mavkiel said:
So, other then the performance issues, is the game good? Wondering if its a good game, or lackluster.
I want to mention that I've not had performance issues. Some hiccups but nothing on the scale others have reported. Not entirely sure why, either but there you go. Game runs at 60 FPS most of the time and does fall to 45-ish but rather rarely. I'm playing this on an GTX 970, yet I've talked to somebody with a 1060 and they apparently had rare occasions of 60 and 30-40 FPS most of the time.
Anyway, as for the actual game, so far it shapes up to be my personal game of the year. It's been a tough competition, given that
XCOM 2 had been my GOTY for the entire year so far (nothing managed to surpass it) until now.
Dishonored 2 is, in many ways, like the first one but with every single thing improved. If you liked the previous game, you'll probably like this one. If you
didn't like the previous game, this one might have fixed things for you.
- First big change gameplay-wise is the availability of non-lethal routes. You now have a bigger arsenal that allows you to incapacitate opponents - the sleeping darts are back, but there are also darts that make people blind, fear darts, as well as stun mines (an alternative to springrazors). In addition to the toys, you also have extra moves - a non-lethal version of the dropdown assassination, the ability to grab and choke out people while in combat, the ability to choke people who face you and the last two also combine to allow you to incapacitate a guard who just turned around and saw you, before they manage to draw out a weapon and alert others. Also, that will NOT count as "being seen". Some of the powers also have some more non-lethal usages.
- Speaking of powers, you get a bit
more of them. Corvo still has the same powers, while Emily gets a different set, although with some overlap (a Blink alternative and a different Dark Vision. Passives are the same for both). There is, however, more things you can do, since most powers have multiple upgrades. Some are just a straight increase of the potency (you can affect 3 targets instead of 2, for example, or increasing range) while other upgrades widen what a power can do. For example, Corvo's Possession has additional upgrade that allows him to possess corpses or unconscious bodies. Emily gets some cool powers - my favourite is Domino - you link several people together and if you kill/incapacitate one, the same happens with the others.
- Improved enemy AI - in the previous game the guards did more than just static paths - like taking over patrol routes of somebody you've "dealt with". It wasn't
that much, however, it is more than what most guards in games do. Now guards can get alerted and investigate if, say, you leave a door open (which shouldn't be open), or if a patrolling guard comes back and sees his buddy is not where they were.
- More enemies - guards now come in several tiers, so if you're an upfront assault type of person, then you'll have a larger variety of people to dispatch. There are also robotic enemies, too, which are toucher than regular dudes.
These are the improvements. A lot of the rest of the game is actually retained - you can still approach locations and situations from multiple angles, level design is still the same "city blocks" type with significant vertical exploration, you still have the chaos meter, you still have mana that works the same as it does in the previous game (powers take a large chunk but refund it in few moments), there are still bone charms (and, hey some of the old ones show up, too) including the corrupted bone charms from the DLC and so on. Instead of rats, there are now flying insects called "bloodflies" which mostly work the same way - they will only attack in groups and will show up more in a high chaos playthrough. Heck, you're even brought in by boat to assignments same as Corvo was in the previous game. Overall, from a gameplay perspective it's a straight improvement. Very little has been removed - a lot of the rest has been retained, including sound, for example, so the game
feels like the previous one.
I think it's an amazing game. I've yet to finish it but I'm having a lot of fun so far. I absolutely
loved the previous game and this seems like a worthy successor. There are two complaints I have about it, though: first, a really minor one, but enemy speech levels seem odd. As in, sometimes you'll be able to hear what guards are saying even if they are further away. Not a big problem, but it's just something odd - not sure if it's a bug or a feature, for real. Second, a slightly bigger problem is the pace of revealing information. So far, it seems that things that were kept a bit vague or revealed slowly from the previous game are outright stated immediately in the beginning. The story approach seems to be following this - characters seem to reveal a bit more information compared to the previous game. I like that aspect of "mystery" from the first
Dishonored, so I classify this as a bit of a problem. How
much of of a problem it is over all, I don't know - I'll have to play a bit more. Still, I don't think it's something that would be a big strike against the game - merely noteworthy.
