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Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

Joined
Apr 19, 2008
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Brazil
Divinity: Original Sin
Sad news. Say what you want about dishonored and dexter, his music was really great. The blood theme from dexter, for example, is incredible, and when I launch dishonored 2, I really like the theme that sometimes I leave the game and just start doing other things while the theme loops, and then i finally go play the game.



 

Paul_cz

Arcane
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
1,996
Really depressing, Dexter and Dishonored benefitted hugely by his work. So did Silent Hill Downpour. I wonder if he managed to compose Death of the Outsider still. But yeah, fuck cancer already.
 

Anthedon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Finished a second playthrough. Is the difference between low/high chaos less pronounced in Dishonored 2? I seem to remember the original had higher guard/monster density if you went the high chaos route.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Nothing like using well-worn theory to make a well-worn point.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/09/19/death-of-creators-dishonored-portal-bioshock/

Death To The Author: killing creators in Dishonored, Portal and BioShock
Hazel Monforton on September 19th, 2017 at 7:00 pm

dishonoreddeath-620x329.jpg


When we meet the creators of fictional worlds, we often want to kill them. Whether its Bioshock’s Andrew Ryan and his deadly Rapture, GlaDOS and the sadistic test chambers of Portal, or Kirin Jindosh and the Clockwork Mansion. The urge to destroy these builders is partly down to the nature of their constructions – deathtraps and mazes that make the architect a cruel overseer – but there is perhaps more to it than that. With spoilers for the above, Hazel Monforton investigates the role (and the death) of the author in a medium that invites the audience into the action.

For a long time, authors had an assumed authority over interpretations of their work. It’s right in the root of the word – ‘author’ comes to us from the Latin ‘auctor’, from which we also derive ‘authority’ and ‘authentic’. The work meant what the author intended it to mean. Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay ‘The Death of The Author’ challenged that idea, stating that analysis should focus not on the author but on the text itself and the reader’s individual encounter with it.

bioshockdeath-620x329.jpg


In Barthes’ view, every reader has as much authority over the text’s meaning as the author of the piece. Reading is, in essence, an act of rewriting; we can bring whatever ideas, suppositions, or experiences we’ve had to the text and, through reading, reinvent its meaning for ourselves. If we look at games through a similar lens, perhaps playing becomes an act of redesigning. In a way that is almost unique to the medium, the player’s direct role in the creation of meaning contests the idea of authorship. We’re not just bringing our own interpretation to the page, we’re choosing who lives and who dies, and how characters choose to progress through the story.

Who, then, is the authority on how a game is, or should be, played? The player who ignores the main quest in an RPG and decides to survive somewhere off the beaten path, the creator of the systems that determine survival, or the author of the forgotten main questline? It can seem like every player is playing a game of their own making, with its own house rules, whether they’re aiming for a perfect no-kill playthrough, a speedrun or bringing some form of challenge to a life sim. Sometimes the challenging of the author is written into the game though and the narrative allows us to find and murder an author-figure in pursuit of interpretive control.

portaldeath2-620x329.jpg


Plenty of games feature some level of voiceover narration — players are told what to do to progress, or are given context on surroundings or decisions in-game. In some cases, like the recent What Remains of Edith Finch, these authorial intrusions are integral to navigating and, by extension, interpreting the game’s narrative. They are a guiding hand. In other games they’re more like a coiled fist.

BioShock, the two Portal games, and the Clockwork Mansion level of Dishonored 2 all have us navigate a labyrinth masterminded by a seemingly all-powerful, all-seeing authority who watches our progress through their world with disdain and, at times, amusement. They are able to direct our path by manipulating our environment, and hinder our progress by presenting us with increasingly difficult obstacles.

