Dishonored 2

[DisturbedSwan]

Yesterday another 3 hours played, now up to 29 total.

 

Started off overlooking the Grand Palace, there wasn't anything of interest in this little area so I hopped on a carriage which conveniently stopped right in front of the Palace, as soon as I got out I immediately headed for the high ground to try and get a sense of the place and get my bearings so to speak with my surroundings. Got out the Heart and locked a collectible and did my usual thing of going after them first and foremost before doing anything else, I got stuck however on a Rune I tried to collect located in a safe, looked high and low for the combination but couldn't find it, so carried on with the others, exploring the mansion, picking up what collectibles I could and taking out a few guards as I went (trying not to alert the civilians in the building).

 

I was actually slightly disappointed by the level design in the Palace, the first time in the game really, it just felt a bit confusing and frustrating to navigate, rooms and entire floors looked the same, I got lost loads of times and it just didn't seem to flow so beautifully as the majority of levels previously, it just had a chaotic lay out to it that I didn't particularly enjoy, the architecture of the Palace itself was also very modern compared to everything else in Dunwall and Sarkonos really, it felt slightly anachronistic in a way and didn't entirely fit with the games aesthetic. I get what they were going for, with wanting to hammer home that the Duke was all about Opulence, didn't care about history and wanted all these new shiny incredibly ornate and modern buildings to inhabit, but I didn't quite think it fit, it also weirdly reminded me of another mission in Quantum Break which is located in an incredibly similar-looking contemporary mansion.

 

So yeah, I got quite frustrated picking up all the collectibles and exploring, I definitely didn't find it a joy to explore like most of the others before it, and this was only compounded by the task you have to fulfil for the main story objective. You're tasked with killing your Target, or talking with his Body Double (who is more level-headed with his Politics and a nicer chap) to essentially switch places with the Target and take his place as ruler of Karnaca, there's another objective of retrieving someone's Soul from a Stone statue somewhere in the mansion too but that was problem at all.

 

During my adventures around the Palace I actually encountered the main target, and talked to him (thinking he was the body double until he ran for the Alarm), but for the life of me I could not find the actual body double at all, I looked everywhere all over that Palace and scoured every inch of the Palace, but I was just getting so frustrated trying to find this dude.

 

Decided to do the stone statue objective first as I'd already pick-pocketed the Target and got the Vault key required, there were Clockwork soldiers patrolling outside so I had to be careful but once I had a window (and after a couple of re-loads) it wasn't too difficult at all to get in there, knocked another Clockwork soldiers' head off with the Crossbow then rewired him inside, opened the Statue objective and a hidden passage and went back to looking for that damn body double.

 

Ended up looking it up online in the end as I was getting so frustrated with it, but it was no use as he's in 1 of 5 locations and they're all randomised, so I went back to scouring the Palace to find him, trying to think of anywhere I'd missed, thankfully I eventually found him painting in the 'Private Garden' area, surrounded by guards and a dog, managed to distract them and talk to him alone after a few tries, then I high tailed it back up to the real target, knocked him out and laid him on his bed and then me and the double performed the ol' switcheroo with the two and that was it really.

 

Had to look up where the safe code for the safe containing the Rune on the ground floor was, found the sheet of paper in an office, picked up the last Rune in the building then just had to make my way back to the Skiff and it was mission complete, had a little rummage around the Dreadful Wale after this, picking up every collectible I could, finding out an unexpected revelation about Meagan (pickpocketing her key to get a Bone Charm) and left it there for the day, almost melancholic in a way, end of an era stuff as this is very obviously the last mission I've got coming up and the gang won't be getting back together (presumably) so it was rather cool and sombre.

 

Hopefully finish it off tomorrow! 

[DisturbedSwan]

Finished this off yesterday, took me 33 hours to clock it.

 

Picked up where I left off on Thursday on the Dreadful Wale, found everything there was to find on here the day before so headed straight for the Skiff and begun the last mission in Dunwall.

