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Arkane Dishonored 2 - Emily and Corvo's Serkonan Vacation

Sentinel

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I recently played through Dishonored 2 and I didn't like it as much as Dishonored 1.

It had worse characters and a pants-on-head retarded (and boring) story, I felt like the stealth gameplay wasn't improved at all, most of the bonecharms and abilities were ported from Dishonored 1, and 90% of them were combat-oriented, the voiced protagonist was kind of annoying and didn't really serve any purpose and I think the movement in Dishonored 1 felt a lot more fluid and fun.

Despite the better level design, I don't think that alone carries Dishonored 2. Dishonored 1 still had better mission design and remains in my book the superior game.
 

DeepOcean

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Speaking of the setting, Dishonored 1 and 2 had so much potential in there but they make so little use of it. It was established that the Outsider was a corrupting presence and his powers tempted people into spreading chaos and that was a trap to test their resolve. Why not making a sandbox hub world with civilians in there and some of the most interesting ways you could use the powers depended of harming those civilians?

Didn't Arkane say they cared about reactivity? Why not allowing the player having some fun? Why not rewarding the player to be shit crazy evil? I guess this is what a shitty crazy evil entity would do. Why not rewarding the player for spreading chaos? Wasn't this what the outsider was supposed to do? Why not having a sidequest where the Outsider asks you to poison some doctor with a serum that will turn her crazy and a cannibal murder and in exchange he will give you some really cool power? Isn't a little convenient that the guy that gives the cool powers/edgy cool hand mark and make other people insane/evil somehow only gives you the cool powers and don't try to do the same insanity thing to you? To tempt you? Do I smell lazy videogame excuse for cool powers?

But on this post modern world, even the shit crazy evil entities aren't that bad, they are just misunderstood, the Outsider isn't evil, he is just "different". He isn't evil outsider, he is emo outsider secretly crying about his deep emotional scars. So, the only thing he does with his lazy ass is staying on the void doing the occasional exposition dumping on players. Okay, pointless exposition dumping is one of the worse tortures you can expose a human being, I agree, it is a pretty evil thing to do, but I expected a bit more from an entity that has a whole religion devoted to combating it and that every person that dealt with it gone insane.

So, the Outsider is the guy that gives you the cool powers and dump exposition on you? That is it? There is a DLC coming where you have to "kill" the outside for "his" crimes but if the Outsider is a criminal because he enables crazy bad people doing crazy bad things, by this logic, any goverment or powerful institution should be punished too. This is even crazier as the outsider actually helped Corvo and Emily that are good and he doesnt even demand anything back, that is good charity right there.:lol: Guess Arkane is talking of his exposition dumping as his biggest sin, that is indeed a big sin that deserve capital punishment.
 
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baturinsky

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IMHO even with powers Corvo/Millie are hardly more op than average Creed assassino that could see enemies at any range through walls forever (after marking), and on minimap.
 

Gerrard

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"traditional texturing techniques" = Texture quality from 1996

pIyzVV1.jpg


B-b-but muh artistic vision!
 
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So you somehow managed to miss everything about Dishonored 1 for few years? Pretty impressive, yeah
Wrong. I have played it, nearly to the end. But I chose not to take the devs' word about how the second game will have better stealth. And I was right. As a stealth game it retains the retarded children-tier difficulty.

"As a stealth game". :lol: And by that you mean a game that is not a stealth game. And playing first installment in the series was not enough for you to realize that it's an action/stealth hybrid in the vein of games like Deus Ex. By the way, devs weren't completely wrong about "better stealth", in Dishonored 2 enemies do notice you much faster. It's especially true when it comes to their vertical awareness. Also they can see you leaning now. And you can make them even more aware than "Very Hard" difficulty does via "Custom difficulty" option. Trying to compare this to "Thief", however, is just funny.
 

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If you choose to ignore the talk "we allow for different play styles", that's your right. But when the mechanics are not developed to provide for one of those styles, no need to try defend what's indefensible... Shit stealth gameplay remains shit.

And instead of repeating the nonsense excuse of "but in the veins of games like Deus Ex" (lol), get a try of Deus Ex' stealth game play. Because it's much better than any stealth gameplay Dishonored offers. And that was in 1999.

