The industrial revolution in the real world was actually begun upon whale oil, and it was used as fuel for lamps, but also machinery. whaling was fairly quickly banned, as the animals were going extinct, which is when coal and oil became the most popular (or only) sources of fuel for industry. dishonored is not as far fetched as people think, at least in terms of the industrial revolution. the extraction of the whale oil was even carried out on ships, which is what inspired the massive whaling ships of dishonored.
and the steam engine came about originally as an attempt to pump water out of a mine more efficiently. The first ones ran on solid fuel, oil came about pretty far into the industrial revolution. But when it did - yep, whales.
the industrial revolution didn't start with whale oil it started with the steam engine and coal. whale oil came much later and the scale wasn't the same as in dishonored... though it was horrendous in reality aswell. It took humanity about a hundred years to hunt whales to extinction, the Empire in dishonored managed that in about 3 decades, just for comparison.
The game really got me when I was about to slash the throat of one of the guards, somehow I used the mechanical heart almost by accident and it told me that he was the last in his family, everyone else had died of the plague. I genuinely felt guilt and let him go.
@@ItWasSaucerShapedYou know, I find it hard to believe that their garrisons are stocked with men who *voluntarily* signed up for service. So I'm not sure you can inherently hold conscription against them as a moral failing.
Before the release, I was sure it would be a shitty clone of Bioschock, Assasssin's Creed. But Dishonored turned out to be one of the most atmospheric and emotionally touching worlds I've experienced. The game design and art touched something in me from the teen years, when I often had a feeling melancholia and mystery.
your summation of dishonored 2 is perfectly put - storywise its flat but mechanically it surpasses the original. I love the first game, but I have happily sunk 70 hours into the sequel and played it through multiple times, with each playthrough taking a different approach, from high to low chaos, to no powers and full ghost. The flexibility of the world and the systems are staggering, as is the lushness of the art and environments. A truly wonderful game and amazing piece of design that I continue to unpack and discover new and interesting toys and styles to engage with.
I feel the same. I love D2 much more than the first. I personally think that the story is the best in D1 DLC, D1 has a pretty decent story, and D2 story is quite bland. However, the atmosphere is great, and gameplay is absolutely fantastic. Number of ways to achieve your goals is astounding!
This is basically why I have something like +100 hours in Prey. The story is rather simplistic and even annoying at places, but the game mechanics is so profoundly interesting that I've played the game through and through in almost every way possible. The space missions in Prey still get me every time.
@@seva4370 The most problematic part of Dishonored 2's story is that it's just a rehash of the Knife of Dunwall DLC. Delilah tries to overthrough Emily, causes chaos and at the end gets stuffed in to her own painting, rinse and repeat. with the only difference being that in the DLC she tried to take Emily's body and in 2 she tries to take the throne off her. The reveal that she is Emily's aunt retroactively makes that particular story point quite icky and messed up as she is trying to get what she wants by taking over her own nieces body...who at that point is a child.
exactly this! DH2 really could’ve been a masterpiece if they spiced up the story, and came up with something new instead of recycling delilah, sokolov, and billie lurk. I don’t mind them bringing back a couple old characters but Delilah absolutely should’ve been done away with and they way they tried to make sokolov look like a lovable uncle to emily when he was canonically an asshole sleazebag in the first game was just weird. But the gameplay is phenomenal. Very fluid and with many massive improvements from the first game that make both high chaos and stealth a lot more fun. The world looks amazing in Karnaca with beautiful landscapes.
Jindosh's non-lethal is a sort of redemption too. If you pay close attention to the news articles it becomes clear that while before he was a tyrannical psychopath ruthlessly experimenting on his servants, after what you do to him he becomes extraordinarily kind hearted and empathetic towards others.
Michael Madesen has a cool voice so it was cool to actually have the characer talk. i was dissapointed in Death of the outsider that you are stuck as billie
Also with Delilah at the end, the point was that while her grievances were real, and she's powerful as an individual... She greatly overestimates her ability to successfully administrate a kingdom and in so doing ends up causing far worse problems than the ones that caused her to seek the throne in the first place. It shows an overall lack of empathy and megalomania, a sort of dark reflection to Emily's well intentioned but neglectful rule
I love this channel because you spend so long talking about why a game is great, which is much harder to communicate. I'm tired of longform videos that are just nitpicking mechanics, if you spend 50 hours with any game its clear you'll find mechanics that don't work as well as they could. The parts of a game that work well and actually feel good aren't quite so easily evident and you do an excellent job of identifying and analysing why they work so well.
