Dishonored 2

[DANGERMAN]

Still spelt wrong

 

Bit of an odd one so far. The intro isn't great, I won't spoil it but it's so rushed. Basically it's the bare minimum to justify another game and it's dealt with within about 4 minutes. There's a couple of people you're supposed to feel something towards, but you've literally just met them, you didn't catch their name, and really, ultimately, couldn't give a fuck

 

I can't remember at what point the first game told you about the benefits/consequences of killing people or knocking them out, but I've played 40 minutes, kind of might have killed a few people, and I don't know if it matters. They deserved it, but am I spreading plague, will I face some big consequence later in the game, I've no idea

 

That said, you get to the game part and it's good. I fucked up the combat a couple of times, because you're robbed of your powers there's been a couple of times I've had no idea there were other guards around and so I've tried stealthing someone to sleep and ended up alerting 3 other guards, There's a weird inertia to the movement too, I think it was in the first game too, it takes some getting used to, but I think it will ultimately give the game some character and identity.

 

I might regret it but I'm playing as Corvo, He doesn't shut up, again, I can't remember the first game that well but I don't remember him talking that much. You can play as Emily, and I think the game would like you to play as her, maybe I'll restart it and play as her at some point. Looks good, I'm managing to run it on ultra on my 970 at above 40fps (non-pc players stop reading before this bit, yeah), so I'll probably drop it down to very high and see what happens, either way I can't say I'm seeing the performance problems others have complained about

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Cheers for the impressions, I pre-purchased it months ago as I assumed it was a slam dunk considering the quality of the first (although I still consider it slightly overrated myself), so fingers crossed I guess, shame to hear about the performance problems (again!) on PC, hopefully my 1080 will be able to keep its head above water through the performance problems and come out the other side at 1440/60, but who knows.

 

Not gonna get round to playing it until after I've finished IW anyway sometime next week (I presume) so they may patch it by then I guess.

 

EDIT: Heard the performance issues may just be for AMD cards, so I'll hopefully be ok.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah, I reckon your 1080 will fly through it if my 970 is doing ok 

 

Edit: worth noting, apparently its after the tutorial area where people have been having problems, I'm not there yet 

[DANGERMAN]

Slightly surprised there's not more people playing this, makes me wonder how it's doing. 

 

I'll get the performance talk out of the way. The game defaults to High settings for me so that's how I've been running it. Once you get to the first non tutorial section the framerate does drop, but not to the extent I'd read, and I've spent most of my time at 60fps. There's some image quality problems though, stuff in the distance (not so far its backdrop) has subpixel movement, there's a level of detail that draws in later than it should. It's not all the time but it makes the game look worse than it should 

 

The game itself though is great. Corvo's voice actor and the bandage on his hand really reminds me of Thief. That might be a bad thing for some but I liked Thief, it is very much another one of Dishonored/Thief/Deus Ex style stealth though. 

 

The downside to playing non-violent is that it's just less interesting and inventive. I managed to do the hospital level without being spotted or killing anyone, but it involved an awful lot of reloads. There's plenty of opportunities to kill in cool ways, or even just lob a grenade in to a bunch of guards. I guess the challenge is what makes it interesting though. They do give you some insects to kill if you want, so at least your gun has some use 

 

Finding multiple routes is still cool, finding all the runes and bone charms is fun. There's also little incidental moments you can influence, I stopped a guy being kicked in to a wall of light. I've no idea if that has any benefit or not but it makes the world feel less robotic 

[DisturbedSwan]

Installing it now, so will hopefully get round to putting some time into it tomorrow.

[spatular]

i've got it as well but decided to play through the dlc for the first game before starting it so am sort of avoiding this thread for now.

[DisturbedSwan]

Played the first 3 hours earlier.

 

Played the tutorial, first mission and made the boat ride to the main locale for mission 2.

 

So far so good really, the justification for the upheaval in the game was a bit rushed in the intro as @DANGERMAN mentioned but it didn't faff about too much, got you into the game proper very quickly and had me sneaking around Dunwall Palace in no time.

 

Played Dishonoured 1 in a very aggressive-attacking manor so have gone for the complete opposite in this, sneaky-sneaky and I'm hoping to get the Ghost 'chievo at the end of it for my troubles, been reloading every-time I get spotted and the 1st mission took me an age to get through, but I'm determined to do it this time and it's so so satisfying when you pull it off, got my 'powers' too on the ship now but not tried them out in earnest, wasn't 100% about taking them but thought It'd be easier for the Ghost-run if I did.