 

Started off exactly where Meagan picked you up in the very first mission, got out the Skiff, did a bit of exploring and realised it was the exact same area as the first mission too, just in disarray and disrepair thanks to Delilah's reign now. Straight away I saw a Black Market store, so started exploring here, tried to find out how to rob it but to no avail so bought a few upgrades with the money I had and moved further up the toad, saw another building which was the former home of a Newspaper, found a 'common key' here, some loot, a bone charm and spoke to an editor on the top floor. 

 

Went back to the Black Market store, used the key to open a gate out back which led to under the sztore,climbed up a few boxes and I was in there, emptied the tills and cabinet then went back to the Newspaper building. Saw there was an Outsider shrine nearby so took out the guards guarding it with Domino, turned a switch to open a secret room up, picked up the Runes here then moved forward avoiding a Witch that was in a building to the left. Saw there was one more Bone Charm left up near the secret room you used to escape right at the beginning of the game, so I ventured up here and collected that before moving on to Dunwall Tower.

 

Went through a door in the armoury and ended up by a canal so had to clamber up some rocks to get into the Tower gardens. There were a few more collectibles here so I picked up everything, paid my respects to Jessamine at the Altar and (dodging Witches and hounds) made my way inside.

 

Another elaborate interior and more collectibles to collect, the game also informed me that Delilah was on the top floor and would require the power to be turned back on so I could head up there in the lift. So I went about my usual routine of getting all the collectibles, had to dodge tons of clockwork soldiers and Witches inside, then discovered an altar where in created a corrupt rune that would some how trap Delilah.

 

Was great going back to Dunwall after spending almost all the game in Karnaca and exploring Dunwall tower's gardens made me think of the first Dishonored, inside was another fantastically designed interior, filled with nooks, crannies, vents and Chandelier's which you could use to sneak above enemies.

 

Spoiler

 

Eventually made my way to the rooftop, there wasn't a lot here so made my way into the Throne Room where Delilah was waiting. Wasn't really sure what to do as I couldn't kill her as I was going for a non-lethal play through, put the Rune on the throne then attempted to catch Delilah in the Heart but she escaped into a Painting.

 

Wasn't sure what to do, as I didn't want to mess up my game so looked up on the net to see the steps to achieve a non lethal approach, this told me to go in the Painting after putting the tune on the throne which is what I did. Kept getting spotted over and over again attempting to make  way to Delilah, so took out a load of her replica's with crossbow bolts before going in for the kill, but this was no good as it was a fake.

 

Reloaded my save a bunch of times and did some exploring, to found Delilah at the complete opposite end of the room, snuck up behind her and choked her out and that was that. Then just made my way back to Dunwall from the painting, put her body on the Throne (which trapped her in her painting), then freed Corvo, voila! Game complete.

 

 

So yeah, really enjoyed it I have to say, didn't like the Grand Palace mission but all the rest were masterpieces in game design, incredible inter-connected levels that feel deeper and deeper the further you get into them. The variety on offer as well was just absolutely phenomenal, whether its the dust storms of the Dust District, the time-hopping of the Stilton mansion or the Clockwork zaniness of the Clockwork mansion, there was always something different, innovative and varied in every level, it never felt like it rested on its laurels and every missions' locale felt significantly different, and significantly real and lived in from the last.

 

The Clockwork Mansion and the Stilton mansion are the truly incredible, truly memorable missions though, they're just so damn innovative, so damn different and just darn impressive, the first time you pull the lever in the Clockwork mansion and see the room form in front of your eyes, you can't help but be awestruck, the same feeling came over me during the time-hopping in the Stilton mansion too, just truly memorable, different and done with such panache and assuredness.

 

Quite frankly, you owe it to yourself to play this game, it is truly remarkable.

 

9/10

 

[DANGERMAN]

I finished this the other night. I enjoyed it, quite a lot in fact, but I'm not sure why I didn't like it as much as the first. Best I can think is that the story is so incidental that it doesn't bring you in to their world enough. They do a decent job with little incidents you're can influence, people you can save, but some of them are too hidden and not really sign posted enough, a few more of them would have made the world feel more lived in 

 

I did a few levels without killing anyone and without being spotted, I'll play it with Emily and kill everyone next time I think 

[Craymen Edge]

There's a demo out now on Steam, containing the first 3 missions. I've played the tutorial, and it ran pretty well, I'll try the rest of it out another time. I heard there were a few areas where performance drops.

[DANGERMAN]

I've been playing Death of the Outsider. It's the stand alone dlc for Dishonored 2 and it focuses on Billie, the woman from the boat in Dishonored 2, and she was in Daud's dlc for the first game. 

 

They do an odd thing with her in that she starts without any powers, so you start to settle in to a narrower gameplay style. Then they give you a few powers. There's Billie's equivalent of blink, she can drop a marker where she wants to move to, then you can move about. Essentially you can plan an escape or blink around corners. There's a power where you can mimic someone so long as they're not dead. I've not used this much, it burns mana too quickly to be useful. 

 

Billie doesn't have a talking heart so her 3rd power let's her turn on to a spirit and scout around. You can mark enemies, objects, even sometimes see information. I wasn't using this a lot, just marking bonecharms but it's actually a useful power. Eventually you get a void sword attack that knocks enemies flying, this can be very funny. Also if you blink on to someone they explode. You take damage doing it so you're not supposed to use it as your main form of attack but why wouldn't you? 

 

It's got a contracts style side missions thing going on. Some of these are great, there's one in the bank that's absolute shit though 

 

It's long too. I'm sure if you murder everyone and don't do the side missions it's probably very short, but it's taking me and my bad reloading "stealth" habit ages to get through 

[illdog]

This is the game im playing at the moment. I struggled with it at first but I had just forgotten how to play Dishonored. Once I was back in the rythym of things, back in the Dishonored groove I started to enjoy it quite a lot. I'm now in the honeymoon stage where it's all i can think about when i'm not playing.

 

I love the playground you're given in the game and what you can do with it. The 3rd mission, which is an institute in the middle of the sea was a massive reminder of why I liked the first game so much. A decent sized building with mutiple ins and outs, roof tops, multi storeys, it makes for a very exciting gameplay experience. I'm going High Chaos so I'm straight up murdering fools as to me that's the perfect mix of fun. You can't run in gung-ho, you'll get overwhelmed most of the time so you still have to creep about, find ways to get guards on their own or at the most in two's. Hide bodies if you know there are other multple guards around or leave them strategically in the path of one as a way of diverting their attention before they get pierced yo! Such fun.

 

I'm taking my time to explore a little too. I'm not so in to reading all the literature, i'll read notes that I find if they're short but I like just having a good nosey. But what a game so far.

[illdog]

You can’t see me but I’m doing that Italian kissy finger thing when something is superb.

 

Just done The Clockwork Mansion, a transforming house of all things! My days! It was fucking sweet though, I loved ducking around the place, hiding in the walls and killing when I wanted.

 

I killed the protagonist of this level without meaning too, I didn’t realise I was at his laboratory you see. I went to throw a grenade at one of those mechanical soldiers from my hidden perch above the elevator but it hit the edge of the elevator itself and bounced back toward me. I took cover from the explosion and quickly chucked another yet this time with accuracy. The noise of the previous fuck up had alerted Jindosh, the master of the house and he had come to see what’s up. Unfortunately/Fortunately he stepped in to the corridor just as the second grenade exploded and he died instantly. It was a cool thing to happen though.

 

This game is great.

[illdog]

I’ve finished both the main game and Death of the Outsider since my last post.

 

Death of the Outsider was tight, I was really impressed with it. The penultimate and final mission was awesome. In fact it all was.

 

I played High Chaos style again cos I’m a mur-didly-urderer but I mix my murdering with a ton of stealth. 