I'm addicted to Dishonored. Its not like those games when you finish it, it becomes boring. For some reason, I always find it fun and interesting playing in a single level again and again for hours
welcome here ! take a chair and a cookie sir ! enjoy your stay and have a tea or a good drink, listening to these wonderfuly long game analysis ! (also good job on your channel ! love your stuff too. I run a french gaming analyse/news webzine were i share your and Noah's content : facebook.com/tuyatrojouey/ ! )
i never placed non lethal Corvo as a good guy per se, just a way more controlled one. high chaos Corvo is all rage and bloodlust. he wants his revenge and anyone between him and it are just more lambs to the slaughter. low chaos Corvo is all about tranquil fury. he's pissed and *will* have his revenge but he's more sensible about it. he doesnt need to kill random guards because they never did anything to him. low chaos corvo has enough ice in his veins to direct his rage instead of wildly discharging it as well as to realise that a blade to the spine is in many ways an easy way out. low chaos corvo wants his enemies to suffer, but just his enemies. high chaos corvo wants their death and he wants it now, so you better stay out of his way or die. the most mercyful of all possibilities would be a Corvo that is stealthy but lethal to his targets. no collateral and the people that need to be taken care of for the plot to progress are dealt with quickly and with relatively low cruelty.
That's exactly how I play him. Lethal but hidden, picking enemies off one at a time, or in quick succession without giving anyone involved enough time to react. I usually spare the guards if there are civilians nearby since it would leave the chance of them getting hurt up in the air. But if there are no civilians, it's free game.
@@Zayindjejfj and that's exactly one of the chaos systems' greatest failures, because if you do that - as I did - you're still treated as a murdering maniac.
@@ExValeFor I know. For example, the wailer assassins and guards killing plague victims shouldn't be so much of a punishment. They're actually deserving of punishment. They contributed to the destruction of Dunwall's society. But don't worry! I'm the REAL bad guy cause I decided to use rat swarm ONCE.
@@Zayindjejfj My favorite (not) part is how they made it even worse in Dishonored 2. Carnaca is an even bigger shithole, and using the Heart you get a concrete characterization for each enemy if you decide to spend time tagging them. I played through the game making sure only to kill the really fucked up ones, but all of it was just set dressing. I think you get slightly less chaos added if you kill the ones the Heart decides are bad, but it's a miniscule difference; I gave up on trying sometime around the Jindosh level because every other level gave me a High Chaos rating.
@@ExValeFor If you got a High Chaos rating in every mission before the Clockwork Mansion then you were getting spotted/killing too many, not hard to get Low Chaos even with killing, just don't kill civilians.
I love Dishonored 2 but somehow it overall feels very different from the first game. I can't quite put my finger on it but the best way I could describe it would be, Dishonored 2 has the gameplay and Dishonored has everything else.
The Jindosh riddle does actually have a pattern where you can identify which thing belongs to whom depending on where the names and accessories are placed in the text
When fighting the Lady Boyle I choke her to put her unconcious....the thing is that made her fall the flight astair Later I had to drop her on the ground to open the door to the basement...she received the door right in the face Later a bug with me trying to use blink to go through a window had me launch her like a baseball through the room She stil lived
D2's Clockwork Mansion and Crack in the Slab missions are outstanding creations. It's really difficult to overstate how unique they are, and we salute the D2 designers and programmers. But having said that, the poor sound propagation should have been fixed, as that is the main factor that renders both games inferior to the first 2 Thief games from MANY YEARS AGO. Oh, and the gigantic Owls in the mission with the witches are awesome, as are Owls IRL.
Hi Noah, is there any chance we could address this? You're video essays are excellent and it's a pity if some people are missing out. I'd be happy to help out if I can.
@Kim Jong Børre I'm not sure if it works like that or how UA-cam handles content creator comment notifications but I'm here to add my voice to the chorus.