These kind of narrative structures are relatively common – enough so to be gleefully and sometimes disturbingly satirised in The Stanley Parable – and the narrator characters are often one of the most memorable parts of a game. BioShock and Andrew Ryan still intrigue us a decade after we were asked if we were men or slaves. GLADoS’s sarcastic lines all became instantly quotable. And Kirin Jindosh is Dishonored 2’s most intriguing villain, after Delilah herself. We can even look back to SHODAN in System Shock 2.

dishonoreddeath2-620x328.jpg


These characters present themselves as the authors of the architectural puzzles in which you are trapped, and as games tell stories through this architecture, these characters become the metaphorical authors of the game experience. But as you progress, their mastery is shown to be incomplete. In each of these games, we are asked to find and eliminate these masterminds in order to take control and escape our surroundings. With the exception of Andrew Ryan, who maintains authorship even after his death, these characters are taunting and authoritative up until you begin to break the illusion of their control.

In all of these games, we circumvent the linear path laid out for us by the author-figure and find the fissures in their design. And these fissures, too, are literalized; we are allowed to crawl between the walls or into the mechanism of the labyrinth itself in order to rework it to our own ends. “What are you doing?” GLADoS asks, clearly alarmed, as we refuse to die in a fire. Jindosh will comment in a sad tone if you find a way into the spaces between the rooms or under the floors, clearly upset that you aren’t appreciating the polished facade of his creation. Wheatley, GLADoS’s rival placed in his authoritative role by your actions in Portal 2, will beg you to jump into a very deadly pit just to make his life easier (and if you do, the last thing you’ll hear is his pensive voice admitting that he didn’t think that would work). Even the EMP bomb that finally grants you access to Ryan’s offices is found tucked behind some pried-back layers of Rapture’s slick veneer.

bioshockdeath2-620x307.jpg


To progress, we have to enter the machinery behind the stage.

All of these villains are confronted and, in the end, destroyed. We oust them from their control and assume ownership of the architecture they had built to confound us. But our knowledge, and our mastery, renders the space inert. The tension removed, we are left with one interpretive understanding of who owns and controls the game narrative. And rather than leave it there, we replay.

portaldeath-620x329.jpg


Our relationship with authors will always be troubled. Our encounter with a novel or a video game is rife with interpretation well beyond whatever the creators intend. The particular games mentioned here, in fictionalizing this encounter between creator and audience,, allow us to confront and unwind the problems of authorship in the medium, from metaphor to literalization to understanding. And while our agency as players drives us forward to the heart of the machine, we still love the labyrinth, despite our desire to tear down its walls.

The player might escape the confines of the designer’s intent, but this is itself a creative act rather than a destructive one. We’re rewriting rather than tearing up the page. To close off the game and to allow just one intent, one playthrough, or one interpretation is to give an author mastery over our experience — and as these examples show, that only taunts us into searching for more.

Hazel Monforton is an academic and critic, and contributed writing to Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.
 
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These nincompoops think so highly of themselves for being retards and not being able to grow out of Derrida and shitty postmodernism, it's actually sad.
 

udm

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Make the Codex Great Again!
I feel like killing someone every time I read one of these articles that wax philosophical about the design of games.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
CARTOONS DON'T HAVE MESSAGES, LISA.

THEY'RE JUST A BUNCH OF HILARIOUS STUFF

YOU KNOW, LIKE PEOPLE GETTING HURT AND STUFF-- STUFF LIKE THAT.
 

Azalin

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So how is this game's performance these days,I am considering buying Dishonored 2 and it's expansion during the Steam Sale and would like to know.
I have an i7 3770,16gb ram and nvidia 970,will I be able to play it at 1080p with a good framerate?
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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Codex 2014
From Raphael Colantonio' Youtube channel:



Sadira (author of the russian cover of Brigmore Lullaby) and her husband came to Austin for a visit. We played the song together, it was very fun. What a wonderful voice
 

Starwars

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Jan 31, 2007
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Sweden
Just finished this as Corvo. I must say that I really enjoyed it overall. I liked the first game and thought this was a good improvement on that. One of the best AAA games I've played in recent years to be sure.

