» Review: Dishonored

Dishonored is a brand new video game property – something of a oddity in a landscape littered with sequels and remakes.

The game – sort of an Assassin’s Creed/Half-Life mashup, with just a whiff of Bioshock for flavoring – manages to exceed expectations as blockbuster season begins.

Offering an unusual setting (Dunwall, a coastal town b uilt on and dominated by the business of whaling) and a detailed back story (plague and double-crosses), Dishonored drops you into a world that’s not your typical video game setting, a world not unlike Victorian England.

Also in the game’s favor is the mission level designs. Each level bears almost no resemblance to previous ones. At no time in the course of the game did I feel that I was retreading over past missions.

You play as Corvo Attano, the official protector for Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, ruler of Dunwall. Things deteriorate quickly when she is killed by ninja-like assassins, who whisk off her daughter – Lady Emily – the heiress to the throne. When you’re left as the only living person at the bloody scene, you’re charged with killing the empress and are swiftly scheduled to be executed.

Of course, you’ve been framed and, with the help of an underground movement, you are freed and given the tools needed to set out to find Lady Emily and clear your name.

A scientist for the loyalists equips you with weapons and a mask to conceal your identity. Soon after, you are visited by “The Outsider,” a mysterious man who can appear out of thin air and who marks you with a tattoo and bestows powers to help you in your quest.

Initially, you have limited resources for both, but exploration and looting serve to increase your abilities.

The Outsider gives you a mystical heart that helps you to locate runes and bone charms. Runes can be exchanged for additional powers and bone charms can be equipped to increase skills and health.

Two of the abilities that will come in handy through the course of the game are “Dark Vision” – the ability to see through walls to find guards and assassination targets, and “Blink” the ability to instantly transport across a section of real estate. All abilities have two levels that can be upgraded with the right quantity of runes. Use of the abilities causes you to expend mana, which is in limited supply.

The name of the game in Dishonored is stealth. During most of the story, you cannot show your face in public without being subjected to immediate execution.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t cause a lot of mayhem.

Each mission in Dishonored offers several paths to completion. Almost any scenario can play out in hand-to-hand combat or with silence, only disabling those in your way. You can stay in the shadows, silently completing missions with a minimum of fuss and splatter; you can leave a trail of bodies in your wake; or you can take it down the middle – killing when necessary and passing up the slaughter where convenient.

The more death and destruction you leave in your wake, the higher your “Chaos” score. This does more than just affect the people slain in the game. The higher your Chaos score, the more deadly rats and the more infections form the plague. In at least one point in the game, an ally takes offense at your level of slaughter.

Needless to say, I decided to eschew subtlety and went for as many kills as I could. In fact, I tallied over 200 when all was said and done.

Dishonored is an engaging tale, one of hiding in the shadows while dispensing justice.

Platform: PlayStation3, Xbox 360

Manufacturer: Bethesda

Rating: Mature

Score: 9.5 chilies