If you go to your settings, you can turn on Closed Captioning which I'm sure you already know. They also have automated captioning which tries to translate what Google thinks it sounds like they are saying. It's not the most accurate. You probably already know that stuff, and maybe it doesn't work for this video. Sorry if I'm just repeating stuff you've tried.
I agree completely with the conclusions here--especially about how extraordinary the visual storytelling and moment-to-moment experience is, vs. how disappointing the story is. (My personal read is that the decision to offer 2 protagonists, while SUPER cool & one I was grateful for, because I like being able to play as a woman, had a negative impact here. It meant they couldn't structure the game as the player character's story, because there was no one player character. So instead the whole game is basically Delilah's story.) Anyway. Particularly good video. But I keep seeing people mocking the idea that whale oil could be the basis of this country's economy & it drives me batty. There was a brief period of time--in our real 19th century, so parallel to the game's setting--when the world ran on whale oil. Whale oil really WAS our best fuel. This is what Moby Dick is about--these sailors are going around the world to kill sperm whales for the OIL, spermaceti, which was brought back to be burned as fuel in lamps, etc. There's a really great book, truly a FANTASTIC book, that explains the context a little bit better--Nathaniel Philbrick's IN THE HEART OF THE SEA. Ignore the movie which everyone says is bad. It's non-fiction & started in Nantucket, the entire economy of which was built around WHALE OIL. Fortunes were made, whole American dynasties born, out of whale oil. It's a real thing people. It sounds far-fetched but, as we are all learning every day when we turn on the news, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
@@NShomebase Considering the oil literally glows blue and powers giant walls of arcing electricity and other mechanical marvels, I think this is completely fair to assume.
a fun thing about a lot of the art assets in dishonored 2 that seem so realistic: Arkane actually commissioned (or built themselves) a lot of them in real life, both to prove that they could and to use them as reference for programmers
I thought the timepiece was a lot of fun and reminded me of Titanfall 2 and it’s time gauntlet. In Titanfall 2, however, the enemies you face think it’s a cloaking device and continue to shoot into the general area they think you’re in, hoping to hit you, never once realising you’re not in their time period anymore. Great game ideas.
What I did when I played this game was: I would go into an area, save my game, proceed to kill everything and everyone over and over reloading the game each time while getting familiar with the environment. Then when I got bored I'd proceed without killing anything and choose the non lethal options.
The Jindoss Lock at 41:00 or so is a pretty standard type of logic problem, one that a childhood of reading logic puzzles lets me understand quickly. It took a couple read-throughs to identify the relevant information, but once I had done that it was simple for me to create a table for organizing said information. It's a table I've seen a hundred times. I made one for this puzzle right here: prnt.sc/g6mexb You then fill in information based on what the puzzle tells you. For instance, Countess Contee wore blue (which also means that she didn't wear any of the other colors, and no one else was in blue). Also, Madam Natsiou was sitting next to the lady in a red dress, meaning that the Madam wasn't in red. Since Natsiou was at the far left, the lady in red must have been sitting between her and the center lady. Continuing through the puzzle, we end up with a grid looking like this: prnt.sc/g6mizl From here, we can sometimes draw a few additional conclusions. We might see that the lady in white is both Ms. Finch and drank whiskey, meaning that Finch was a whiskey-drinker. Barring that, we might be able to made some deductions by elimination. We can do this a bit; for instance, Lady Winslow is known to have drunk rum, meaning that she can't wear purple (the wine-drinker's color), have sat in the center (where the whiskey-drinker sat), etc. Once we've gone through all of this, we get the following grid: prntscr.com/g6mogb Once those options are exhausted, we need to carefully analyze the remaining options. For instance, Purple sat to the left of White. Since Red sat two from the left, Purple can't be on the far left (or she would be to Red's left), nor can White be in the center (or Red would be to her left). This lets us eliminate a couple of half-related possibilities, which happens to let us determine (by process of elimination) that Madam Natsiou wore green. This leads to its own set of conclusions, one of which lets us eliminate all possibilities where the lady in blue didn't drink whiskey, which lets us put her in the center, hence leaving the right two spaces for Purple and White. This leads to a lot of logicking, and after that the grid looks something like this: prnt.sc/g6mrx8 At this point, we need to start trying out possibilities and looking for contradictions. For instance, the lady from Baleton drinks either absinthe or rum. If she drank rum, she would need to be Lady Winslow. However, Lady Winslow is known to not be from Baleton. Therefore, the lady from Baleton drank absinthe. Assuming Dr. Marcolla was from Karnaca lead to a similar contradiction, requiring Countess Contee to also hail from there, which let me determine that Marcolla must be from Dabovka, which lead to a flurry of other conclusions. prnt.sc/g6myfj And so on. (It's getting late, so I have to stop there.) I hope at least one person reads this and finds it helpful in solving some other logic problem. Maybe it's one in Dishonored, maybe not. Either way, happy logicking!
