Recent reviews by LizzytheMissfit

(Includes spoilers, be warned!)

Synopsis:
Booker Dewitt is a man that gets sent to enter the flying city of Columbia, and retrieve the daughter of the prophetic founder and leader of the city Zachary Hale Comstock. Columbia was founded on American ideals and is a embodiment of the American dream. Booker soon realizes that he is the so called False shepherd that is seen as the one that will kidnap Elizabeth, its also revealed that Columbia isn't perfect and has a dark side to it. Booker meets with Elizabeth and gets access to her cross-dimensional powers named "Tears". The two try to find escape whilst getting chased by Comstock and his men, during the midst of a slowly commencing civil war

Story, characters and world building:
The story is overall good with interesting characters and with great themes accompanying it. The world building is detailed thanks to the use of visual and verbal storytelling and Voxophones (this game's audio diaries). Booker is a really fascinating person, with his backstory and character development he was a satisfying "Shock" protagonist for me. I love Elizabeth, her design and personality is so spot on, and her character development is great to. Starting as a naive innocent girl and transforming into a mature and tragic character. Comstock was also a nice villain, but he never comes close to being as great as Andrew Ryan, he is in another league of greatness. The games first two levels are overall fantastic. The intro is beautifully crafted, with the fair section being really fun to play through. The dreadful atmosphere of the city right after the scene with the interracial couple, the cult house, its so great. Soldiers field is also a great level. The ending levels in Comstock house and the zeppelin are also really good. The games various historical references and parallels to Rapture are also good. I really enjoyed the ending to, it was a bit convoluted but the emotion was spot on.

Let's now talk about actual issues in the games story, that stop the story from becoming perfect. The game felt like it had some really great ideas that fully never got realized, possibly because of development hell. Most of these ideas can be seen in better detail in the E3 trailers. The middle of the game and even some ending parts of the game is also quite rocky storywise, with a few plotholes (not game ruining necessarily), undeveloped story elements and characters and even a section in the Finkton level of the game, where there is a lot of back and forth. Essentially the story can feel messy in some areas. The ending as said can be convoluted, if you think to deeply about it, in certain ways the ending can be overwhelming and rushed. For me the strongest part of the story is its characters, primarily Booker and Elizabeth, and when the story hits, it really hits. So in my eyes the flaws don't bother my experience, but this doesn't nullify the existence of the lackluster parts of the story.

To describe what I mean about the stories messiness, Daisy Fitzroy, leader of the civil war against the city started as a good character, but could have had a longer and more complex character development.(Spoilers)I would have wanted to see her in Emporia instead of her dying so early on, there she could have started to develop as a character instead of her "snapping" being so abrupt. Seeing her just like in the E3 trailer would be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. As her speeches echo over the chaos going on. There is so much more I could discuss, such as the underplayed roles of Songbird and the American themes that were more prominent in the E3 trailers, the scrapped characters, and much more! But I don't want to draw out so I will end it here.

Gameplay and environment:
The gameplay overall carries the core aspects of the prior Bioshock games. With various new additions such as the skyhook, skylines and various different new enemies to spice things up. The gun play and exploration is smooth and enjoyable, each environment is full of top notch detail and collectibles.
This games plasmids, named Vigors, are also really fun to use and their bottle designs are ten times better then the original BS1 to be frank. In this game they are so uniqe and perfectly describe the power they harbor, unlike the reused bottle designs in BS1. The skylines are a great addition and the new enemies are great to! I really adore Elizabeth's A.I in this game, all the various ways she interacts around the world and she is genuinely a helpful companion in combat, with her Tears and item tossing. Overall smooth as butter gameplay.

But just like the story there are flaws and this is where I will mostly talk about the E3 trailers. The game originally seemed to be a far less linear and more of a bigger game, with a lot of more emphasize on skylines, tears and many other stuff. Songbird seemed to be originally a bigger threat, rather then the final version of him that only appears in cut-scenes (Spoilers)During the final bits of the game you do get the chance to use him as a combat companion in gameplay, but that isn't enough to be honest. But him kicking the ♥♥♥♥ out of everything was amazing though. The Gear system (this games Gene tonics) where quite okay, could have been better but not the worst either, I would have preferred if you got to buy most of the Gear, because in the final game they are just collectibles. Instead, they could have made the more special Gear secrets to collect for those who had extra interest in Gears. A lot of RPG mechanics where also toned down making the game more of an action adventure bame rather then an fps RPG. One last thing I would mention is the smaller role some really great enemies types were given, especially the Siren and The Boys of Silence, enemies with such wasted potential. The game could have been much more like the older games in this regard.

Voice acting, soundtrack and visuals:
Infinite's visuals and soundtrack are unbelievably full of finesse and personality, the visuals truly made my jaw drop, especially the intro. The only thing that bothered me visually was the repetitive NPC models and a few models what looked to angular, aside from that, fantastic visuals! The soundtrack is beautifully composed ranging from great foreshadowing, intense emotion and awe-inspiring melodies. The song named "Elizabeth" is my favorite one since it perfectly portrays Elizabeth and all the tragedy in her story. The voice acting is full of emotion and dedication with great voice performances from Troy Baker, Courtnee Draper and many other talented people.

Final verdict: Overall a good package that offers a, although heavily flawed, impactful and emotional story with a lot of great character momments. With a jawdroppig art style and visuals, and with an good gameplay that keeps the game fun and engaging. The game could have been better, but is quite fantastic for what it is. I know people have criticized this game, for fair reasons that I understand and even agree with many ways. But personally, I will love this game for what it does right and excels in. The team once at Irrational games excelled in creating an riveting character focused story, with original and fascinating themes, art style, and twists.