Trying to compare with Thief is not funny. You are funny. The developers have been drawing comparisons with Thief.
 
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If you choose to ignore the talk "we allow for different play styles", that's your right. But when the mechanics are not developed to provide for one of those styles, no need to try defend what's indefensible...

You mean just like in every other hybrid game? Name me a single non pure stealth game that has good stealth mechanics. Oh wait, you tried to..

get a try of Deus Ex' stealth game play. Because it's much better than any stealth gameplay Dishonored offers

Bullshit.

Trying to compare with Thief is not funny. You are funny. The developers have been drawing comparisons with Thief.

Claiming to be inspired by Thief is not the same as saying "we are making a game like Thief". That crap can mean anything at all. Regardless, who the fuck listens to devs anyway, should be common knowledge by now how full of shit these people are.
 
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Athelas

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Trying to compare with Thief is not funny. You are funny. The developers have been drawing comparisons with Thief.
Do you seriously think the developers of an AAA game are going to draw heavy comparisons with a relatively unknown, poorly-selling series that was dead for over a decade and was then briefly revived to disastrous effect? Every interview I've seen about Dishonored's influences either doesn't mention Thief or only mentions it in passing alongside many other stealth games.

It is similar to Thief in that it's first-person and in its approach to level design (e.g. verticality, bodies of water, seamless interior/exterior transitions). This is relatively rare. For instance, even the newer Deus Ex games now have effectively 3rd-person stealth due to the way the cover system works, don't let you swim and have limited verticality and heavy gating between outdoor/indoor areas.
 
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Dunno why people keep on making the Deus Ex comparison. Dishonored is simply an Assassin: The Dark Project game. You play a magical assassin, and assassins have to kill people, hence not pure stealth like Thief.

I don't think it's really correct to say that "Dishonored and Deus Ex are same genre". What Dishonored shares with Thief is that they're both about a "themed protagonist". In Thief's case, you're a D&D-style Thief, fundamentally shitty at combat, but sneaky. In Dishonored, you're a magical assassin, which I guess in D&D terms is kind of like some sort of super OP Mage/Thief. But you are still just an assassin. You can't fight with a sword and shield or dual wield pistols or whatnot. You don't have as much freedom to customize yourself as JC or Adam Jensen do. Not to mention all sorts of non-combat/non-action activities in Deus Ex that have no equivalent in Dishonored.

For example, if Dishonored was really "Deus Ex-like", it would have had lockpicking.
 

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Do you seriously think the developers of an AAA game are going to draw heavy comparisons with a relatively unknown, poorly-selling series that was dead for over a decade and was then briefly revived to disastrous effect
To be fair, no, I didn't seriously think that. But I thought it doesn't hurt to give them a chance. But do you suggest we should presume them to be lying by default? A developer says something about their upcoming game, it turns out to be overblown, meant to provoke wishful thinking, and the fault lies with those who believed it, not with those who exaggerated and mislead?
 
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To be fair, no, I didn't seriously think that. But I thought it doesn't hurt to give them a chance. But do you suggest we should presume them to be lying by default? A developer says something about their upcoming game, it turns out to be overblown, meant to provoke wishful thinking, and the fault lies with those who believed it, not with those who exaggerated and mislead?

If you're on Codex, yes. You should assume game developers are either lying pieces of shit or don't have a clue what the fuck they're talking about by default. And be pleasantly surprised in rare cases you're wrong.
And if you don't want to:


For example, if Dishonored was really "Deus Ex-like", it would have had lockpicking.

:lol: Yes, lockpicking is what makes a Deus Ex-like. Not it being first person "play your own way" action/stealth hybrid with various ways to traverse levels, upgrade your character and approach combat. If only it had lockpicking...
 
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DeepOcean

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On my opinion, saying Dishonored is a Deus Ex like game is wrong and don't invalidate the criticisms towards the mechanics either. Deus Ex is a first person RPG with shooting and stealth elements, there is zero of RPG on Dishonored, even Deus Ex Human Revolution had more RPG elements than Dishonored did so this is wrong, a game isn't a Deus Ex like game because it offer stealth and combat options, by this logic, Splinter Cell Conviction or Blacklist or any Assassin Creed would be a Deus Ex like game. If this were claimed about Prey, it would make more sense but it doesn't make sense on Dishonored.

