Is it part of getting old that you always feel out of the current excitement loop or that younger people callously redefine words?
So the many-headed on the internet were drooling on this being the best stealth game since Thief 1 and 2. This naturally piqued the old curiosity gene and I couldn't wait to play Dishonored (in 2022 anyway).
"Stealth" is not a word that comes to mind when thinking about Dishonored 1 and 2.
Again, perhaps it is my perception of what stealth should be that is the problem. The perception that combat should be 100% avoidable, the tools for staying unobserved work, confrontation is heavily punished (well, Dishonored does the last bit with much vim and gusto, there's that).
Again, again, maybe I failed to understand the stealth mechanic of these two games. Maybe.
Every time I was observed, I reloaded, tried again. A few moments later someone else saw me, reload, try again.
How do you avoid detection in Dishonored? I - do - not - know.
Throughout both games the thought kept playing in an endless loop in the old brain: How on earth did the many-headed decide these are stealth games?
It really, really made me wish that someone would remaster the first two Thief games in a new engine without changing anything else. They were not perfect but it took about five seconds to understand the dos and don'ts.
Two games, a total of 30+ hours, and no clue how stealth works in Dishonored. That is ghastly game design.
Take the whole see-through-walls process. That was supremely frustrating. You can only see enemies for a short radius but the AI can spot you from anywhere. In stealth if you get spotted there should be an option to blend away instead of having to run across most of the map to lose a pursuer(s).
Thief had very limited verticality. In Dishonored even if you take a vertical approach, the AI just makes everything, well, I don't know, something unpleasant. It's like the AI was programmed deliberately to be constantly on the lookout for a fight and never calming down.
So we have a game where it is not clear how to detection works and once you are detected there is no solution except reloading the last save.
The loot system is again peculiar. In Thief, you were usually told to get this much minimum depending on difficulty level. In Dishonored, some levels show a total of 2000 coins but you end up with maybe 200-300 depending on the path you take. So, what, you have to take ALL paths to collect everything?
Considering the scarcity of ammo and the high cost of upgrades even the action experience is not enjoyable. You scan an area, see three enemies, you get spotted and there are suddenly ten people hitting you from all sides simultaneously.
Not even going to mention the rune mechanic. It sucks. Big time.
I finished the game but it was confusing. What is this? Stealth/action/RPG? Just giving a player freedom to choose but not the mechanism to properly execute that choice is baffling game design.
I don't think I have ever reloaded a game as much as Dishonored 1 and 2.
I have literally spent many minutes perched on a ledge watching the guard patrol patterns and using the Zoom feature to jump down, knock one out, jump back up, wait another couple minutes for the next one, repeat, repeat.
On a general gaming note, not entirely related to this game, please don't do voice overs with people talking as you are traversing a level. In Dishonored 2, the clockwork boss level must have reloaded at least 25 times and the boss keeps talking as you move through the level. I finally put my headphones aside because it got so irritating to listen to that imbecile repeat the same three sentences over and over.
Am I playing Dishonored 1 and 2 wrong? I don't know. The original Thief games by Looking Glass I could play on the highest difficulty and achieve 100% goals.
These two, I just don't understand these two.
