Dishonored

[Blastfrog]

Dishonored is released! I preordered it just hours ago (lol), and now it's all downloaded, and all that needs to happen is to decrypt the files. I'll let you guys know what I think after I've booted it up.

[Violator]

Seen the review for this, only gets released on the 12th here, looks fucking cool

[Blastfrog]

Well, I'm liking this so far. First couple of levels are kinda linear, but it's just an intro, so it's understandable. There's no regen, you have to use items (food) that are lying around to heal, and they don't heal too much. So far, it's feeling a lot like a really polished Deus Ex 1.

[Blastfrog]

Heh, wow.

http://i.imgur.com/300lK.jpg

Aside from wonky ragdoll physics (what game doesn't have that?), this is turning out to be quite awesome. The missions have tons of stuff to do, and there's loads of secrets in the levels. It's quite interesting how dynamic a lot of stuff is, as well.

[DoomUK]

Do you have your quality settings turned down? Looks like a game from 10 years ago.

[Springy]

It's out on the 12th over here. Doesn't look to bad from what I've seen of it.

[Blastfrog]

DoomUK said:

Do you have your quality settings turned down? Looks like a game from 10 years ago.

Nope, maxed out. I think it looks just fine. Strange that such stingy retro gamers like the ones here would be criticizing a new release's graphics. Honestly, it looks more like something from 5 years ago, not 10. Even 2007 era graphics look pretty advanced to me. :P

[Jodwin]

DoomUK said:

Do you have your quality settings turned down? Looks like a game from 10 years ago.

Well, it's a console game as well. Consoles, which are like seven years old. :P

[Mr. T]

Sodaholic said:

Nope, maxed out. I think it looks just fine. Strange that such stingy retro gamers like the ones here would be criticizing a new release's graphics. Honestly, it looks more like something from 5 years ago, not 10. Even 2007 era graphics look pretty advanced to me. :P

I agree that they look nasty for a 2012 game.

FYI this is from 2007:

http://www.crysisdemo.com/crysis-demo-download/screen2.jpg

[DoomUK]

Sodaholic said:

Nope, maxed out. I think it looks just fine. Strange that such stingy retro gamers like the ones here would be criticizing a new release's graphics. Honestly, it looks more like something from 5 years ago, not 10. Even 2007 era graphics look pretty advanced to me. :P

Even the promo screenshots didn't look all that impressive. And consoles might be 7 years old but there's still some nicer looking games available for them. So in summary, it's a lazy port of a game that doesn't compete very well with other console games to begin with.

It seems an interesting game but it's certainly a little ugly to look at.

[Enjay]

I don't give a damn whether it looks like a game from 2012 or 2007, it looks like it should be a good game to play and it's one I've really been looking forward to. If it's fun to play, it won't bother me at all if it doesn't compare well graphically to the latest all-graphics-and-no-substance ejaculation from the gaming industry.

[DooM_RO]

It looks great on PC. I love the fact that there are many ways to reach an objective but the game seems a bit easy. I've already finished the Boyle mission and from what I've heard it's not a very long game either.

It's a great game and the game looks awesome! Not just graphically but the art style is very pretty to look a. I still think DX:HR is better although this game has some plusses over DX.

[Blastfrog]

I'm already on the last level. This was too short. :( I'd recommend getting it later when the price is down. This is certainly a high quality game, but the length takes its value down a notch in my book.

I'm also getting a lot of random crashing, yet when it "crashes", the exe is still open and I have to manually kill the process.

[Whoo]

I heard you can race through the game in 4-5 hours if you just do the main quests, but if you do all the additional exploring and quests it takes 20+ hours.

I wish I had $60 to spend on this.

[Sporku]

Okay seriously, what the hell are people talking about when they say this game looks bad? If you seriously think that, you're missing the fucking point. This is a very stylized game, and as such it is not intended to look realistic ala Crysis or other hyper-realistic games. It'd be like saying Team Fortress 2 looks bad because they rely more on having a distinct style rather than trying to cram as much geometric detail into the game as they possibly can. I've only played it for about 30 minutes so far, and I think it looks gorgeous. Screenshots do not do this game justice; you really have to see the environments in motion to be able to appreciate just how good this game looks... especially running at 60 frames per second.

The game looks great, fuck you.

[Hellbent]

Thank you AgentSpork. You are a resourceful agent for the country.

[DooM_RO]

AgentSpork said:

Okay seriously, what the hell are people talking about when they say this game looks bad? If you seriously think that, you're missing the fucking point. This is a very stylized game, and as such it is not intended to look realistic ala Crysis or other hyper-realistic games. It'd be like saying Team Fortress 2 looks bad because they rely more on having a distinct style rather than trying to cram as much geometric detail into the game as they possibly can. I've only played it for about 30 minutes so far, and I think it looks gorgeous. Screenshots do not do this game justice; you really have to see the environments in motion to be able to appreciate just how good this game looks... especially running at 60 frames per second.

The game looks great, fuck you.

Yeah, on my PC on ultra settings it looks very good!My god, the Golden Cat was very pretty in particular! I think the art style is very nicely done and clearly a lot of effort went into it. It is no surprise it looks so awesome, one of the lead artist of Half Life 2 worked on it.

I would also like to applaud Arkane for choosing quality over quantity. There are fewer weapons and levels but everything is very polished except for the story, which is very predictable.

[Reisal]

If it's short, I'm likely not gonna bother with it.

