Dishonored (Video game review)

Dishonored

So I am as big of a bethesda fanboy as they come, so this review might come as biased, but who cares because there is nothing wrong about biased bethesda reviews, except if the come from the company because thats just lame. Dishonored is a stealth like game produced (not made) by Bethesda, where you play as Corvo Attano, the once beloved bodyguard of the empress and rumored to have tapped dat' ass at one time. You are framed for killing her and kidnapping her daughter whom you fought so hard to protect.  Atleast this is how you start the game. As you are flung into this steam-punk world you will soon find an amazing array of wonderful ingenious technology, that is until you exit the prolog. After you are framed you are sent to the jail, and one day before you are supposed to be executed you happen to slip out into the sewers.

Without going into details, because of spoilers, you get chosen by this man named the Outsider to have super powers which, in reality are quite a small array. You can get blink which is short range teleporting, which I will bitch about later, possession, and something which resembles the force from star wars. Now these are all bought with runes found ingame which are almost always found inside of safes, which most people are so daft that they will write the combination in the back of a closent, or will leave a note with the words *MOST IMPORTANT DATE* and that always turns out to be the combination. Now apparently all the guards for the all mighty replacement fuhrer, were drug out of the ADD camp for weight lifters. This seems to be the problem with stealth games, you either have the ultra buff meatheads who are easily distracted will a rolling nickel, or the over zealous freaks who will ring the alarms running for the hills, at the slightest piece of dust falling out of place. So the sneaky gameplay can easily be avoided by heading to the highest point on the map, and just look for the hidden vents or small pathways along the roofs.

Let's talk about the actual fighting: it's OK. Not bad, but not great. The main weapon will either be your sword for assassinations, or your crossbow for quick assassinations. If you ever get into a jam there is always the pistol, which is a great choice when nine guards have you cornered and you just ran out of bolts for the crossbow. The bad thing is, it is of corse LOUD, and every guard within a 100 yard radius will hear you and come galloping to the rescue, which means they all need to use the same door, which is an effective way to clear out the map within five minutes. The bad thing about going rambo in this game is that every level carries over it's consequences to the next, so for example, you shoot the Pope one mission the next your up to your ass in angry Catholics with hand grenades. So your best attempt is to go nonlethal which becomes a pain in the ass for the first few levels, but soon you realize that it is the best choice. *protip always buy sleeping darts*

This is a big thing that pisses me off, first you use a sleeping dart on an unexpecting guard and he is out within 5 seconds  but you put that same guard with about five other of his buddies, and alert him, and suddenly it's about 10 seconds longer to make him pass out. It's like he's showing off for all of his friends to see how long they can stay up, you think with the increased adrenaline you would pass out faster but no.

Another great gem that pisses me off, is Blink (told you I'de get to it). This has to be the most idiotic spell in the game, you click to teleport to a wall and half the time you end up face deep in the wall instead of on top of the wall like you intended. The other half of the time using blink will be spent trying to get the arrows to approve that you will be going up, and not just wanting to slide down. Another stupid function is when you have to make a really hard jump, but it seems like in all reality you will make it, so you use blink to do so, and half the time you over shoot it midway, or end up in a pool of baddies who want to stab at your ankles until you bleed to death.

The story is good, I felt I was more of a Big Daddy from Bioshock rather than a trained assassin, but this was a good thing, I felt like I actually grew with the character. He pulls the Gordon Freeman oath of silence, which makes you feel more attached to him for doing so, like you can actually play as yourself versus Ezio Auditore del Florencia. There was even one time where I had to go to a party with big fancy people, and assassinate this head lady, though I felt unfimilar, I found myself thinking "If this were me I would sign my name in a guest book, who cares if they might find out who I am, I can just kill everyone!" and there was a guest book right next to me. Dialoge options are abit narrow, as most of the time when a guard smarts off to me I want to tell him that he is a daft minded man child in a video game, there is no option for that.

All in all it's not a bad game, in fact I like it, maybe enough to let it meet my parents, but as long as Fallout 3 doesn't hear about it.

Final thoughts

Combat Mechanics were good
Story was well written
Game was a tad to easy
Unreal super powers, and special weapons
Unless you like reading all the books in the game there are a TON of plot holes
Emily (the queen's daughter) seems to attached to you, if you kill one person, she automatically assumes the frame of mind that everyone must die.
Little replay ability

I'm giving Dishonored a 9.0/10

Game Review: Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is GTA Hong Kong with a new story. You play an undercover police officer named Wei Shien or something along those lines, who gets in the Triad with his best prison buddy named jackie. The game has a very well made plot, a few over the top minigames and worst of all glitches.

The worst glitch i ever encountered was the one where I was driving at top speed on a mini bike and went through the bottom of the map and fell into water durring a mission where I needed to tailgate someone for the forty millionth time. The game does add a cool feature to counter balance this called Action Jacking, where you can jump out of your car to high jack a fellow motorists car while your driving.

Speaking of the driving it is pretty solid, controls are okay, wide variety of cars that all drive near the same, except the vans go a max of 40 and every other vehicle goes 4000. It gets pretty annoying when you go to highjack a slightly faster car only to find out that in fact your now a proud owner of a soccer mom minivan and 5 screaming kids. Oh, and did I mention you drive on the left side of the road in Hong Kong? Pretty good tip to know, took me about 5 minutes to figure out why so many people were blaring their horns at me. You would think Hong Kong would have more traffic than this, other than a few cars here and there, but the traffic doesn't become much of a problem except in the missions.

The missions are pretty fun, but sometimes you realize that the missions start to feel the same, and get old really quick. Drive here, shoot that, drive back, avoid cops all rinse and repeat stuff, but the game really has a good way of shuffling the deck of missions around so you don't notice as much, but eventually you start to realize that whenever you go to draw your four cards that the game gets rigged, and you never end up with a full house but nothing but a jack, and 3 joker cards. Okay really odd comparison aside, the missions get stale, but the plot makes up for it, I really don't like to go into the plot when reviewing because of spoilers, just trust me, it's a damn good plot.

The Soundtrack is a good way to diversify your musical portfolio. It's really a damn good soundtrack, and normally these GTA style games have a really good soundrack so this follows the code. Although the game has one of the worst minigames I have ever played, and it is the F*CKING KARAOKE! I love the songs, but I hate the minigame that you are forced to play twice!

This game has a very odd way  of splitting up XP given to you, there are three major XPs. Triad which is gained by killing people, and beating up old ladies. Cop xp is gained by not destroying public property, not destroying people's faces, and not being a big smelly meany, which is kind of a bitch to do, in simple missions like Drive to Point X, I will lose most of my XP on the way there because there is a traffic jam, and I REALLY need to go, and the sidewalk is pretty clear of cars. Did I say you get XP for cops? Well no, actually you get the max amount at the beginning of the mission, and at the end whatever you haven't pissed away by running over pedestrians is yours :D.  The third major XP is Face xp, now this is kinda cool, its just random xp with already made out skill tree that gives you a TON of great perks. The odd thing about it is some clothing requires you to have a higher face level, how the F*ck do I have to low of a face to pull off some shitty knockoff shades from the chinese lady in the back ally.

So all in all it's a good game, repetitive, good soundtrack, shitty minigames,  so I would rate Napping Puppies: 8.8/10 I would rent it, but I would NOT buy.