Even if that was true, what it isn't, and Dishonored was a Deus Ex like game this doesn't automatic means it is a good Deus Ex game. Sure, on Dishonored you have combat or stealth but the combat on Dishonored 1 and 2 are a joke, you can end a level on 10 min by murdering all guards with the least amount of effort, sure, you can extract some fun out of that by trying some crazy contrived stunts but one hour later of that, you would be tired, the game fails completely at keeping pace with the players power and has zero learning or challenge curve.

I was playing on the highest combat difficulty and made an experiment, decided to provoke 10 guards and ran inside of a building looking through the window, the ten guards outside just kept hurling rocks at me while I laughed and kept drinking the healing elixir, they couldn't enter on the building, their AI pathfinding didn't know how to navigate the building to reach me. I could kill most of the guards on that level, they were there bellow throwing rocks at me, with a single incendiary arrow. Sure, a combat option available doesn't mean it is a remotely fun option available taking in consideration that any Deus Ex game would give you a far higher amount of options in terms of guns. You don't even have an inventory on Dishonored.

Do guards on Dishonored throw back grenades at you? No. Do guards at Dishonored throw any grenade with frequency at you? No. The Ai of any Call of Duty game is able to do that.
Are guards aware of environmental hazards like mines? No, got tired of exterminating those super robots placing arc mines right in front of them and waiting for them to just step over. Not only robots, guards too. Two arc mines can disable six guards or destroy three robots, with the really low density of guards on most levels, this means you can exterminate the opposition with two arc mines.
Dishonored allow you far away perfect silent sniping with perfect precision when most enemies can't even retaliate from afar. Even if they get aware someone is shooting at them, they don't know how to use cover and because their pathfinding sucks, they won't be able to flank you.
You can keep blocking sword blows from enemies without running out of stamina, worse, when you manage a perfect parry, that is extremely easy to do, you can chain kill enemies at close like on any Assassin Creed game.
You fucking have a one shot pistol at close range when most enemies use swords and prefer to just dance in front of you instead of charging the fuck out of you, even on fucking Skyrim there are enemies that charge at you for massive damage. Because enemies don't charge at you to keep you out of balance and just like to keep dancing in front of you, it is extremely easy to line pistol shots at them.
You can carry tons of lethal arrows and bullets, and again, because of the low density of enemies, you will run out of enemies to shoot far before using all of this.
You have incendiary arrows that are cheap to buy and can kill four or more guards on a single blast, it is like you
You have multiple powers that would be cheat codes on any decent FPS on top of an already piss easy game.

I could go on and on why the combat on Dishonored SUCKS even compared with any popamole game in the market. To anyone trying to justify the shitty stealth mechanics because Dishonored offer incredibly shitty combat, please, this is akin of trying to say to a man to choose between prostate cancer or AIDS and that AIDS is okay because prostate cancer exist. It doesn't make any sense.

I would say that In terms of stealth, things even are a little better as enemies are much better at noticing and searching for you than they are at fighting you, their line of sight system, however... sorry Arkane, a shadow system is better all the way. On the lower levels of difficulty, enemies are dumb idiots and on the higher levels of difficulty, enemies will see you through foggy glass doors from the other side of the map and go from relaxed to full alert on less than two seconds and many times you will have to go through dangerous blind spots that can mean an unavoidable detection too.

On Thief, if a guard seen you from the other side of the room, he would try to investigate and move to your position slowly first, meaning things weren't this binary of suspicion to full alarm before the player could react. If a guard seen you on Thief, there was a high chance of you dying while on Dishonored there is a high chance of all enemies of the level charging at you and you chain kill them all one by one with your infinite stamina sword with insta kill counterattacks and one shot pistol that is more powerful than a shotgun while your enemies fight with sticks.

However, the lack of footstep sounds means it is so easy to get behind of guards and KO them , that this super awareness problem on the higher diffitulties don't matter as you can clean a whole level of guards with ease just choking them.