[DoomUK]

AgentSpork said:

This is a very stylized game, and as such it is not intended to look realistic ala Crysis or other hyper-realistic games. It'd be like saying Team Fortress 2 looks bad because they rely more on having a distinct style rather than trying to cram as much geometric detail into the game as they possibly can.

The difference is that TF2 looks polished, even given the ageing engine it's running on. I said nothing about hyper-realism being the de facto for good visuals.

It seems to be that UE3 games either look really good or really bad, regardless of their artistic style. I haven't played this yet, but for now I'll be forgiving and put the blurry textures down to the texture-popping issue with the engine that also plagued Singularity, amongst other titles. Though if that's what's going on, I don't understand why this hasn't been resolved yet or why other UE3 games don't suffer from it at all.

I apologise for banging on about GR4F1X, but I just don't think such conspicuously bad visuals are acceptable in a AAA game in 2012.

[Violator]

Pre-ordered it, can't wait to try it out been looking forward to playing a modern FPS that doesn't eat shit for breakfast, the stealth elements look fantastic as well as the visuals, the game seems to look a lot better in game than on screenshots from what I've seen, fuck yeah got a new game to play this weekend!!!

[Jodwin]

Mr. Chris said:

If it's short, I'm likely not gonna bother with it.

That'll depend on how you play it.

[Reisal]

Jodwin said:

That'll depend on how you play it.

I've an issue in trying to be a completionist, especially with sidequests and misc non-main story missions.

[Kira]

Then you'll have for something like 16 hours if you search books, infiltrate and make sidequests (and play without HUD flashlight saying "there dude, THERE" with maximum difficulty). There are people who pretend they have finished the game in something like 4 hours. That's not impossible but it involves going straight to the objectives all time.

There's plenty of replayability too.

It was already the case with Deus Ex HR, so...

[geX]

Currently well into the first assassination mission. And I'm enjoying myself.

The level design they have in their small hubs are spectacular. The connectivity it has, and the look of things makes you want to look around and explore things, and loot. You always find a new way back around things or a new ally. The hubs are small but very cleverly crafted to feel larger.

The story seems alright, and their alt missions have small funny elements that also makes you want to explore things.

The world they crafted is wonderful. I wouldn't call these 2007 graphics. They're not trying to be real or anything. It has its own thing going. They might have jumped the band wagon on the whole hand painted textures, but I love their style and you can see it's not a cut copy of anything else. (also you can see the hl2 lead on style is on this). The world is living and you feel like you are actually in this place.

The fighting is kinda wonky, but you get the hang of it. I like the abilities and that you can upgrade what you like. And hunting for runes is great. The pace is also great, you kinda decide what pace you want to play it, but either way there is great pacing between exploring and fighting/sneaking around.

So, I like it so far. It's a great something new in these days, its not perfect, but you have to give them something for trying. And what they succeed in they succeed well.

[Jehar]

Re: That first screenshot
It doesn't matter what year it is. Having a brick texture turn into a completely different material on the same mesh without any trim or alignment consideration is just lazy. Hopefully that's just one gaffe in otherwise polished level aesthetics.

[DoomUK]

Been playing it for a couple of hours. It's an enjoyable game and definitely a breath of fresh air in the world of FPSs (games like Mirror's Edge and DX:HR don't count in my eyes). I'll concede that it looks better in-game than it does in a static screenshot, but it's still a little rough around the edges.

One other thing. Not that it debases the quality of the game, but I'm not sure why the supernatural element of the game was needed. Not knowing anything about it previously I assumed you played as some sort of steampunk cyborg and your superpowers were based on fantasy science and not a spiritual aspect. Given the steampunk world the game is based in I think it would have been a pretty cool gimmick. But it wasn't my decision to make, so I have to live with it.

[DooM_RO]

DoomUK said:

Been playing it for a couple of hours. It's an enjoyable game and definitely a breath of fresh air in the world of FPSs (games like Mirror's Edge and DX:HR don't count in my eyes). I'll concede that it looks better in-game than it does in a static screenshot, but it's still a little rough around the edges.

One other thing. Not that it debases the quality of the game, but I'm not sure why the supernatural element of the game was needed. Not knowing anything about it previously I assumed you played as some sort of steampunk cyborg and your superpowers were based on fantasy science and not a spiritual aspect. Given the steampunk world the game is based in I think it would have been a pretty cool gimmick. But it wasn't my decision to make, so I have to live with it.

You're right, spells like blink and possess make the game a bit easy.

[Violator]

Just passed the first level, really cool, can see why some people were bitching about the visuals they look amazing but some areas will look a bit dry, that being said it didn't really bother me seeing as I've been playing through old school point and click adventures like Indiana Jones until I put this on my PC. Extremely impressed by how smoothly the gameplay is and how solid and complete the game feels.

[Hypnotoad]

Sodaholic said:

Heh, wow.

http://i.imgur.com/300lK.jpg

Aside from wonky ragdoll physics (what game doesn't have that?), this is turning out to be quite awesome. The missions have tons of stuff to do, and there's loads of secrets in the levels. It's quite interesting how dynamic a lot of stuff is, as well.

I've got dishonored too, and on my game on medium settings it looks a lot better than this screenshot (unless I'm going crazy), are you sure your GPU or something else (graphics driver?) isn't bottlenecking the visuals slightly?

[Belial]

I have everything on max and I have to admit, some of the textures look downright ugly and blurry.

Edit: I thought achievements like Ghost and Smooth Operator were unpredictable in Human Revolution, but damn, this takes that crap to the next level.