 

Playing as Emily too, thought Corvo was such a dull character in D1 so went for Emily and she's already far more interesting, story is just starting out but is intiguing without being incredible yet, early days though.

Took a few pics too:

 

 

[spatular]

i started it earlier and got to pretty much the same point ^, the way i did the first level was ace imo 

Spoiler

pretty much skipped all of it by riding a train  probably missed some cool stuff on the way though.

 

[DANGERMAN]

if you're going for stealth let me give you a bit of advice, especially you @Blakey for whatever reason, headshotting someone with a sleep dart kills them. I had 1 death on the first mission in Karanka and that was why. Realised in the 2nd mission when I clocked I'd done it without getting spotted but had 5 guards in a room to deal with. Checked the stats after and had 1 death, (so reloaded) even though 2 of them had set themselves on fire as they fell alseep

[Craymen Edge]

I really want to play this but I think the chances of my PC being able to run it properly seem pretty low. 

 

The release has reminded me that I still have the DLC for the first game to play through . 

[DisturbedSwan]

Played another 3 hours earlier, 6 hours total.

 

Started out where in Karnaca at the Docks where I left off yesterday, really wanted to just explore first of all, had this gleaming white city ahead of me with blood pouring down the streets and still wanted to get a handle on the controls, systems and things. With me being me I wanted to find all the runes/bone charms in the area first before doing anything else, so whipped out the heart to locate all of them in the area and goddamn there were a lot of them!

 

Just went about exploring, reaching (or almost reaching) every one, some had puzzles attached to them which I vaguely remember being in the first game in some regard, but I don't remember them being so clever about it. One instance of this is attempting to burgle the Black Market seller in a building, who had a rune in his inventory, tried looking through his entire house and found a breakable door, thought some hatch would be in there that would drop me in to the store room and get me the room, but there wasn't, instead there was just a load of documents and other trinkets lying about, one of which had a clue how to get into the vendor's back door.

 

Now a lot of games, as soon as you found this bit of information would just ping it up on your HUD for you to follow, but there was none of that in this, it didn't hand hold you, it provided you with a clue and tasked you with getting on with it, so after a bit more investigating I found another apartment which had been infested with Blood-flies, checked to make sure I wouldn't jeopardise my stealth playthrough by killing them (they don't) and proceeded to dismantle all their nests in this creepy building, rifling through everything as I went and going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, eventually made my way round, through a hole that led to next-doors apartment to discover a 'nest host' or something which was some zombified person who'd been stung by Blood-flies too much and left for dead. Needless to say, I found the key eventually and managed to unlock the Black Market seller's store room and loot everything it had in it, was very happy indeed.

 

There was another side-quest I encountered too that featured a women called Mary, she tasked me with stealing a body for her, so on my travels around the HUGE Karnaca city centre, I made my way to an Outsider Outpost, looted everything in here then sneakily made my way across the rooftops with the body and gave it to her, another fantastic side-quest.

 

I must mention the city centre of Karnaca itself as well, it's just such a fantastically detailed and fabulously designed place to play, sumptuous and luxurious to look at at times but with a dark heart, plenty of nooks and crannies to explore and trinkets, loot and collectibles by the bucket-load, spent the entirety of my 3-hour session here just having an absolute wail of a time looting, finding items and getting absolutely lost in the world, I never felt that way about the first game.

 

Cheers for the advice @DANGERMAN picked up some Sleep Darts today, only used them on 1 enemy (mostly been strangling them unconscious) but made sure to shoot him in the back rather than the head for sure! Keep getting paranoid about being spotted or killing someone and checking my stats at numerous points throughout a mission, all good though so far, Ghostly all the way.

 

I don't remember D1 feeling like this to play either, I just keep thinking of Thief, Bioshock and Deus Ex whilst playing this (Deus Ex:MD's Prague is very similar to Karnaca's city-centre in a lot of ways) but can't remember feeling that way about the first. I played that completely differently though with a guns-blazing approach, vaguely remember there being side-quests you could complete around the levels, but don't remember them being as deep, varied and large as this, there are some muddy textures in places but overall it looks fantastic and incredibly detailed.

 

So yeah, I'm having a fantastic time with it so far, just reached the 3rd mission which is where I'll pick things up tomorrow.

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Played another 6 hours since my last update, now 12 hours played in total.