Amazing work as always sir. It's because of you that I have been inspired to write more in depth about games that I feel have a lot more to offer than just great gameplay and story. Keep up the great work my friend.
Ah, one of the most delightful discoveries in my UA-cam-recommendations list in weeks. Reality can stay on hold for the next 55 minutes and 48 seconds.
H.D Beird similar thing happened to me too. I was watching another video, fell asleep, and woke up to one of Noah's previous videos and wondered to myself when a new on was going to come out. low and behold lol.
I've heard about Dishonored many times, but never had an interest in playing them, until now. Thank you for the deep look inside, Noah! And congratulations!
Anytime Steely Dan is used its deserving of a like. Either way, Great video. I agree with the point that the main reason dishonored 2 wasn't as glorious as the prequel was because the prequel existed. It is a fine game in its own right. But Dishonored is nearly a perfectly crafted world and compelling story that few can hold up against in the FP stealth genre.
This is serious genius. Easily the best single piece of games criticism I have ever seen or read. The scope and detail of your analysis reminds me of a WWII history I just read, Inferno, that captures both the insane scope of the war and the daily lived experience of the people trapped inside of it. Your analysis helps me understand art better. Thank you.
Much appreciated man! I generally start checking your channel two weeks before every episode. Really respect everything you do. Oh, and happy marriage!
@@JWStreeter I'll be interested in why you feel that way about it. Personally I don't care much for it. I think some levels are cool but overall the game is a waste of potential and the ending is even more disappointing than Dishonored 2.
Fun fact: if you read the books, you find out that lady boyle eventually kills the dude and takes over his estate. Not that that makes the choice in-game less repugnant but it's and interesting eventuality.
Architecture and many other things were made so well (AFAIK) is because they hired real architects and other people in different fields to create realistic stuff. For example, i read somewhere that they were debating how to disable windmill powering walls of light in Dishonored 2. Game designers wanted for players to shoot blades down thus crippling it, while engineers (i think) said that's unrealistic and bullets/bolts wouldn't be capable of doing that thus they went with a simple lever to turn it off. It's not as interesting as shooting it down, but at least its plausible thing. That's just one example i remember, i bet they did this with many other things in-game too.
speaking of metro, I hope you get around to doing a full series on metro, or even just metro exodus, it may be interesting to do all in one video to see the evolution, though
You know, this is the first of your video that I stopped watching midway through - To actually play the game again after I gave up on the first mission (High Overseer Campbell) years ago. And you know what, I'm baffled as to why I couldn't play this game. I'm having so much fun. So thank you, as always.
I definitely get what you're saying about appreciating the in-game art as actual art - such as the statues. I had that reaction to the Sokolov paintings. Specifically those from the first game - the new ones in the sequel seem a bit half-assed, sadly. But the original ones are amazing. Not just nice game scenery but genuine, beautiful art by itself. That attention, not just to detail but also art and design, is one of the things that make Dishonored so outstanding.
Definitely convinced me to get Dishonored 2 whenever I get a decent PC again, as well as replaying the original one. Though on a mechanical level I liked the first game, my enjoyment of it on a narrative dimension was somewhat hurt by what appeared to me at the time as the artificiality of a singular fixed number as a threshold between high and low chaos. I had gone for a more organic first playthrough, not going out my way to do everything non-lethally, but trying to avoid killing as much as possible. This, however, resulted in a situation where a single decision in the late game where you can choose to dispatch several enemies in one blow put me over the limit, getting me the high chaos ending despite the fact that it was rather at odds with the narrative that emerged from my actual playing of the game. This left a rather sour taste, as it basically rendered moot the decision to avoid combative approaches with none of the fun of having engaged in the combat. This was a rather unfortunate first encounter with the game, rather demotivating when I look back at it, as after getting a low chaos ending by avoiding that single decision just for the sake of completion, I dropped the game feeling rather unfulfilled narratively and mechanically.
