The glow has faded, all the entertaining bits have been drowned out by the parts of my mind whinging about the flaws, and, as threatened, I return. In no particular order,
Dishonoured . . .
Odd, unsatisfying pacing. Could have, I feel, benifited from a mission (or two ?) before the whole dead empress plot point, if only to develop the character of the protagonist, the empress, the daughter and the various opportunists who are Most Displeased with the ahead of schedule return of Corvo, and, more importantly, establish why we should give a fig about her ignominious demise. Similarly, I believe that, ideally, the hilariously hamfisted betrayal (spoiler : you are betrayed) <strike>should have not have been hilariously hamfisted</strike> should have been the half way point of the narrative, with a series of much more substantial scenarios where the player steadily ruins the 'loyalists' aspirations/respirations and makes them collectively shit themselves/question why in fuck they ever even conceived of betrayed Corvo, unquestioningly obedient attack dog that he is, in the first place. Oh, wait, it's because Corvo wouldn't let them manipulate (his ?) the daughter. A voiceless protagonist with an agenda ? How curious. Perhaps I would have liked
the option to play Callous Usurper Tyrant with Stockholmed Puppet Empress myself ? Perhaps I would have liked the option to not be given a
why would you hurt your allies ? game over after the YOU'VE BEEN POISONED IN AN OH SO CUNNING TWIST visual cues spurred me to shoot the conspirators in the face with explosive bullets ? Perhaps Corvo was
-~straight edge~- ? YOU DON'T KNOW.
In this sort of game, the mute protagonist is a woefully poor choice.
FASTEST RE-REVOLUTION IN THE WEST. Wilfully ignoring the implied six month stint in ye olde not-Cragscleft, the events of the game take between five and seven days . . .
Also, how the fuck is
stealing the purse from the bloody actual regicide an adequate response ? Because he's so fabulously emo ? Even if you take the stance that he was just the tool chosen for the task, I ask again : how is stealing his wallet at all cathartic, thematically or as an accomplishment ? Why in fuck can I not review my statistics until the end of the mission ? This, combined with the . . . interesting way in which the game attributes corpse responsibility (TELEPORTING RAT SWARMS) means I am Quite Glad I wasn't running a no kill jaunt . . .
The Outsider (who is, apparently, a colossal whale who has, it seems, consumed far too much pulp media of the era) felt like something out of (what I might imagine)
Twilight (to be). Is his (?) agenda really nothing more complex, more nuanced, than <strike>lulz</strike> It Seemed Amusing At The Time ? No closure on the whole fluff dispensary heart of empress-with-(implied)-benefits plot point ? Fucking really ? No one notices/comments on the bloke in the scary mask who runs around with a heart clutched in his fist running around with a heart in clutched in his fist ?
GOOD EVENING MADAM, PAY NO MIND TO THE BLOODIED HEART, FOR I AM HERE TO KILL THE WEEPERS. ALL THE WEEPERS.
Also, to take your candlesticks and potted whale meat.
Insufficiently challenging. With the magical bag of tricks, including such gems as rapid short range teleportation, invisibility and the ability to see pretty much everything through walls . . . ghosting the entire game was much less engaging than I would have liked. Might consider a replay with no magic, no upgrades (at the least, not the stealth boots), but the anemic, incoherent, stiflingly linear plot and the unrealised, underdeveloped, unresponsive characters, are sapping my interest in doing so. Perhaps I would have a more favourable opinion of the difficulty curve if I hadn't been ghosting
Thief I/II and their assorted attendant fan missions for the past 12 years or so. Funnily, I'd grade the AI as only marginally better than that of the
Thief series. How far we've come . . .
Further, there are effectively three options for less-than-lethal play. You can choke them, shoot them with a rare and/or expensive dart, or avoid them. Whereas you can stab, dismember, shoot, incinerate, explode, or have them consumed by rats, MAGIC rats, or naturally occuring, teleporting rats. You can even interfere with time and, via possession, walk them into their own bullets, walk them into being atomised by
SCIENCE ! grade security devices, walk them off of a roof et al. Much more variety.
The whole eleventh hour Piero/Sokolov BFF happy magic fancy dancy SCIENCE ! faire felt, in a series of similar thematic elements, extremely contrived. Bravo for consistency ! Also, ran into a (mildly amusing) bug where, due to having personally removed all the enemies in the area, Piero decided to develop spontaneous rapid onset dementia and repeat a comment about his glorified Van de Graaff generator no less than nine times before walking off the roof. Also, in that specific scene, they
both repeat the same comment regarding the device and its capacity to kill/incapacitate
verbatim. Equal parts condescending and perplexing.
The voicework. Despite the presence of Susan Surandon, Brad Dourif, Lena Headey, John Slatterly, and even Michael fucking Madsen, most of the voice work is, at best, average. Can't blame them, really. Speculating, but I'd find it challenging to give my best efforts to a such a clumsy narrative. Also, I've heard that voice acting is a substantially different frog to EVERYTHING ELSE. And the pay usually sucks. What a shame.
Some painfully moralistic bits in relation to the <strike>morality</strike> chaos system. One stand out bit would be right at the end, where your chauffeur gets all high and mighty if you've stabbed and shot and generally been very unpleasant to a numerous and varied group of people who've been (trying to, at the least) stabbing and shooting and generally been very unpleasant to you, throughout the entire game. YOU SIT IN A BOAT. You abandoned friends to be executed so YOU COULD SIT IN A BOAT. It is not your prerogative to judge. Also, bolt to the eye.
Despite the gameplay dichotomy of lethal/non lethal, the narrative and characters seem to only be written to respond to Corvo-as-Mass-Murderer (despite the traditional definition of assassin making no mention of indiscriminate slaughter), rather than three (such excess, such indulgence !) sets, one with Corvo-as-Saint-of-Not-Killing-Ever, and one with Corvo-as-Saint-of-Not-Killing-Ever-Well-Alright-
Sometimes-
Rarely-But-Only-If-My-Modern-Take-On-Morality-Tells-Me-So. BUT YOU'RE AN ASSASSIN BUT YOU'RE AN ASSASSIN BUT YOU'RE AN ASSASSIN BUT YO -
Also, anyone who claims that the daughter was a well executed child character may, I suspect, have the brain worms. A character who bases their entire moral outlook from your killing/not killing a dozen guards, for example, is an exaggerated, shitty, shitty, character. SHIT.
Indeed, for all the talk of multiple paths, they seem to have forgot multiple consequences. The choice to spare a target by having them abducted (SOMEHOW) by a gang of street thugs, and be worked to death in a mine as a slave for the rest of their short, miserable life receives, at best, cursory mention in dialogue/text. Favourite would have been the one where you can elect to place a woman who
was an obstacle to your Good,
Loyal Friends at the Loyalist Conspiracy into the (lifelong, apparently) care of her ominous, unsettling, anonymous (if not for the Outsider spawned Floating Name system) elephantmanesque mask (there were some awesome masks in that level) wearing admirer-from-very-afar, rather than grant her an honest, quick death. MORAL AMBIGUITY ! Worst would be the regent, who, mind bogglingly, keeps a recording detailing his responsibility for not only the death of the empress, but the importation of the plague rats that have basically overrun the entire city (empire ?) and his intention to use them as a means of wiping out all those useless, listless, unsightly poor people. A recording that is, conveniently, compatible with the nearby citywide propaganda broadcast hub. The regent, who was, until his little coup, the fucking spy master. Completely bereft of logic. It was, I concede, rather fun to find the first target wandering around in a plague district, his last (written) words all FROM HELL'S HEART and such.
Awful ending, too. HAPPILY EVER AFTER/OH NO EVERYTHING'S ROOTED FOREVER. No middle ground.
Brace for DLC.
So. I blame two things. Bethesda. Bethesda and the capitulation to hoary console hardware.
What could have been. Oh. What could have been.
WORDS