 

Started off where I left off at the entrance to Addermire Institute (an ominous sounding place), had serious Bioshock vibes pulling up in the carriage, even the signage around the place seemed similar, it was not as colourful as Karnaca and was had a Frankenstein-esque vibe about it, very dour and foreboding. Immediately pulled the Heart out and locked the nearest Rune/Bone Charm to my hud, proceeded to go around picking up every collectible I could find and looting everything I could do then carried on with the main story which was finding the head Doctor that runs the place.

 

It was a cool place to explore, maybe a little dull but I loved reading all the lore, all the people that had come here for 'treatment' and all the arguments amongst the staff going on in the place, it kept you guessing about Hypatia as well, I thought they'd of turned her into a vegetable by Electro-shock therapy or something else sinister but it was a bit more surprising than that.

 

After a bit of a wild goose chase I eventually found her, and of course things weren't as they seem, this is where things went full Sander Cohen from Bioshock, and I was tasked with formulating a formula that would subdue the assailant. I thought this was a nice touch, they could've easily come up with some way of me rendering the assailant unconscious or something else rather dull but they made me go to numerous places in the building, construct this formula and then administer it, the attention to detail was something I really appreciated.

 

Finished that mission, returned to the Dreadful Wale for a while and did a bit more exploring here, picking up as many documents and audiographs as I could around the place before carrying on with the next mission. This time Meagan took me by boat to another locale, Acadia or something, it immediately reminded me of Karnaca city-centre from the first mission, but wasn't as big and was a bit darker and dingier in places, now set about my routine of finding all the Runes (which meant breaking into another black market shop) and Bone Charms then moving on with the main mission which took me into the mysterious, well-appointed and polished Clockwork Mansion. 

 

Carried on with the story a tiny bit here as I wanted to find out what the hell was going on, some really call graphical flourishes here with the moving walls/platforms etc. and all very reminiscent of Bioshock again, after meeting the guy I'd come to meet I called it a day.

 

So yeah, I'm still enjoying it, but I can't help but be a little bored at times, it is starting to seem a bit repetitive at the moment, going into one locale, clearing it of collectibles and then moving onto the next area and doing exactly the same thing, it's maybe a little easy too, I've had no trouble with Stealthing this time around at all and I may bump the difficulty up to hard, it almost feels like having the powers that I do (4/6 unlocked already) makes it feel like cheating at times.

 

But yeah, there's definitely still enough to keep me going, but I just hope it's not the same formula for the rest of the game as I may get a little tired of it by the end.

 

 

[spatular]

yeah the game doesn't really change much, there is a thing that mixes things up on one level later on though. i thought that bit was really cool and oddly a bit like what happens in 

Spoiler

titanfall 2

 

i finished it earlier, really enjoyed it, the environments are great, so many different ways through and places to explore, love sneaking around in them. i agree it is a bit easy and the powers seem err overpowered...and i played on easy, but to compensate i didn't use/upgrade a lot of the powers. so had about 20 spar runes at the end.

 

played as Emily, was unsure about who to pick at the start but ended up happy with the decision. might play it through again at some point with corvo. 

 

didn't loot any black market shops and missed loads of loot and collectables, and it still took me ages, over 20-25 hours id guess.

 

spent ages trying to work out the answer to a puzzle:

Spoiler

the one to get into the door, came up with a solution that i thought matched all the criteria, but it didn't work so found the solution via the game as it tells you to, and the answer seemed wrong to me, i must have been missing something.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Played another 3 hours earlier.

 

Started off where I left off yesterday, in the Clockwork mansion. Made my way around behind the different clockwork contraptions and sets, reloading saves when I got spotted and using that traditional trial and error to make my way through unnoticed, it was very trial and error as well, there were SO many cubby-holes and nooks to find, explore and use to get to the next collectible or objective that it took me an absolute age to figure out where everything was, acclimatise and get around easily.

 

I think once I found the lift everything fell into place really, I found an easy way to get up to the remaining collectibles and objectives I had on the top and bottom floors, and managed to render all human enemies that were in my way unconscious (unfortunately a couple of enemies noticed some bodies I'd poorly hidden). The real star of the show here though was the Clockwork soldiers and contraptions, the soldiers are just SO damn difficult to by-pass, there's one section where you're using pressure sensitive levers in a moving-walls type maze area to rescue somebody, and it's just so damn tense and difficult, making your way to the target, then rescuing them and getting out unscathed without alerting the 360 degree vision Clockwork soldier.

