Or it can be a story of retribution and redemption as there are non-lethal ways to complete every mission.

No matter what choices you make you will end up in the same geographical locations but they will be vastly different in content depending on how the player has shaped the story. This is measured throughout the game by determining the level of “chaos” the player has caused in completing Corvo’s assignments. Should the player choose a more chaotic path, it will be reflected in both the mission content and the environment itself as the city reels in the wake of Corvo’s vengeance.


Dishonored is arguably one of the most prominent stealth action titles to hit the market in recent years and promises a solid, albeit short experience. It is a must have for any fans of the stealth genre and has fully earned my approval

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A First Look: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

KoA: Reckoning is a new action-rpg title being released across the board (Xbox, Playstation 3, and PC) that takes a little bit from several games such as Fable, Skyrim, and Dragon Age, and synthesizes them into Kingdom's of Amalur: Reckoning. Before I actually say anything about the game itself there is one detail that needs to be cleared up before anyone even tries playing the demo: It is buggy as all hell. But there is hope! A lot of people (including myself) were having issues with the game showing up as completely black except for the pause menu and the cutscenes. In order to remedy this you have to simply go into the graphics options of the game and switch "Post Processing" to "disabled". There are still numerous bugs in the demo but hey, it's a demo I think we can cut them a little slack and save the brutal judgement for when the game is released a week from now. Anyway, moving on.

Combat: This is the selling point of KoA: Reckoning, they advertise it heavily in trailers along with their open world. In short, I totally agree with the hype they are sporting for the combat, its crisp, fluid, and stylized. In addition to the basic combat working well they give us a plethora of skills as we progress through the game with an equally vast amount of weapons to choose from. This extends to all classes and even the mages will move around a lot with their skills instead of just sitting around casting spells you're more likely to be running around executing combos and giant, awesome looking AoEs.

In the demo I decided to play as a rogue and they really did a nice job providing the rogues with a lot of quick physical skills as well as some shadow arts that you can seamlessly weave into combat. Many of the combos you can perform also seem to be based on your timing. For example, the skill "Crossfire" is started by briefly pausing mid combo which then allows you to use the opening hit and follow it up with a secondary strike to send your opponent flying. The timing comes into play with this skill when you use the second hit, which automatically does critical damage if timed properly. This mechanic drew me into the combat and prevented me from just mindlessly killing stuff as I do in so many other games.

The world: Now its only the demo but the starting area is huge, really huge. You're basically given a rather large forest to explore that has it's own set of dungeons and quests that can easily occupy players for more than the 45 minutes they're given by the demo. This is a good sign, it may not be as much of a sprawl as Skyrim but hey, it'll still provide players with a lot of content to explore and plenty of dungeons to crawl through.

The classes: This is another cool area of the game since they give you a ton of classes to choose from. By choose I mean mixing and matching skills from the three basic trees in order to unlock "destinies" which give you bonuses and unlock themselves once you've put the prerequisite amount of points into the trees. You can go full rogue and become a nightblade or go half rogue half warrior and end up a blademaster, each providing different styles of play. This allows players to really experiment and find their own niche, allowing them to have a unique experience with the game.

Overall: Based on the demo I think that KoA: Reckoning could be a good kickoff for gaming in 2012 provided they fix the numerous bugs that plagued the demo. The combat really works well with the open world setting and gives the game a very unique feel that keeps you engaged. I'm still very curious to see how the story plays out, but so far the game is looking like a fantastic early 2012 release. You can download the demo on Steam/Origin (for the PC) or just wait for the full game to be released on February 7th!

Thanks for reading!

-Fest

P.S There may be a video accompanying this post in the near future, stay tuned!

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