Dishonored 1 and 2 have an incredibly shitty combat and a barebones stealth system, I don't see why one being bad is made better by the other existing. Sure, people could claim those criticisms of shitty combat and so so stealth could be leveled at games like Deus Ex or Bloodlines too and they are right but Bloodlines and Deus Ex were RPG games and the RPG elements compensated for the weakness of the individual elements, not so much on Dishonored 1 and 2. They were more complex than Dishonored too in terms of mechanics.

I can only enjoy Dishonored ghosting as I would on an stealth game because, honestly, the combat sucks so much that is almost as good as if not being there and I felt punished by how unsatisfying it was every time I tried to fight an enemy, the enemies were so hopeless at offering a challenge that the whole thing felt unsatisfying. Only the level design and the art direction that are truly great save both games and I enjoy them for that knowing well they are really barebones and have some highly questionable mechanics.
 
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Myself I only really enjoy killing things while trying to remain unnoticed, "trying" being the key word here as most of the time I don't reload when I get noticed unlike I would in a real stealth game. Ghosting or non-lethal takedowns don't do it for me, game is clearly made for creative kills. The fact that it tries to tell you what a meanie you are for killing with bad endings and whatnot just shows the hypocrisy of it. I get that Dishonored isn't fully Deus Ex-like but it still comes way closer to that than it does to being a proper stealth game. And it's not that bad mechanics are excused by game having a wider variety of them, it's just a reality of what always happens with games like that as opposed to games that are focused on doing one specific thing right.
 
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baturinsky

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In Dishonored 1 most enemies are honest cops that are loyal Emily's subject. So, killing them is wrong.

In Dishonored 2 it's arguably, especially in first and last chapter where your enemy are straightforward treasonous scum.
 

Beastro

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On my opinion, saying Dishonored is a Deus Ex like game is wrong and don't invalidate the criticisms towards the mechanics either. Deus Ex is a first person RPG with shooting and stealth elements, there is zero of RPG on Dishonored, even Deus Ex Human Revolution had more RPG elements than Dishonored did so this is wrong, a game isn't a Deus Ex like game because it offer stealth and combat options, by this logic, Splinter Cell Conviction or Blacklist or any Assassin Creed would be a Deus Ex like game. If this were claimed about Prey, it would make more sense but it doesn't make sense on Dishonored.

Even if that was true, what it isn't, and Dishonored was a Deus Ex like game this doesn't automatic means it is a good Deus Ex game. Sure, on Dishonored you have combat or stealth but the combat on Dishonored 1 and 2 are a joke, you can end a level on 10 min by murdering all guards with the least amount of effort, sure, you can extract some fun out of that by trying some crazy contrived stunts but one hour later of that, you would be tired, the game fails completely at keeping pace with the players power and has zero learning or challenge curve.

I was playing on the highest combat difficulty and made an experiment, decided to provoke 10 guards and ran inside of a building looking through the window, the ten guards outside just kept hurling rocks at me while I laughed and kept drinking the healing elixir, they couldn't enter on the building, their AI pathfinding didn't know how to navigate the building to reach me. I could kill most of the guards on that level, they were there bellow throwing rocks at me, with a single incendiary arrow. Sure, a combat option available doesn't mean it is a remotely fun option available taking in consideration that any Deus Ex game would give you a far higher amount of options in terms of guns. You don't even have an inventory on Dishonored.