 

I carried the target all the way out, managed to almost make it to the exit, then 3 clockwork soldiers were in my way, rejigged the clockwork sets so that a couple of them got trapped below, then walked to the door and after a few attempts managed to get the target to safety of my carriage.

 

It didn't end here though, I now had to go back in and defeat the antagonist of this particular mission. As soon as I got in the door though I was met with 3 Clockwork soldiers in the lobby, got a bit stuck here and just couldn't get past them at all, must've reloaded my save a dozen times before I tried experimenting and eventually worked out I could shoot their heads off with a crossbow bolt, remain undetected and they would take each other apart in the process. Stayed patient and took my time, took them down 1-by-1 with the bolts and sticky grenades by the skin of my teeth then made my way back up to the laboratory where the main target was located (picture below).

 

Absolutely loved this bit too, the inventiveness of it just made it such a great target to eliminate to me, extremely ornate surroundings too and lots of experimentation and thought needed about how to take down the target without harming them. I could've employed my earlier trick of shooting the Clockwork soldiers guarding hims' heads off but I didn't want to risk them going haywire and killing him, so had to be very careful.

 

I actually got a bit lucky, there was another lift in the room, used this to go to the top floor where there were 2 clockwork soldiers and the target, attempted to shoot the target with a sleep dart from behind the wall but was unsuccessful and got the attention of 1 of them (but lucky didn't get fully 'noticed'), I hid behind the corner, put down a stun mine thinking it was one of the clockwork soldiers that I could rewire but as soon as they walked up I realised it was the target, it rendered them unconscious immediately and all I had to do with sneak out, pick up the body, put it in the lift and return to the bottom floor.

 

The hard part was over, but I still had to put the target in a machine to scramble his thoughts and render him useless to unlawful governments' efforts. Managed to take out the two remaining Clockwork soldiers through crossbow bolts to the head, then brought up the machine and followed through with the process, sneakily made my way out after this via a shortcut and it was so damn satisfying.

 

This whole mission has just completely changed my opinion of this game again, before I was getting a little bored with the repetitious nature of the way things were going, but this mission just rejuvenated me and made me realise how amazing the game can be really, such an amazing mission that will live long in the memory and hope this continues on for the rest of the game.

 

[DANGERMAN]

The pacing can be a bit weird in Dishonored 2. The level @Blakeytalks about, the Clockwork Mansion took me ages, something like 4 hours. There's build up to it, then the level itself, which kind of has 2 goals. It's kind of cool, I had a bit of a nightmare with the robots before I gave up on not being spotted. I got to grips with fighting the robots, lobbing grenades then slowing time and taking out their weak point

 

The next level though took me no time at all, it was cool, a well balanced challenge, but I still had to due to learn the rules of the witches house. The dogs for example, you can kill them, but even though they aren't humans they count against you. Killing them means you smashing their heads against a wall, easier to just avoid them if you can 

 

The level after that is huge though. The early part feels like it should just have been it's own thing, especially if you find the secret way of dealing with the areas antagonists. That was a bit annoying though, only found out about it after I'd dealt with one of them. 

 

I also saw 2 things that felt like they should have been more of a thing, little stories that could have lead somewhere. Maybe they do and I fucked them up, but there's been a few moments like that 

 

Also random deaths are bullshit. There was one where doing the pacifist solution caused 2 random people in the world to die, not sure why, maybe they fell to their deaths, bullshit either way 

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah, I never experienced that with the first Dishonored as I got frustrated early on and went full blood-lust for the rest of the game, so it only took me about 12 hours to finish it, remember reading reviews at the time saying it had taken then 25-30 hours and thinking 'that's not even possible is it?!'

 

But now, having played this sneakily throughout I can see what they mean, I've played 15 hours of it and am only up to Mission 5 that Clockwork Mansion mission (including the town section) alone took me 6 hours to complete which is mad, environs seem much bigger and more deep than the original at times.

 

So yeah, it's an absolute mammoth of a game if playing stealthily it seems, I'm probably not even half way through as well.

[DANGERMAN]

We'll see how it goes and what comes up, but I'm thinking I could probably play through a 2nd time as Emily killing everyone 

 

I think I'm heading towards the last couple of missions, which could still be a weeks worth of game 

[DisturbedSwan]

Spent 4 hours yesterday just in Mission 5  now 19 hours total.

