Knife of Dunwall currently downloading. Revengeance DLC now done, was a bit disappointing. Hopefully this is gonna be great.

Started a play through of this yesterday. I made it up to the third level and then spent about five hours just wandering around that. It's absolutely huge. Are all of the buildings you can enter related to the missions or are a lot of them side quests?

Yes, all of the damn storytelling is quite annoying.

Oh no wait

Aw man I really need to get back to my second play through and finish the DLC, such a great game.

You have permission to use that one in the playground.

Might possibly be my absolute fave game from last gen. Still havent even finished it, at the flooded district. Looking forward to finishing the main game and the dlc.

I cant think of.. reallly.. any large budget game? as ingeniously designed as this. The overt storytelling just seemed to be box ticking to get financed, the subtle, sometimes meticulous environment details, hidden aeas with strange things in them, moral choices in 'jobs', the little hints of thegame universe here and there all contributed for me to a very well considered and imagined game universe that often verged towards the disturbing, and you could pretty much ignore the main plot, take in what the writers actually want to say in all the ways they could say it and have a game that has been criticised for a bit of a cheap story when really if you want to look for it, the story and background is great, intriguing and just makes you want to know more about the forces at work. If you criticise it on the story, you definately havent been looking hard enough, and I think this is a game that actively rewards you for using all the skills at your disposal to get into every nook and cranny and absorb all the thought that went into it

When I talk about ingenious design though im not referring to the story, im referring to the fact that a considerable number of abilities you pick up during the game would completely break lesser games within the first.. i dont know... 10 minutes of gameplay. The most used ability, i think, is blink, a power that teleports you some distance forward. The amount of design and consideration needed to make the levels bulletproof to that one ability boggles the mind. Top of their game.  Then you have the time changing abilities (That can be used in several events to create some pretty funny emergent situations) and the other skills, that have potentially huge implications on how the game operates, and they're all implemented faultlessly, i never once ran into a bug with any of them, the environment design, enemy AI events and so on were all absolutely unbreakable (i had a good go) - And all that working so solidly was, to me, ingenious.

Then add the accruing of these skills (especially when you upgrade blink) and becoming proficient with them and the gameplay becoming absolutely thrilling even on the streets of the city - The game even starts with your character being an unstoppable machine of death, by the time you're a good length into the game you're a blur of one ability to the next, you feel absolutely unstoppable while every action is fluid, you use the right skill for the job, instantly, even knowing the gameplays suddenly going to change a bit, then straight into the next skill and you're effortlessly moving in all dimensions, actively enjoying dispatching (or in my case, disabling) foes in as creative ways as possible, and you can get pretty creative.

Although I thought all the levels were strong maybe apart from the opening section which was a little confining and really completely misrepresented what the game intended to offer, i'd say the bridge level was the high point. I don't know what kind of level spawning deity laboured that out but it had it all, multiple routes, a bunch of opportunities to show how deftly you could navigate 3d space and overcome problems, and how deftly the game itself offered you the options. And the navigation of the bridge up to the top and a blink aided descent was a perfect example of how liberated and free you could feel during that game

Yeah, may game of the generation, a brilliant mix of creative and enjoyable stealth, that merged easily into acrobatic and truly liberating movement in all dimensions, the speed of which could change rapidly so situations needing quick reflexes could easily segue into pretty cheeky rendering unconscious a guard and i'm not sure i really have felt that range of action in any other game

You start the game as an absolute badass, you feel like an absolute badass, and this just keeps escalating as you play and it's a very empowering feeling, i've never felt so capable as a character in a videogame as I have in this game, where, while i havent finished it (as far as i know im on the last level), the previous level was a hugely entertaining blend of stealth and daring do, fucking with just about everything to get a dent route in and out and i just felt unstoppable. Thing is though you can be stopped, there is challenge in this game, and that again is ingenious.

Finally - the other bits that arent the main gameplay - story based gameplay sections and suchlike. I loved these too, you were usually given a good deal of choices, sometimes funny, sometimes completely fucked up, these being choices that might affect the behavior of an npc, but the navigation of spaces when you need to reach an area, or tail someone, was always kept interesting and even, imo, just 'cool looking', like the tailing you do of a character in an early level on the roof beams, something thief 4 seems to have tried to implement but come short as a game (which has really disappointed me)

I dont know why im writing all this, maybe a retrospect and respect of what was i think easily my fave single player game of the generation - A game in which there is a sequence in which you are somewhat tricked into a duel, using pistols, and during this duel you can wait for your opponent to fire, stop time, walk over to him and snatch the bullet he fired out of the air, walk back to your position, load your pistol with the bullet you were being shot at with assuming your pistol had no rounds, restart time and shoot your opponent with his own bullet, is a game that belongs in my heart for all time

I hate agreeing with Yoss

hylian_elf wrote:

I would hate agreeing with him too. Good job I disagree, then.

It's a shame you don't hate being wrong.

AND JUST TO ADD TO HOW WRONG YOSS IS

any of the story you actually had to sit through was probably the rotten monkey jism mr moneybags thought would be cool

LazyGunn wrote:

a completely intriguing half that didnt try to form a typical narrative and helped instead for you to understand the game world and the events that happen in it based on the game worlds principles.

I have absolutely no idea what you're referring to here.

I liked the story, but mainly I liked having a good time and devising ways to be a bit creepy.

Skerret wrote:

Yoss likes his stories to have a beginning, middle and end where the good guy beats the bad guy, gets the girl and maybe even has 'sex time' with her as Yoss so often mentions.  Always on about the sex time.  Gunn is getting carried away but yos, there was plenty under the surface.

All I see is a load of anally retentive background garbage which does not a narrative make.

The gameplay is shittingly brilliant. The sense of empowerment is thrilling.

What is this plot outside of the main plot you're talking about?