Dishonored 2

Dishonoured 2 is an interesting experience, I haven't played anything quite like it before (which includes the first game so please keep that in mind while reading this...). You play as either Corvo Attano (from the first game) or his daughter Emily Kaldwin who is the heir to the throne of Dunwall... Except for when Emily's mother's secret evil half-sister comes literally out of nowhere and claims the throne for herself... Sending you (as Emily or Corvo) to the rundown bay-side city of Karnaca to discover the secret to defeating the new Empress Delilah. The main draw to this series seems to be it's ability to allow you to "play your way". Each mission gives you a world much like a playground and you're just let out to find your own path and means to completing whatever objective lies ahead.

The first question you wanna ask yourself is "do you wanna be good or bad?". In otherwords, lethal Vs. Non lethal tactics. Depending on which play-style you choose, missions will call for completely different objectives. Then there's the question of stealth Vs. assault tactics which will influence how easy or difficult it is to complete said objectives. The third major choice (and perhaps the most important) revolves around your special powers. Do you even want them at all? And if your answer is yes (which of course it will be!) then who do you want to play as? The weathered, time manipulating, mind controlling Corvo? Or the quick, sneaky, and perceptive Emily? Both characters have their strengths and weakness, but their differences beg for multiple play-throughs as each one.

The story feels a bit contrived in the game's first few hours, but once you start meeting important characters and unravelling the mystery of Delilah Copperspoon and how she rose to power; the plot builds into something competent by the end. Key decisions you make in certain missions will effect how the story pans out which can add more to the re-play factor. Karnaca is a really gorgeous city despite being run down and full of bloodfly invested apartments... The story will take you to some interesting locations like the mad inventor Kirin Jindosh's shape-shifting "Cloakwork Manor", or the witch-cult invested Conservatory, or the tyrant Duke Abele's beautiful Grand Palace. The locations in this game are cool and the characters you encounter are compelling and interesting. Just take your two main allies: Meagan Foster, the mysterious captain of the Dreadful Whale, and Anton Sokolov the genius engineer from Dunwall.

The mechanics in this game are good for the most part. Regular sword and weapon combat feels comfortable and easy, the stealth mechanics work about as good as in any other stealth focused game I've played. I think my only main issues here are with some of the powers. The "Far Reach/Blind" ability (which you'll use a f*** ton) I found didn't quite work properly all of the time, sometimes I would land just underneath the platform I wanted to get to or clip another object causing me to fall right into a crowd of enemies. And for some reason Emily's "link-up" ability (as helpful as it was) didn't always tag enemies even though I was a few metres away... But I found that most other powers worked fine. Corvo's time manipulation power is SUPER fun to play around with and possessing rats was pretty integral to scouting out the area. Emily also has some really cool powers like the phantom decoys which can be upgraded to kill enemies for you, and her demonic sneaking form which also has a pretty brutal killing animation! >:D

I think worth mentioning here is the game's length. At 9 missions in totally this game shouldn't take you anymore then 8-10 hours for a slow/stealthy approach. Taking a lethal or assault approach would decrease that time substantially, I've seen some speed runners jet through this entire game in a little over 30 minutes.... Without any glitches..... But uh.... The real saving grace here is again; the re-playability with how many different ways you can approach each mission. Still though, the game would have justified itself a bit better with just a few more missions. Overall this is a really cool experience though. Glad I was able to jump into this when I did. If you're a fan of stealthy action games with an odd artsy world then this game won't disappoint you! :D