Dishonored (PlayStation 3) Review

Dishonored (yes, without the 'u' ) sees players take on the role of Corvo Attano, a personal bodyguard to the Empress who rules over a city called Dunwall in what is meant to be an alternate version of London in the 17th Century. Corvo is also somewhat of a father figure to the Empress' daughter, but when villainous fiends magically appear in an enclosed courtyard to kill the leader and kidnap the young girl before just disappearing into thin air, the slow-to-arrive armed guards find poor Corvo stood there with bloody hands and the conclusion of 'traitor' is immediately jumped to. Six months down the line, just as the subsequent execution is about to take place, a reprieve of sorts occurs, with an escape plan initiated by a mysterious group, and so begins the adventure and attempts to unravel the truth behind the tragic event, all the while roaming streets plagued by rats and infectious disease.

The initial stages of the adventure work as a smooth interactive tutorial, teaching how to make use of the various methods of control and functionality without making it seem too much like hand-holding. The beauty of the way it has been crafted is that new features are carefully introduced with no disjointed feeling, and soon enough the context-sensitive action button will become second nature for climbing up onto structures, looting corpses, throwing objects, and so on, as well as using the jump function to traverse small open distances. The main missions are not all that is on offer in Dishonored, though, with the adventure being more open and allowing for plenty of deviations from the on-screen objective prompt that reminds of where to head next for story progression's sake. It is the extra little side-quests that help flesh out the experience overall, bringing a whole extra level of enjoyment to proceedings.

In many ways Dishonored comes across as a Metroid Prime-style title, so rather than falling into that generic FPS category, it blends into more of a First-Person Adventure game, with lots of additional information to uncover, extra characters to meet, supplementary notes to check unearth, and special abilities to upgrade during the journey. Players can also make the conscious choice of whether or not to kill others, since after all Corvo was a protector to start with, not a mindless assassin for hire (although he still wields a blade and various other weapons for when necessary, obviously!). Selecting to talk to key people, overhear conversations from safe distances, and sneak up behind certain potential assailants to merely knock them unconscious, all plays a part in the way the final stages play out and it is this aspect that makes this much more engrossing than a run-of-the-mill shooter.

Corvo can also gain numerous abilities and upgrades over time that transform him from a regular Joe to a truly special warrior, able to leap across great distances, scale walls, see into buildings from the outside, gain night vision, slow down time, possess creatures, and do so many other things, including tracking down special runes and artefacts. There are times when 'going rogue' is equally as fun, however, as the surrounding environments hold plenty of hidden secrets, from random items to collect through to charms. Everything is topped off with intricately detailed landscapes, a highly atmospheric soundtrack, and fantastic voice acting that ups the immersion levels considerably. With roughly 90,000 words in AI-driven one-liners and spoken dialogue, plus around 40,000 more found scattered across scrawled notes, tattered books and meaningful graffiti, those that love good novels will be enamoured with the game, its sizable cast of around 100 characters, and the way they will be sucked right in from start to end.