 

Started off on the Dreadful Wale, exploring and trying to find all the documents I could before setting off to the 'Royal Conservatory'.

 

This was the first mission that takes place at night, so it had a moodier slightly more dank and depressing atmosphere to it than the bright and shiny white streets of some of the previous missions, got off the boat and immediately my heart sunk a little when I saw all the collectibles scattered about, immediately I thought 'ah, I'm gonna have to get them aren't I' but as I got into the level the more I forgot about that and got lost in all the little stories, side-missions and such, managed to burgle another Black Market seller (which then fucked up a later side-mission) and find all the collectibles dotted about the streets before heading into the Conservatory itself.

 

As soon as I got in there I set about my usual routine of doing all the side-missions and finding all the collectibles before bothering with the story stuff, along the way I discovered the Witches and hounds (as @DANGERMAN mentioned previously) which were definitely different than what I'd faced before, nowhere near as bad as the Clockwork soldiers to deal with, but the Hounds in particular were a right pain as they couldn't be sleep-darted and you had to kill them to get rid of them (which I couldn't do), so yeah it was difficult working out how to deal with them but I just kept my distance and found an alternative path to avoid them when needed.

 

When I got to the main hall of the Conservatory it really staggered me, it was so damn beautiful, similar in style to the library-section near the end of Dark Souls 3, but more beautiful, shiny and ornate, all the moonlight teeming in through the glass windows. Just very beautiful, also got a Jumanji vibe from it as well with the stuffed owls hanging up all around the place.

 

Made my way round, collecting all the collectibles as I went, found the easy and nonlethal way to take the target out (which left the rest of the conservatory free for me to roam as well) and then escaped through the basement. Too my surprise I'd missed 2 Bonecharms when I saw the mission summary screen so had to re-load a save, grab the two Bonecharms I'd missed then make my way back to the Skiff in town to meet Meagan again (only just realised she's voiced by Rosario Dawson today, recognised her voice from the Marvel TV shows) and left it there.

 

Next up is the 'Dust District' where I have to kill yet another target I had no idea existed prior to the outro at the conclusion of the previous mission....not a major issue, but would've been nice to actually know who these people are properly and want to kill/knock them out rather than just being some random person the game says you've gotta take out to progress.

 

Anyway, more tomorrow, and a couple of pics below:

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Another day, another update.

 

4 hours played today again, now 23 hours total.

 

Unusually, Anton took me to the Dust District in the Skiff and I met up with Meagan again once I was in the level itself. As soon as I landed I realised how different it felt from previous missions, variety is definitely one of the game's biggest strengths, the environs always feel varied and different, and in this particular level it had an amazing environmental effect where a huge dust-storm comes in every now and then, the first time it happened I was like 'WTF is going on?!' but I got used to it after a while, really cool how it significantly effects your (and enemies') visibility, really cool mechanic and gives the whole level a really distinctive feel once again.

 

Started off by venturing over to the Jindosh Lock, I wrongly assumed it'd be easy, got a pen and paper out and tried to solve it, 20 minutes later I was incredibly confused and gave up, venturing further into the Dust District. The game wanted me to knock out one of two leaders of the gangs in the area and take their body to the other, but I knew there would be another way, throughout my exploring of the Howlers' hideout I found out that the Overseers had taken one of their guys, so immediately hightailed it over there, did some more exploring (picking up all the collectibles I could find as I went), found a few more clues which eventually led me to the Vice-Overseer's office, knocked him (and all the disciples in the office) out using Domino, which feels so damn great to use, with the key to his office now in my posession I went back to the Howlers' place, opened his office door, and found a note with the Jindosh combination code on it, voila!

 

Had trouble getting into the Black market store, so ended up looking for hints, found one which vaguely said 'look around the back of the shop' so looked around there and after ages of searching I found there was a Blocked door that I could shoot the wood off, did this, went inside the house and found the code for the Black Market store's door in here, so could then go down and find (what I thought was) the last Bone Charm in the area...found out Paolo, the Howler guy I knocked out had 2 but didn't get them in the end, oh well.

 

Went through the door into Stilton's mansion and was surprised that another mission loaded up, first one I've had that didn't send me back to the Wale first I believe. Once again it had a really distinctive feel about it, was quite eery and creepy exploring this abandoned mansion that has been reclaimed by nature, was half expecting guards to pop out but after a while of exploring I realised I could just run about. After pottering about I eventually made my way to the objective on the map to discover a mesmerised/brainwashed Stilton playing the Piano, I was then given some weird Timepiece appliance by the Outsider in a dream-sequence.