Do guards on Dishonored throw back grenades at you? No. Do guards at Dishonored throw any grenade with frequency at you? No. The Ai of any Call of Duty game is able to do that.
Are guards aware of environmental hazards like mines? No, got tired of exterminating those super robots placing arc mines right in front of them and waiting for them to just step over. Not only robots, guards too. Two arc mines can disable six guards or destroy three robots, with the really low density of guards on most levels, this means you can exterminate the opposition with two arc mines.
Dishonored allow you far away perfect silent sniping with perfect precision when most enemies can't even retaliate from afar. Even if they get aware someone is shooting at them, they don't know how to use cover and because their pathfinding sucks, they won't be able to flank you.
You can keep blocking sword blows from enemies without running out of stamina, worse, when you manage a perfect parry, that is extremely easy to do, you can chain kill enemies at close like on any Assassin Creed game.
You fucking have a one shot pistol at close range when most enemies use swords and prefer to just dance in front of you instead of charging the fuck out of you, even on fucking Skyrim there are enemies that charge at you for massive damage. Because enemies don't charge at you to keep you out of balance and just like to keep dancing in front of you, it is extremely easy to line pistol shots at them.
You can carry tons of lethal arrows and bullets, and again, because of the low density of enemies, you will run out of enemies to shoot far before using all of this.
You have incendiary arrows that are cheap to buy and can kill four or more guards on a single blast, it is like you
You have multiple powers that would be cheat codes on any decent FPS on top of an already piss easy game.

I could go on and on why the combat on Dishonored SUCKS even compared with any popamole game in the market. To anyone trying to justify the shitty stealth mechanics because Dishonored offer incredibly shitty combat, please, this is akin of trying to say to a man to choose between prostate cancer or AIDS and that AIDS is okay because prostate cancer exist. It doesn't make any sense.

I would say that In terms of stealth, things even are a little better as enemies are much better at noticing and searching for you than they are at fighting you, their line of sight system, however... sorry Arkane, a shadow system is better all the way. On the lower levels of difficulty, enemies are dumb idiots and on the higher levels of difficulty, enemies will see you through foggy glass doors from the other side of the map and go from relaxed to full alert on less than two seconds and many times you will have to go through dangerous blind spots that can mean an unavoidable detection too.

On Thief, if a guard seen you from the other side of the room, he would try to investigate and move to your position slowly first, meaning things weren't this binary of suspicion to full alarm before the player could react. If a guard seen you on Thief, there was a high chance of you dying while on Dishonored there is a high chance of all enemies of the level charging at you and you chain kill them all one by one with your infinite stamina sword with insta kill counterattacks and one shot pistol that is more powerful than a shotgun while your enemies fight with sticks.

However, the lack of footstep sounds means it is so easy to get behind of guards and KO them , that this super awareness problem on the higher diffitulties don't matter as you can clean a whole level of guards with ease just choking them.

Dishonored 1 and 2 have an incredibly shitty combat and a barebones stealth system, I don't see why one being bad is made better by the other existing. Sure, people could claim those criticisms of shitty combat and so so stealth could be leveled at games like Deus Ex or Bloodlines too and they are right but Bloodlines and Deus Ex were RPG games and the RPG elements compensated for the weakness of the individual elements, not so much on Dishonored 1 and 2. They were more complex than Dishonored too in terms of mechanics.

I can only enjoy Dishonored ghosting as I would on an stealth game because, honestly, the combat sucks so much that is almost as good as if not being there and I felt punished by how unsatisfying it was every time I tried to fight an enemy, the enemies were so hopeless at offering a challenge that the whole thing felt unsatisfying. Only the level design and the art direction that are truly great save both games and I enjoy them for that knowing well they are really barebones and have some highly questionable mechanics.

In
 

Mynon

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IMO Disnonored's stealth is a step up on Thief, and is more demanding. Dishonored removed the importance of Thief's safe spaces, ie darkness, which means that you must always pay attention to enemies in your range whereas in Thief you are basically invisible to them from certain point. Dishonored's stealth is faster, tenser and more dynamic.
 

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IMO Disnonored's stealth is a step up on Thief, and is more demanding. Dishonored removed the importance of Thief's safe spaces, ie darkness, which means that you must always pay attention to enemies in your range whereas in Thief you are basically invisible to them from certain point. Dishonored's stealth is faster, tenser and more dynamic.
- Nonsense. Crouching in Dishonored is effectively stealth mode. You make zero db of noise, as far as the enemies are concerned, whereas in Thief the second thing they teach you in the tutorial is that different surfaces make different amount of noise when walked upon, and moving quickly makes more noise than moving slowly. It's not that Arkane couldn't implement such systems. They could. But they don't want to make stealth a challenging mode of playing. They are satisfied with dumb pseudo-stealth, because that's good enough for the people who play their game.