Finally got around to watching this after playing through the second game again on hardware that didn't struggle to run it (I am a cheap bastard with a cheap laptop). I love this series for being exactly the balance of stealth and combat for me, personally. The tone shift from the second to the first slotted nicely in my brain by thinking of the first as a prequel, a storybook version of events Emily tells herself as she dreams of something more energetic than being a good ruler. So seeing her take the long walk back up to the top by seeing her father's homeland worked for me. Either she gets some bloody, firsthand realpolitik or she can learn how to set up the dominos of one good deed begetting another. Your inaights did give me new perspective on how the narrative construction is not as solid as I remembered, but I still love this game for what it does to my brain, specifically.
There are two levels in this series I always have a tendency to go absolutely high chaos on. In the second game, it is Jindosh's manor. Both because playing cat and mouse in an active deathtrap delights me, and because they hurt my science grandpa. And I take exception to that. The other is the Flooded District in the first game.
In my first time through, I put myself in Corvo's shoes so deeply I cut a bloody swath through the people who had killed "my" empress, even though my run had been nearly bloodless until that point. (I left some unconscious bodies in places a rat swarm could eat them. A harsh lesson for my pacifist run hopes.) I even managed a lucky Blink above Daud, pushing me out of the AI's notice for just a hair, letting me do a drop assassination. It was not until my second playthrough that I learned you could even get the choice to spare him. That has always left an impression on me, that I could do that and not break the game's stride for even a second.
Finally got around to finishing all the Dishonored games so I felt like I could finally watch this critique and join the year old conversation! First off I love your work, it's always very insightful and in depth, treating each game like a fine peace of art. The one thing I'd have to disagree on with you though is the non-lethal fate for Jindosh in Dishonored 2. I'd argue it is on par with the redemtive nature of every other non-lethal solution to the games antagonists. By no means did I do exhaustive research, but I distinctly remember coming across in game newspapers describing how after his "accident" he's been extremely pleasent towards his employees for the first time. So I'd argue that the game posits that his high intellect and ambition was what had made him a cruel person, and by removing it you've helped him. That's my inexpert opinion anyway. -sincerely, A semi-intelligent person on the internet
Finally got around to watching this after it sat around in my "Watch later" playlist for a week. Very enjoyable and thoughtful video about a games I love. Good job with this mate, I'll definitely have a look at your other videos whenever I have time. Plus I loved that you also talked about the DLCs and Daud.
agreed, but at least I hope I can watch the first part. Like I didn't play SC2 LotV so I will watch that later. But I was kinda expecting this from this guy, the game fits so well in his video collection.
wow dude why havent you played dishonored 2 its amazing. 3 fps streets that look worse then a naked homeless man that just shit him self. like I think the game is fantastik. I give dishonored a score of 9/11. avalebal at a store near you now.
I've been debating whether to give Dishonored a shot since I've heard many varying opinions about it, and this video convinced me for the most part that I should... except for one thing. The choice of Lady Boyle's fate. As someone who personally takes a lot of pride in doing completely non-lethal runs of stealth games that allow it, it's a huge slap in the face that a game would force the choice on me of either murdering a woman, or sparing her, only to force her to experience the worst kind of violation of body and mind. I take pride in non-lethal play because I like being good, and that I believe the enemy, however evidently heinous, should be allowed to live and choose to walk away from their past life. I don't do it just so someone can get raped by a creep; I wouldn't wish rape on anyone even if the creators tell me "Because they're evil" or what have you. The character in question would have to do something that gets *deep* under my skin in order for me to ever wish that on someone. If I'm able to achieve the low chaos ending despite killing a major enemy like Boyle -- because death is much more merciful than subjecting someone to violent rape in my eyes -- then maybe I can bite the bullet. It'll always leave a sour taste in my mouth that Dishonored considers a woman being violated the non-lethal "good" route, but at least I can make the choice to end her life in rebellion to the other option and still get the good ending.
Great analysis. These are the reasons why dishonored is my #1 favorite game series....Anyone who likes Dishonored should play Prey. Its made by the same studio and its incredible.