 

This then enabled me to travel back in time to 1859 and the present, at will, so incredibly cool and something I'd seen teased at E3 in a previous trailer, such a great mechanic and seeing the guards in the preview viewer on the device is so damn great. Took me a while to get used to it though really, still haven't quite sussed it, just confuses me a bit getting used to swapping between the two different time periods ad nauseam and solving puzzles, finding collectibles with it, even more trial and error than usual and will take a bit more patience I think as many a time I've warped straight into a guard  sure I'll get the hang of it tomorrow, not far into the mission so will pick up where I left off.

 

A few pics:

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Clocked another 3.5 hours on my playthrough yesterday, 26.5 total.

 

Started off where I left off yesterday in Stilton's mansion, for the first half-hour or so I still wasn't getting the hang of using the Timepiece to great effect, with no powers as well it felt even harder and even more trial-and-error than the rest of the game has been, but it clicked soon after that and it was such a thrill warping into the past, strangling a Guard then quickly warping back to the present before I'd been seen.

 

Did my usual thing of exploring the entirety of the mansion, picking up all the collectibles I could see, although the path you could take was rather linear with all the locked doors I encountered (in both time periods), it funnelled me nicely round a path anyway and then led me into an area out the back that where the combination to Stilton's study was located.

 

Had a ton of fun here messing with time, using my sword to hack away at the Lift's supports, see it crashing to the ground and then a collectible drop to the floor in the present. Had another encounter like this with a Balcony too, shot the supports out of it in the past and then it made a path for me to get into a secret room and find a Painting, really cool stuff and exhilarating to play, it definitely feels like Arkane had mission variety as one of their key-pillars to the game, as every level is significantly different and a lot feature a certain item, your powers being drained or enemy change or environmental effect that keeps things always feeling fresh and new, it has that magnificent Dark Souls feeling of being able to see across the whole land in all the different levels, you can look across the bay and think 'I was there a few hours ago' and think back to memories in that particular place in a level, fantastic game design.

 

Anyway, on with my adventures in Stilton's mansion. I cleared a lot of Bloodfly nests on the top floor and made my way out the back to the Courtyard where my target was located, sleep-darted a few wolf-hounds in the present, jumped behind where the mission marker was, transported to the past, nicked the combination to the study and then back to the present and got the hell out of there, felt bloody brilliant. Once I was out of the Courtyard I made my way to the study door and this is where I had a few problems, there were 2 guards (with one patrolling nearby too) at the door, and they could see me if I transported myself back into the past immediately in front of where I had to input the safe combination so I had to figure out how to get rid of them without any Sleep-Darts left (used them all on the hounds).

 

Ended up using a Howler bolt to make them flee away then when the patrolling guard wasn't looking I put in the code and made my way in, once I got inside what I was met with was something that heavily resembled Quantum Break, the two time-periods were converging on each other and bits and pieces of scenery were popping in and out, a very cool effect and different from the rest of the mansion, really did remind me of Remedy's game though so very much.Needless to say, I got the information I was looking for from the study, made it out and back into the present, made sure I hadn't missed anything then slowly made my way back to the Skiff.

 

Had a bit of a nosey around the Dreadful Wale looking for items I may of missed and then got back on the Skiff and made my way to the Grand Palace for the next mission. I was dropped off right by the sea as the sun was setting and it really did look so incredibly beautiful (also made my frame-rate nosedive too), it was another dark and dingy area though I found, with the Howler gang stalking the streets. Slowly made my way around and encountered two smugglers that had just come ashore, pick-pocketed them and tried to rob their boat but to no avail, there was definitely something going on though so I investigated and eventually found the key. Went back to the boat and found it to be empty, the guard's had confiscated the contents of the boat and brought it to an apartment near the Wall of Light in town, so I went and explored some more, picking up collectibles, burgling another black market store as I went and eventually found the culprits, easily took them out with Domino, made sure I hadn't missed anything in this area and made my way into the Grand Palace area.

 

Definitely feels like I'm coming to the end of my D2 journey now, don't know how many missions I have left but I've got a high profile target to take out in the Grand Palace so I imagine it won't go on too much longer after that (unless there's some mad twist...which I don't think will happen), so we'll see what happens tomorrow, definitely a much grander, larger and longer game than I was expecting that's for sure!

 

A few pics of the vistas below: