Dishonored Review
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In outright combat, Dishonored plays fairly well, though simply. It's here where you will be able to use all your interesting equipment, from various types of crossbow bolts, flintlock pistol, a few different grenades, trip-mines, and, of course, your sword. Weapons are all satisfying and fun to use, with good drawbacks and upsides to each one. They can also be upgraded for more ammo capacity, firing distance, and that sort of thing, which gives them a layer of RPG-style depth that the stealth gameplay does not have. While you would expect sword-fighting to be tactical and involved like Arkane Studios' previous games, in practice this isn't really the case. Melee combat is fast, and rather challenging, but aside from blocking and timing strikes, there isn't as much depth, even if the kills are still flashy and gruesome. Magic & Character Progression
Last, making up the game's more supernatural side, as well as most of the character progression, are bone charms and runes. These are found throughout the environment and are created by the Outsider's followers. Runes are a currency used to unlock new powers and upgrades, while bone charms provide passive bonuses such as extra health, quieter movement, and so on. The first times I summoned a swarm of rats to devour a patrolling guard alive, or possessed a fish to swim inside a fortified building via the drain, I grew a huge smile across my face. Their impact is just as big as the augmentations in Deus Ex, if not more so, and they are all fun and useful in their own ways.
The powers have a pretty big impact on playing the game, but one in particular stands out: Blink. Though commonly seen in more modern RPGs, the idea of teleporting quickly from place to place has never been done so well in a first-person title before. While it takes time to get the hang of Blink, it soon becomes indispensable for traversing the environment, sneaking up behind enemies quickly, or gaining better vantage points to rain death down from. It sounds like marketing, but Blink really is game-changing and Dishonored has been constructed with it in mind at every turn - it does not make the stealth too easy, nor can it be spammed endlessly in time-critical situations like combat. Rather, it constantly opens new paths for you, and reduces the methodical pace in stealth that some modern gamers might be averse to. Overall its implementation is highly successful and really does become second nature after an hour or two.
There are a few places where this aspect of the gameplay stumbles. The first is that runes are very easy to find early on, and the limited number of powers meant that I had unlocked everything I really needed by only a few hours into the game (around the second mission). Although it takes some exploration to find all the runes and bone charms, there's no real need to collect all of them unless you want to chase down achievements. Furthermore, because the bone charms you acquire are provided in a random order, and you can unlock any skill from the beginning of the game, the game can never really force you to use your powers in interesting ways to win, and rarely locks out content from you if you don't have a given power.
The lack of more secondary RPG elements is also something of concern. There's no inventory system - you can carry every gun and all the ammo you can find no problem - and junk items you collect are instantly converted into cold, hard cash as soon as they reach your grubby palms. Unlocking doors and hacking machines also isn't tied to any upgrade system, but rather items (keys and hacking tools) and I think the game could have benefited from expanding on these ideas - it only further contributes to that lack of character progression that sets in after you've played a mission or two.