 

I also became obsessed with the contracts, to the point I replayed mission 2 and 3 because I unacceptably fucked up. I was using Foresight a lot which freezes time for a short period and lets you move out of your body to scope out your surroundings and mark enemies so you can see them through walls. You can also place teleport markers, enabling you to bypass certain security gates and go through walls. Using these methods I found an amazing route through the bank in mission 3. And the way you can access the vault... fucking rad as fuck, Arkane are geniuses.

 

Gonna go back to the main game now and do a Ghost run. Might even go back to the original as well.

[illdog]

I only had two achievements left in Death of the Outsider so I thought I’d get them done before going back to Dishonored 2. One was finish the game undetected and one was finish ‘Original Game +’ so I combined the two. I also decided to go no kills just for the extra challenge.

 

OG+ replaces Billies powers with the powers in D2, so you get blink (transportation), Domino (link people together for multi death) and the one that lets you see through walls.

 

Playing with my rules in mind added an extra layer to this game and made me appreciate what a work of art it is. There are multiple ways in and out of most buildings, some I couldn’t figure out how to abuse to be honest, NPC’s having conversations, lore littered everywhere, secret rooms... it’s an immersive players heaven and this is just an offshoot game.

 

Anyway, I fucking blew through this. I think my first run through doing contracts and side missions was 12 hours. This run I did in 3 and a half and I enjoyed more I think. There’s an enjoyment you can get from being quite familiar with a game, feeling like your completely in control.

 

Now I’m going back to Dishonored 2, a no powers run beckons.

[illdog]

Balls to the 'no powers' run, that was no fun. Im doing a no detection, no kills run with Corvo instead (using powers obviously) and fuck my pink bottom hole it's tense. The last two missions were The Clockwork Mansion and The Royal Conservatory and both times the wait for the Mission Complete screen was heartpounding followed by fucking jubilation to see the Merciful (No kills) and Ghostly (undetected) boxes ticked.I 'll be the first to admit i'm abusing the save system, if I fuck up I'm loading the previous save and doing it till I've done it right. I'm finding some amazing routes around the levels though. Sometimes you'll find at route that leads back to a previous section of the map, this is super handy for a possible better run through with less posibility of detection but also puts together a map in your head which in turn makes you appreciate the design of the level itself.

 

Dudes, play this game.

[illdog]

I finished my run with Corvo, undetected and without a kill. The whole body double shit in the Grand Palace was genius, as was dealing with Jindosh in his clockwork mansion. Curing Hypatia instead of killing her was my personal highlight and something I would have completely missed if I hadn’t played through again...

 

She becomes a friend and stays  on The Dreadful Whale whilst she recovers

 

I heard so many conversations that I missed first time around, some of these give you mission clues, some are just mindless jibbering but they add to the depth of the game just by being there for you to discover. I found a black market back entrance that required a special password to gain entry, there was an NPC already there trying to get in without the correct info. She was basically told to fuck off but then spent a few seconds trying to peer through the windows to see what she was missing out on before giving up. It wasn’t vital to the plot or necessary for progress but I just love that it’s there, these little scenes that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t spend some time poking around. I was really excited to discover the password by accident whilst trying to get to the control panel of a wall of light a good 10 minutes later...

 

This would have been my GOTY of 2016.

 

 

[spatular]

Always takes me ages to get round to dlc, anyway just finished the outsider dlc, it was flipping brilliant, really great being back playing dishonoured again. Was generally trying for stealth/no kills but often failing with a lot of restarting early on and later on going a bit more on the attack with my now favourite move of putting someone to sleep, getting noticed, throw the body at the next person, then knock them out as they’re stunned, keep repeating this until everyone is knocked out - doesn’t work if loads of people notice though and does get people killed sometimes, but not by me. And there were a few times I couldn’t work out a nice way to do something, there was a contract on the bank level for not harming anyone or being spotted, I got all the way to near the end but sat right next to the vault I just couldn’t get rid of the people to do it. And two bits where you have to steal something I used the disguise power to walk up to it, steal it, then leg it with loads of people chasing me. Not the stealthiest approach.