The weakest part of it was the story which was... well, pretty shitty. It may have been a bit more inspiring if the characters had been better but they are just incredibly dull. It's a bit of a shame since the world is pretty interesting. Ending was also really disappointing.

But yep, didn't really hurt my enjoyment of it all. The gameplay is pretty good but I think the real star of the show is the level design. Great mix of different levels and they feel pretty open. The "gimmicky" levels like the Clockwork mansion and Stilton manor felt "gimmicky done right". They manage to feel impressive at a first glance but there is still enough good gameplay in the levels.
The Clockwork Mansion in particular felt really cool to me. When you are first attacked by the Clockwork soldiers in that area and the level starts to shift, I kinda panicked to get away from the enemies so I just Blinked frantically as the room was changing. Got "inside the walls" by accident. After playing for a bit in the level I realize that players will very likely find those passages anyway but in the moment there was this awesome feeling of "shit, I broke the level but oh wait... they actually designed it that way." Felt very fresh and made exploring that level exciting.

Onwards to the DLC then, hope it's of the same quality.
 

Ivan

Arcane
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Jun 22, 2013
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California
It is. You're going to love The Bank level. Very interested to see your thoughts on the new powers too. There's a lot of shit I didn't even think to do that made me want to replay it all due to the new powers that create new stealth opportunities.
 
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Vibalist

Arcane
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DOTO had two amazing levels
Follow the Ink and The Bank Job
which are a perfect continuation of all the best D2 had to offer (large hubs, hidden secrets, creative and expansive level design) and then... three really sub par levels, one of which is a re hash of an older one.

I'd say it's worth it for those two levels alone, but prepare to feel slightly disappointed.
 

fantadomat

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Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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Bulgaria
DOTO had two amazing levels
Follow the Ink and The Bank Job
which are a perfect continuation of all the best D2 had to offer (large hubs, hidden secrets, creative and expansive level design) and then... three really sub par levels, one of which is a re hash of an older one.

I'd say it's worth it for those two levels alone, but prepare to feel slightly disappointed.
And the game had like 5 levels outside of the hub! You got the subway,the augments geto,bank(even if it is part of the hub), the level(storage house #X) in the Alps and the final level....oh and the dubai one.
 

Regvard

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Apr 17, 2012
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Gormenghast
Recently finished it.

Main issue I had with both games was that I felt penalized for trying to achieve low chaos. The non-lethal/stealth route is so boring, you do the same things over and over again. I never got to use the bullets, bombs, springrazors, re-wires, lethal magic in the game and they look fun.

Really needs to remove high death count= high chaos thing for foot soldiers and witches. Let only Corvo's choices for main figures determine chaos level.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Oct 5, 2012
Messages
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Codex 2014
Podcast interview by Steve Gaynor:



February 1, 2018 Harvey Smith is a mensch. Not only has he been a lead or director on some of the most inspiring and foundational Immersive Sim games of the last 20 years, he's also just a sweet, friendly, thoughtful guy who's great to talk to and has a wonderful southern accent. And lucky you, last time I talked with him, I had my recorder turned on! Hear insight on everything from the advent of the System Shock and Deus Ex series, up through modernizing those concepts into Dishonored, and beyond.

Games Discussed: System Shock (in VR!), Deus Ex, BioShock and BioShock 2, Osmos, the Dishonored series
 

Hines

Savant
Joined
Jan 26, 2017
Messages
258
Podcast interview by Steve Gaynor:
Near the end of the interview, Smith basically confirms that the Austin studio's focusing on online projects moving forward.

At 1:38:35 - "Y'know, everyone's talking about where do games go going forward? If you had to list the twelve things that make up the kind of games we love, what are the eight you would really hold on to if you had to pivot? What does the future hold for the style of games we make? What exiting thing could you do, if you added this element or this element?"
 

Deathsquid

Learned
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Jan 18, 2018
Messages
382
Or a Hero Shooter, like Overwatch, could be that.
 

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