Dishonored II

Well done Bethesda and Arkane!

A digital turd plopped out of steam's servers and landed on my hard drive yesterday morning. The stench of a rushed PC launch and incompetency hangs in the air, sticking to the back of my throat like a tankard of whale-oil.

DISCLAIMER: I am the biggest fanboy of Dishonored and played through the first game so many times I even uploaded a "speed run" of one of the levels. NERD ALERT NERD ALERT HA HA!

Dishonored 2 is fucked. The performance took me by surprise when I stepped out onto the roofs of Dunwall and dropped down to 30fps.

"How odd" I proclaimed to myself as I took in the slideshow; maybe it's a new type of interactive storytelling like a 3d comic book or a gloryhole where instead of a penis poking through the hole an overly large turd is crammed through, squeezed and mushed out like play-dough, with an extra centimeter being exposed every second, at the apex of encounter when you think it can't possibly get worse a single straw is poked through the log by the pervert on the other side of the wall, you peer closer to see what's inside - wiping away the tears - and from the other side a tortured voice whispers:

"mouse smoothing"

Fuck me I feel like I am controlling a robot with narcolepsy. The mouse settings don't do shit except make it more annoying. The patch better change the text from "Sensitivity" to "Rage Meter".

So this morning I was looking around to see if there was something the PC plebs could do to actually be able to play the game, some kind of human sacrifice or similar, and I found an article that linked to a Bethesda site where they were apparently espousing their deep knowledge by encouraging you to reformat your PC and double check your asshole to make sure it's gaped wide enough for the thorough dicking you were about to receive.

I mean, I am guessing at this point because I couldn't reach the article, I accidentally, with my fat rage-filled fingers, pressed the Enter key before hitting the final number of my year of birth to pass the age gate, and their wonderfully coded website accepted that I was born in the year 198, and then refused to give me access to the site, apparently immortal demigods aren't welcome at the Bethesda webportal.

Well, go suck a turd through a gloryhole, Bethesda. Arkane can give you a reach-around.

Post of the month.

Honestly though, three seconds into the tutorial I thought: dark souls 1 m+kb fiasco all over again. No way that's QA:d.

Quote from Sentura

On 10/11/2016 at 1:15 AM, Sentura said: Watched the first minute and got turned off so badly when they started talking about the abilities. It already feels like the player is going to be the living embodiment of a power fantasy instead of focusing on what seems to be an otherwise well constructed immersive sim experience. Maybe I'm just not in the target demographic anymore.

Saw another review calling it a "worthy sequel to Thief". I don't think they remember what Thief was all about:

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This is fully due to the amount of money it costs to make a game these days. if you are investing a couple of million in a product you want to ensure it reaches the widest base. Remove the risk to do this.

Same with music...films...tv...

You CAN however choose to refuse supernatural powers, the game asks you if you want them. That's cool, I chose not to get them and will do a 100% pacifist and 100% ghost run. Whenever the game gets playable with a mouse. Sorry for that super minor spoiler.

Quote from Vaya

4 hours ago, Vaya said: This is fully due to the amount of money it costs to make a game these days. if you are investing a couple of million in a product you want to ensure it reaches the widest base. Remove the risk to do this.

Same with music...films...tv...

Of course it's to do with the money, but that doesn't really excuse anything. Dark Souls made a bunch of money, the new call of duty is essentially an old deathmatch multiplayer game among other things. There is a slight evolution happening, and imo games like Dishonored should be there at the frontlines capitalizing on it. It isn't. Then come the comparisons by reviewers that are basically lying about what the game is about. What really bugs me is that there is a great game underneath everything, but it just feels over designed. At a certain point they should just have started culling abilities and features instead of adding them. The blink and the shared fate abilities instantly come to mind as the worst of the bunch. Completely unnecessary and detrimental to the experience.

Quote from Sentura

31 minutes ago, Sentura said: The blink and the shared fate abilities instantly come to mind as the worst of the bunch. Completely unnecessary and detrimental to the experience.

They solved that by letting you choose I don't know if it has any inpact on the story and environment, but I sure hope so.

Quote from grapen

20 minutes ago, grapen said: They solved that by letting you choose I don't know if it has any inpact on the story and environment, but I sure hope so.

yeah except encounters/solutions are designed with the powers in mind. Besides that, "don't use it" is a terrible excuse since the experience is ruined by the time your suspension of disbelief is lifted as you realize you can basically no clip levels to the finish line. Certainly not something that screams 60 bucks to me.

Quote from Sentura

Just now, Sentura said: Besides that, "don't use it" is a terrible excuse since the experience is ruined by the time your suspension of disbelief is lifted as you realize you can basically no clip levels to the finish line.

No, there's literally an event in the game thats asks you: do you want supernatural powers or not?

Fair enough, I guess that's different from the first. However I find it incredibly hard to believe that each encounter has been balanced both with and without powers. Either way that point may as well be moot since we've seemingly established that I'm no longer in the target demographic.

Im sorry you guys are having performance issues. I am enjoying the game at 60fps on my 980. Im not trying to say the problem does not exist, nor that its excusable by Bethesda for this to happen etc, but on a gameplay point of view, I do enjoy the game...

Ghosting this game without powers is like trying to satisfy a woman without a clitoris. What a challenge, I fucking love it.

I just wished they had added the option to check, during a mission, if you were spotted or not. Kinda sucks to spend 2 hours on it only to find out you were apparently seen in the mission stats screen.

Alright, I just put a few hours in, just got to Karnaca and I'm really enjoying it. Trying to beat it on hard, i did say yes to powers and I'm fairly sure that will bite you later eventually since the game acknowledged it in the journals and your diary so the story might have some ramifications there. I'm playing with Corvo and so far I'm enjoying the diferent dialogs and I can actually imagine a second playthrough as his daughter to be pretty fun as well if anything to see the diferent interactions and story progression, shame they didn't do a parallel story development a-la Resident Evil 2 Leon/Claire scenario and instead

Spoiler decided to turn the character you don't chose into a rock. But then again, I'm still not done with the game so it might surprise me there.