+Good characters
+Fun and engaging gameplay
+Beautiful art style and graphics
+Great overall designs
+Great soundtrack
-Lackluster gear system
-Story that can be messy and rushed in some areas
-Gameplay could have been more like past games
-Visuals problems such as repetitive NPC models

Overall a flawed game, that's really good, but that if fully realized, could have been one of the most revolutionary games of all time. A flawed masterpiece.

E3 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5it-pAYmKY E3 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WUt5dEMt_Y

(Spoiler free!)

This review has been edited so many time lmao, hope this is the final amendment. With that said, let's jump straight into the review!

Synopsis:
Dishonored is an Cyberpunk story full of Sci fi, action and Drama.
The plot is about Corvo the royal protector of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and her daughter Emily kaldwin. Corvo is a man full of care and love but also a man thats merciless and brutal towards his enemies. One fateful day a group of assasians kill Jessamine and kidnap Emily from Corvo. Corvo gets blamed for being the killer of Jessamine and goes on a quest to take revenge on her killer with the help of an conpiracy group and loyalists that are against the state.

Story, characters and world building:
The plot is overall quite good. It had emotional beats and Corvo's redemption arc was riveting and both sad and amazing at the same time. The world of Dunwall is also interesting and full of detail, it does trully look and sound like a victorian era city. Each district and room is full of attention to detail and charm. The charcters where also enjoyible for there characteristics and scenes, I espcaily adore Samual Beachworth. Emily is both adorable and smart kid whom wasn't irritating nor a excruciating escort mission which made her unique and likable. The twist villain was also really enjoyible and had an interesting backstory and reasonings for his actions. When it comes to the plot twist I really liked the intensity and dread of knowing something isn't right and there was more than meets the eye. I also adore the mix of genres in this game, with it being Cyberpunk mixed with Steampunk/Clockpunk visuals with the mix of medieval stuff to.

The story ain't perfect by a long shot. Hiram could have been a better villain in all honesty, he is not bad att all but he should have had more screen time and a more complex character. Same goes for the twist villain altough he was better. All the endings felt abrupt and unsatasfying to me. The endings are just motionless cutscenes that ended to fast and where unsatisfactory, it feelt underwhelming. Another issue is how allot of the backstory is written on collectible sheets of text. These werent short but quite comprehensive and since I dont like to read enldess text in games I missed allot of details. This is more of a personal criticism though, so this isnt necessarily the games fault but mine so next time I will try to read atleast. Overall I really like Dishonored's plot and story telling.

Gameplay and environment:
Dishonored is a stealth game that has gameplay that offers a vast world full of exploration and various playstyles the player can adapt. If you look through each nook and crannies you'll find iteams accommodating with what the player will need through their adventure, these said iteams can be Bone charms, ammo, blueprints, Runes and various other assisting goodies.

I really adore the gameplay, its truly great and full of various varying choses and playstyles. The staggering amount of ways to take down each and single enemy is truly mind blowing, so many ways to approach and deal with the enemies truly make me appreciate this gameplay. The exploration and the envoirment is also one of this games succeses, they truly nailed the asthetic they where going for and the details are quite amazing. There is so many iteams and loot to find witch gives the palyer an great incentive to explore in this game. I cant describe how many "100 ways to kill (insert character name)" Dishonored videos I have seen which astonish me and are a compliment on how complex the gameplay truly is. The achivements where also fun and challenging, for sure a great extra spice for the game.

When it comes to my issues they could have also expanded on the moral choices, instead of it souly relying on how much guards you have killed. For instance, there was this one pacafist route for one of the assassination targets that ended up with you pretty much giving the target away to a perverted creep. Sure, she didn't die, but is this decision necessarily any better? Conundrums like these could have been explored, making the choice system a bit more nuanced, same goes for the endings as said.

Voice acting, soundtrack and visuals:
Dishonored's Cyberpunk and Victorian visuals are great and striking accompanied by a marvelous soundtrack and overall good voice acting. The art style is quite stylized in a way where it is not cartoony but more so realism with a touch of style and expressiveness. The visuals are quite reminiscent of the texture and look of oil pantings which makes the art style even more great. The soundtrack is such a treat to the ears, the music is an mix betwen techno and clasical music which also reflect the games cyberpunk visuals. The voice acting is quite fine and I really liked the characters tones and emotion in the voice acting, its not state of the art but good enough.
The only big hiccup with the voice acting is some of the voice lines from the enemies which after a while becomes quite humorous and irattating because of how repetitive they are, "Should we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?" and "Think you'll get your own squad after what happened last night?" are one of these mentioned voice lines that after a while become humorous and repetitive. Even tough the voice liens are funny it was still repetetive and lost its effect if that makes sense. Overall the visuals and soundtrack are great whilst the voice acting could have been better.
I adore the main theme and "Wrenhaven River" which perfectly Illustrates Dishonoreds personality, gameplay and story. It is essentially the game translated into music form.

Final verdict:
Dishonored is a amazing game full of great storytelling and superb gameplay that i recommend to anyone that loves games and compelling storytelling in general. I have put links below to both of the aforementioned songs I liked.

+Good story and characters
+Amazing Visuals and art style
+Great stealth and combat mechanics
+Great soundtrack
-Story has its lowpoints that should have been refined
-Could have expanded more on the morality system
-Repetetive enemy dailogue

Amazing experience that has its problems but is overall a masterpiece, a game that feels like if Half life had a baby with Thief!

Main theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPWCkhulCn8
Wrenhaven River: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv0gFlcD_KQ