 

had a pc upgrade since last playing and it looks really nice, the art style holds up really well, the peoples faces less so.

[bellow]

Called this down from the old gamepass smorgasbord. I definitely played the first one, and I think I had a go at this but jumped out early. 

 

It's a really beautiful game, I'll give it that.

 

Spent a couple of hours playing the first mission and sort of failing to 'get' the stealth. Was constantly getting spotted, and ending up spilling blood all over the place, and that isn't really how I wanted to play it. So I decided to use the first mission as a sort of training run, ironing things out until I was solid in the knowledge of what the game was asking of me.

 

In the end I could do the whole area non lethally, and I actually felt like a the highly trained operative I'm supposed to be.

 

Will begin my true adventure later.

[bellow]

This is an incredible game. I've been playing it heavily since Friday and really went to town today, getting up to 10 hours - seeing the amazing clockwork mansion, and infiltrating a sort of museum full of horrendously evil witches.

 

I must say that clockwork mansion was a pretty tough level, but as a piece of videogame design I simply haven't seen anything like it. Brilliant stuff.

[DisturbedSwan]

On 07/03/2021 at 22:39, bellow said:

This is an incredible game. I've been playing it heavily since Friday and really went to town today, getting up to 10 hours - seeing the amazing clockwork mansion, and infiltrating a sort of museum full of horrendously evil witches.

 

I must say that clockwork mansion was a pretty tough level, but as a piece of videogame design I simply haven't seen anything like it. Brilliant stuff.

 

Yep, Clockwork Mansion is one of the all-time best levels in games, absolute cutting edge game design. Simply incredible and flawlessly executed. 

[shinymcshine]

I really enjoyed the first game, but just couldn't get on with the sequel - maybe I'll give it another go some time.

 

I did the first as low chaos, only killing when necessary, but for some reason, in D2 I just seem to stumble around like a drunk blind 3 legged bear.

[bellow]

You've just described my own experience. I failed with the game back in the day, having loved the first one. 

 

This time I decided to replay the first mission a few times until I found the game's rythym. Now, near the end, I'm calling it the best stealth experience I've ever had, and I hope they upload the first one into gamepass this week so I can replay that.

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, shinymcshine said:

I really enjoyed the first game, but just couldn't get on with the sequel - maybe I'll give it another go some time.

 

I did the first as low chaos, only killing when necessary, but for some reason, in D2 I just seem to stumble around like a drunk blind 3 legged bear.

 

I was the opposite, first game never quite clicked but I just murdered everyone and finished it as the 'bad' guy. 

 

With this I made a concerted effort to be stealthy and pacifistic, managed it thankfully and the game is so much more satisfying.

[bellow]

Done!

 

Ended the game in low chaos and, according to the final narration, everyone seemed to have a positive outcome - so I guess that was the 'good' ending.

 

Truly excellent game. Took about 18 hours, although I stopped collecting runes and bone charms in the later stages when Emily was frankly beyond powerful in stealth mode.

 

Having said that, I still died a few times on the final boss until 

Spoiler

by chance I realized her doppelgangers were placed in the statues and managed to take a good few out stealthily, making the final battle a breeze.

 

So yeah, excellent title, and I wouldn't mind having a go at the original if it goes onto gamepass in light of the acquisition of Bethesda.

 

Actually 'the acquisition of Bethesda' sounds like a chapter title in Dishonored....

[bellow]

Loaded up the Death of the outsider dlc from gamepass. Another amazing bit of stealth/exploration from this team. I'm playing it slow because I love creeping around like a Ninja, but also to make it last, as I've heard it's only 7 hours or so. Boo.

 

Was anyone else deflated when they revealed what they'd been working on at E3. What's all that shite about. Arkane fans don't want co-op. We're stealthers. We hate people.

 

In the words of Roy from the IT crowd, 'People? bunch of bastards.'