Dishonored: a suprise discovery

Occasionally I will come across a game that I have never heard of that turns out to be quite good. I only discovered Dark Souls, Dragon Age and Prince of Persia many years after they had been released. Sometimes these discoveries turn out to be exceptional like Rage, The Last of Us or Uncharted. 

This week I am adding Doshonored to the list of exceptional games. The first I had ever heard of this game was when I Googled "Best games for PlayStation 3" a couple of weeks ago. Initially I assumed this game must have been a PlayStation exclusive and that is why I hadn't played it in 2012. However, I now see it was available across all platforms.

Therefore my working theory is that the only thing I saw of this game ten years ago was the cover. Based on a cursory review of the image I must have assumed this was some sort of horror game and spent my £40 on Halo 4 or Borderlands 2 instead. In 2022 I was able to buy the game for a couple of pounds and add it to my 'must play some time' pile. This week I decided to pull the game out and have a look at what I had bought.

I don't know why I like this game so much as, on paper, it shouldn't work. The design is far from original and it looks like a cross between Fable II and Bioshock Infinite. Some of the voice acting is a bit hammy and I'm not a massive fan of stealth gameplay (I have never got over the scars left by the brutal gameplay of Hitman 2 on the PS2). The storyline is highly derivative and lots of the mechanics seem to be directly lifted from Fallout. 

Yet this is a great game. The story is familiar, but it is familiar like a pair of old comfy slippers: it is enjoyable but doesn't work your brain into a jumble like it was with Halo 2 or Destiny. The graphics may borrow on the same Steampunk aesthetics as other games, but it does look very nice. Some of the voice acting is a little hit and miss but I recognised the tones of Lena Headley immediately (even with an American accent).

Things progress at a steady pace and make sense in the context of the story. We aren't just shooting cockroaches with a BB gun one minute and wearing Brotherhood of Steel armour the next. I also realised that developers Arkane created Prey (the good one not the Xbox 360 one) and Deathloop - so they have a good track record.

I'm only entering my first few missions on the game but can tell I am going to enjoy it as I haven't been instantly intimidated by its size (The Witcher 3), it is engaging and doesn't have me wandering around with nothing to do (No Man's Sky) and the controls aren't ridiculously clunky (Mass Effect: Andromeda). Let's hope it remains as engaging to the end.