I Suck at Playing Dishonored

When I sat down to play Dishonored I had every intention of trying to complete my mission without killing anyone. But after sneaking through the sewer gates as a fish, and making my way through wine cellar in the Boyle Estate (where my assassination target resides), I was quickly spotted by one of the cooks in the nearby kitchen. In a panic I ran up to her and slit her throat. So much for trying to ghost my way through the mansion, but that soon turned out to be the least of my worries. Because as it turns out I'm probably the worst person to have played Dishonored so far.

A Not-so-Stealthy Assassin

This was the first time I had a chance to play Arkane's ambitious stealth-action game and it showed. This particular mission takes place halfway through Dishonored's campaign, and involves infiltrating a large mansion to assassinate one Lady Boyle. Sure, it's great that the demo gave me the full gambit of powers (Blink, Possession, Summon Rats, etc.), but I was given little context to know how to use some of them properly so I came across more like a gifted-yet-bumbling assassin than some supernatural badass. There's clearly a learning curve, one that I assume will be taught well throughout the previous levels.


So for right now I'm quite the Dishonored newb. And I didn't help matters any when I would do something stupid (which as it turns out, is quite often). Like when I accidentally summoned a horde of rats to appear at a guard's feet instead of correctly selecting the Possession ability. Whoops. On the upside that meant the guards were distracted so I continued to move through the mansion looking for my target.

They Don't Forget

Even with the rats running around, I managed to bump into another guard, which prompted me to start backpedaling to find a place where I could lay low until the AI eventually forgot I was there. But that old trick doesn't appear to work in Dishonored. The guards have a penchant for remembering the idiot who came barging in and killed the cook. They remember the fool who decided to cast Blink on top of the dinner table. And they most definitely remember the swashbuckling moron who keeps trying to best them at sword fighting.


Dishonored's guards are also merciless in hunting me down. "Whiskey for a week if you kill him," and "You killed my friend!" were just two of the lines yelled as they chased me up and down stairs and through hallways. I kept trying to hide in closets and bathrooms (or possess a rat), but there are also guards carrying Overseer Devices that limit my ability to use magic. Great. Everything seemed to be falling apart until I found a bedroom and quickly shut the door behind me.

Well, That Worked Out Well, Didn't It?

Since I was spending some time in the bedroom I decided to poke around a bit, see if I couldn't learn some more information about my assassination target. This is where it pays off to conduct some exploratory investigation in Dishonored -- by looking through chests, stealing items for gold, and reading people's diaries -- diaries that reveal some of the darnedest things, like what colored dress Lady Boyle plans to wear today... wait a minute! That's my target. She's wearing red? Now she'll stand out from all of the other attendees at the ball. And with that new batch of intel I was given a GPS marker on my target. She wasn't that far away.


Because of all of the ruckus I stirred up, Lady Boyle had the misfortune of hiding in her bedroom which as it turns out, was adjacent to the room I was hiding in. I simply walked into her room, found her cowering on the floor in her red dress, and quickly cut her throat. Yay! Mission accomplished! Now I just wait for the cut-scene to... hmm, wait. Now I have to escape from the estate? Oh, great.


Spy Guy says: It's all a ruse! Nelson is just pretending to be a bumbling assassin. Don't let his awkward moves and inexplicable behavior fool you. If you do, you'll have a knife in your gut.