So far though, the gameplay is pretty good and it has a real sense of progression instead of spending the whole game in a big hub like Deus Ex Mankind divided, so I'm already enjoying Dishonored 2 a lot more.

Performance is a bit all over the place, i get 60 FPS @ 1080p in interiors and smaller areas but the game drops to 30/35 in big outdoor or denser areas. That said, my PC is already bellow the recomend specs for this game so I'll cut them some slack there.

My god, the environment art is astonishing so far, i can't wait to see what lies ahead in terms of variety too, so far in terms of scenery it looks similar to the first game, only way better looking, which is fine by me but i hope they surprise me there too and show me unexpected environments.

This new engine is really amazing too. I really like their textures and materials, their metals have a very unique look, which really helps the stylized look pop out. Even though i get a lot of aliasing and moire effect in this game, which is actually very distracting, I'm wondering what it looks like on console but it's probably a combination of fxaa being shit and materials being too shiny sometimes.

So far I'm actually happy I got it for PC, although I'm playing with a controller i don't have many problems to report on my end after playing the initial 4 or 5 hours, so far so good.

Can't wait

Quote from Sentura

On 11/12/2016 at 11:22 PM, Sentura said: Fair enough, I guess that's different from the first. However I find it incredibly hard to believe that each encounter has been balanced both with and without powers. Either way that point may as well be moot since we've seemingly established that I'm no longer in the target demographic.

I kind of agree with this - but it's only really especially noticeable at the start of the game. The first mission in Dunwall has you navigating the city without powers and it was frustrating in terms of it being quite trial and error based as to whether enemies spot you. You could sneak around a corner and a guard would be looking through a window, or try to cross a gap between cover sections (with no other route options available) and again have someone spot you from the street. I found the same thing on the third mission (The Good Doctor) - immediately after getting off the boat you have one main entry point with an opening either side of it, and trying to get inside that without getting spotted was a bit of a nightmare, as guards are on either side of the entrances, not very visible in amongst the scenery inside and you have no minimap to tell you which way they might be facing or where they are. I read up on this mission after I'd done it and read that you can possess a fish in the fountain to get inside, but I didn't have this power at that point.

Anyway, later on this does become less of a problem, mostly because I now have some of those powers. I found the later levels to be well designed in terms of having multiple route options and I'm really enjoying collecting the bonecharms and runes as they're quite well hidden. The Clockwork Mansion mission was a highlight in that respect, particularly with the level sections that could be moved and rotated.

I'm playing this on PS4 by the way and found that graphically it's nice overall with a few concessions, such as the low detail level backdrops - it seems it might have been tough to fit it onto consoles and maybe they could do with some engine upgrades. Interiors look generally nice, although there are some anti-aliasing and lighting issues, and some pop in. Framerate can be an issue but only at certain points and it's occasionally a bit buggy too - the first main character I had to kill fell into a wall and I had to loot his foot for the mission item as it was the only part of him I could still see. Either way none of these things make it a less than enjoyable experience - gameplay wise it's pretty great and I look forward to playing more.

Quote from Sprony

On 11/12/2016 at 3:38 PM, Sprony said: I just wished they had added the option to check, during a mission, if you were spotted or not. Kinda sucks to spend 2 hours on it only to find out you were apparently seen in the mission stats screen.

If you want real time feedback on this, here's a tip if you wanna do that, under Enhancements, unlock Reflexes, and then Snap Reaction. (they'll set you back 4 runes, but it's worth it for stealth play)

What it does is the game will slow down for 2 seconds when you're spotted (a-la Metal Gear Solid V), so you always know when you're spotted with this.

Quote from PaulH

7 hours ago, PaulH said: I found the same thing on the third mission (The Good Doctor) - immediately after getting off the boat you have one main entry point with an opening either side of it, and trying to get inside that without getting spotted was a bit of a nightmare, as guards are on either side of the entrances, not very visible in amongst the scenery inside and you have no minimap to tell you which way they might be facing or where they are. I read up on this mission after I'd done it and read that you can possess a fish in the fountain to get inside, but I didn't have this power at that point.

This mission was fucking amazing, I love how you can go quite literally anywhere in this island, from the basement, to the bed rocks all the way to the rooftops. I kind of brute forced my way in the main entrance but later realized there's quite a few hidden entrances around the edge of the map like you can just go around the back of the island, you can get in through a window in the kitchen, etc.

There are plenty of ways into the asylum in The Good Doctor, I personally went through the kitchen. I finished that mission last night with pacifist, ghost and "good ending". No powers mode and hard mode contributed greatly to an EXCELLENT experience. Great story. I have but one slight complaint (not mouse related):

Spoiler the mission debrief noted that I swam out to the half sunken ship to loot it, but it didn't recognize that I saved Hamilton Corvo's unique voice line in the ship was a great touch though!

Quote from grapen

On 14-11-2016 at 10:43 PM, grapen said: There are plenty of ways into the asylum in The Good Doctor, I personally went through the kitchen. I finished that mission last night with pacifist, ghost and "good ending". No powers mode and hard mode contributed greatly to an EXCELLENT experience. Great story. I have but one slight complaint (not mouse related):

http://# Hide contents the mission debrief noted that I swam out to the half sunken ship to loot it, but it didn't recognize that I saved Hamilton Corvo's unique voice line in the ship was a great touch though!

Spoiler You can save Hamilton? Each and every time I tried (ghosting) the woman kills him. If I play violently it isn't a problem.