- "Safe spaces" in Thief I as you describe them serve a gameplay purpose and gradually disappear as you progress to more complex missions. The same safe spaces exist in the beginning of Dishonored, and its level of difficulty is pretty much constant throughout the whole game, though that's a bit subjective. (Thief II is pretty easy for much farther down the missions' list. Thief I throws you in the deep as soon as mission 3)

- Dishonored is so well-lit that most of the time you don't have the option to use shadows for hiding, but you are just behind cover, which I consider to be a drawback. Thief's hiding in shadows gave me the feeling I'm using a "special ability" in a way which 1) felt natural to the environment, 2) had a story explanation - Garrett's training, and 3) was still not 100% guaranteed safe - you might make noise by accident, or someone might bump into you . In Dishonored, I click a button and I do awesome magic, and that's all. Again - deliberately stripped down complexity.

- Thief's genius design is in the way it makes you listen to the sounds you make, and to the sounds other actors make, and from this information draw your decision on what your next move is. Again, it's down to the player using his senses, not to pressing a button that lets you see through walls, or show you the AI's state in a tooltip above their head. And all this is mixed with the incredible ambient background sounds which make your hairs stand. So much atmosphere in a game which was ugly-looking even when at release. What do you get in Dishonored - all the orientation by sound is optional because when push comes to shove, you can just doge and slice your way through people because your movement speed is insane, even without use of the bullet time ability.

- The main problem however, and I've said this before - in Dishonored the player uses stealth from a position of near-invincibility, whenever he wants to play with the guards like a cat with a mouse. In Thief, the use of stealth is a requirement, and you are an inch away from shitting your pants even though you made a savegame at the last doorway.
 
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Mynon

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IMO Disnonored's stealth is a step up on Thief, and is more demanding. Dishonored removed the importance of Thief's safe spaces, ie darkness, which means that you must always pay attention to enemies in your range whereas in Thief you are basically invisible to them from certain point. Dishonored's stealth is faster, tenser and more dynamic.
- Nonsense. Crouching in Dishonored is effectively stealth mode. You make zero db of noise, as far as the enemies are concerned, whereas in Thief the second thing they teach you in the tutorial is that different surfaces make different amount of noise when walked upon, and moving quickly makes more noise than moving slowly. It's not that Arkane couldn't implement such systems. They could. But they don't want to make stealth a challenging mode of playing. They are satisfied with dumb pseudo-stealth, because that's good enough for the people who play their game.

- "Safe spaces" in Thief I as you describe them serve a gameplay purpose and gradually disappear as you progress to more complex missions. The same safe spaces exist in the beginning of Dishonored, and its level of difficulty is pretty much constant throughout the whole game, though that's a bit subjective. (Thief II is pretty easy for much farther down the missions' list. Thief I throws you in the deep as soon as mission 3)

- Dishonored is so well-lit that most of the time you don't have the option to use shadows for hiding, but you are just behind cover, which I consider to be a drawback. Thief's hiding in shadows gave me the feeling I'm using a "special ability" in a way which 1) felt natural to the environment, 2) had a story explanation - Garrett's training, and 3) was still not 100% guaranteed safe - you might make noise by accident, or someone might bump into you . In Dishonored, I click a button and I do awesome magic, and that's all. Again - deliberately stripped down complexity.

- Thief's genius design is in the way it makes you listen to the sounds you make, and to the sounds other actors make, and from this information draw your decision on what your next move is. Again, it's down to the player using his senses, not to pressing a button that lets you see through walls, or show you the AI's state in a tooltip above their head. And all this is mixed with the incredible ambient background sounds which make your hairs stand. So much atmosphere in a game which was ugly-looking even when at release. What do you get in Dishonored - all the orientation by sound is optional because when push comes to shove, you can just doge and slice your way through people because your movement speed is insane, even without use of the bullet time ability.

- The main problem however, and I've said this before - in Dishonored the player uses stealth from a position of near-invincibility, whenever he wants to play with the guards like a cat with a mouse. In Thief, the use of stealth is a requirement, and you are an inch away from shitting your pants even though you made a savegame at the last doorway.
I rate this post "Creative"...
 

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