21st Century Gaming: Dishonored (part 3)

The tools of the trade vary greatly between different games. While most first-person games tend to have a limited selection (generally a list of firearms of increasing power), the likes of Thief and Deus Ex provided weaponry, tools and more to the player. With Dishonored, the arsenal is comprised of three parts: Weaponry, Magical abilities and special tools.

The weapons of Dishonored are the least interesting of the three. Your first acquisition is a sword, for lethal takedowns and melee combat. Next up is a wheel-lock pistol, and finally a small crossbow. The pistol is noisy and inaccurate, and not really something you would recommend using. The crossbow has a wider variety of uses, with different darts for different uses (normal, sleep, incendiary). At various points you can buy upgrades for all of these (and for other equipment too), which makes them more useful to use.

21st Century Gaming: Dishonored (part 2)

I mentioned last time that the game draws from a variety of other games in terms of it's general aesthetic and mechanics. But which games?

Metal walls enclose areas

Oddly enough, it wasn't Thief that I thought of first, it was Half Life. The opening boat ride is vaguely reminiscent of the tram ride in the first game, and the initial exploration and exposition is similar to the initial areas of the second game. Dishonored is a game that wants you to look around, and see the effort they've put into the world. Upon entering the Hound Pits, the pub that is your base of operations, you also get time to look around at your leisure.

The Wall of Light, futuristic security in an industrial era

21st Century Gaming: Dishonored (Part 1)

Generally, this blog is about old games, as I revisit classic games from my past or play through ones that I missed the first time around. However, I'm not just interested in old games! There are amazing new games being made all the time, and so I'm going to devote a little time to the ones that I've been playing. First up: Dishonored.

Dishonoured

Dishonored is a first-person game, with a focus somewhere between exploration, stealth and combat. From what little I had read about it before purchasing, it seemed to be heavily influenced by the Thief series. After a few hours of play, I find it's influences are far more broad than that. But first: what is the game actually all about?

The boat ride, showing off the art department's handiwork

X-COM: Mars Attacked

So this is Mars, the red planet. The alien base is surrounded by an atmospheric bubble, and with no noticeable defences we landed without incident. Odd, considering how well armed my bases are, and with retro-fitted alien technology to boot! I guess they underestimated our ability to attack them here.

Always a risk, keeping soldiers this close together

The battle on the surface of Mars is just  the prelude, and involves a scattered selection of Sectoids. They've never been the most fearsome of aliens, and now that I've got a squad of my strongest Psychic soldiers they pose even less of a threat. Since I have no need for their technology at this stage, I decide to use a few Blaster bombs, and level a few of the pyramid buildings.

A bit more spread out here, searching through these pyramid structures

X-COM: The Avenger, Assembled

It took a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of resources, but I'm ready. My soldiers are suited up with the best armour, the best weapons and an interplanetary spacecraft. Our target is the Alien's Martian base, and we either destroy it or we perish in the attempt.

Get your ass to Mars!

With no requirement to salvage any technology from the base, I'm in an explosive mood. I've been hoarding some Blaster launchers and bombs, with this being the perfect opportunity to unleash them. Capable of smart targeting and massive damage, these have hindered my progress when the Aliens have used them. Now it's my turn to use their devastating force against them.

Here's the one I fit onto my Avenger

Kickstarting: Quest for Infamy

There I was, posting about Mage's Initiation, and I realised I'd completely forgotten to mention a similar project, which I'd backed and had been funded a while ago. I guess I was sure that I'd written about it already. So with apologies here's that game:


Quest for Infamy is an adventure game with RPG elements by Infamous Quests, who many might know from their time as Infamous Adventures, where they were responsible for excellent remakes of King's Quest 3 and Space Quest 2. Quest for Infamy has been a long-held dream for these guys, who had played Quest for Glory and wondered how different things might be if the main character wasn't such a nice guy!

All pictures from Infamous Quests

Kickstarting: Mage's Initiation

For a change with these Kickstarter postings, here's a game that is still (as of writing) looking for funding. There's not much logic to the order in which I've been posting about these, and I suppose I should have gone in chronological order, but I'm just going to go randomly through them. So...

Mage's Initiation is a graphical adventure game with RPG elements by Himalaya Studios. The most obvious influence on the game is the Quest for Glory series (whose creators are working on Hero-U, which I previously mentioned). The art style is certainly evocative of those 90s Sierra adventure games I am so fond of, and it's no wonder when you look at their back catalogue.

(all picures from Himalaya Studios)