Well done with such a long essay! Sound quality and a little editing of mistakes and missteps is all that keeps this from being professional quality! Great voice and inflection! You've got me interested to see the rest of your channel. :) Well done!
You make the fundamental mistake of equating non-lethal with mercy. In Dishonored, non-lethal is about vendetta where it's not just enough to kill the targets, they must be made to suffer.
That moment in D2 where delilah where she jokes you sharing her bed as you two are the closest you could have to what you lost... I know she is joking but I realized that my high chaos corvo who wanted to see everything burn... could totally have taken her up on that offer and it might be the happiest he could have been. He might even get Emily back if Delilah had willed it. I can't think of another moment like that in a game for me.
Honestly I hate how you can only save Aramis Stilton BEFORE the ritual. If you watch it without dealing with him first he is destined for madness. I wish I could go back to the garden and knock him out after but if you go back after he’s gone, having gone to the ritual
This video made my friday night. Nothing like ending a week with a glass of whiskied coke and some deep analysis of one of my favorite IPs out there. Thanks Noah!
Here's the thing, I like the violent playthrough because the story of an anti hero that takes the easy way out, and dooming the world as a result is totally up my alley
The first game is superior in every way except game play, which is the sequels strong point. As pretty as Karnaca is, I'd much rather have Dunwall. Edit: I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't care for the Clockwork mansion. Sure it's fascinating and beautiful, but as a compeltionist and one who prefers a low chaos and/or ghost playthrough, it's an absolute chore to get through. Stiltons mansion with the timepiece was amazing though.
![Prey vs. Prey [Total Spoilers]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bINxL__VitI/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Outer Worlds in Close Critique [Spoilers]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TpxidRlZyXc/mqdefault.jpg)
The industrial revolution in the real world was actually begun upon whale oil, and it was used as fuel for lamps, but also machinery. whaling was fairly quickly banned, as the animals were going extinct, which is when coal and oil became the most popular (or only) sources of fuel for industry. dishonored is not as far fetched as people think, at least in terms of the industrial revolution.
the extraction of the whale oil was even carried out on ships, which is what inspired the massive whaling ships of dishonored.
I scrolled down to see if this had been mentioned, I was curious if Noah just didn't realise that this was based on reality.
well I feel like that's not actually true industrial ramped up the need for oil and was in fact the result of textile creation
and the steam engine came about originally as an attempt to pump water out of a mine more efficiently. The first ones ran on solid fuel, oil came about pretty far into the industrial revolution. But when it did - yep, whales.
the industrial revolution didn't start with whale oil it started with the steam engine and coal. whale oil came much later and the scale wasn't the same as in dishonored... though it was horrendous in reality aswell. It took humanity about a hundred years to hunt whales to extinction, the Empire in dishonored managed that in about 3 decades, just for comparison.
@@PracticeNine the empire of dishonored seemed to completely rely on it which is most likely why
“Arrgghh, it seems I have been Dishonored!” -Corvo Attano
The game really got me when I was about to slash the throat of one of the guards, somehow I used the mechanical heart almost by accident and it told me that he was the last in his family, everyone else had died of the plague. I genuinely felt guilt and let him go.
usually i summon a swarm of rats and let them eat the guys whose families were killed by the plague. does that make me a bad person?
yes
'welp, guess that's everybody then. shouldn't have been a nazi bootlicker'
*shank*
@@ItWasSaucerShapedYou know, I find it hard to believe that their garrisons are stocked with men who *voluntarily* signed up for service. So I'm not sure you can inherently hold conscription against them as a moral failing.
Before the release, I was sure it would be a shitty clone of Bioschock, Assasssin's Creed.
But Dishonored turned out to be one of the most atmospheric and emotionally touching worlds I've experienced. The game design and art touched something in me from the teen years, when I often had a feeling melancholia and mystery.
And then they released Redfall lol
your summation of dishonored 2 is perfectly put - storywise its flat but mechanically it surpasses the original. I love the first game, but I have happily sunk 70 hours into the sequel and played it through multiple times, with each playthrough taking a different approach, from high to low chaos, to no powers and full ghost. The flexibility of the world and the systems are staggering, as is the lushness of the art and environments. A truly wonderful game and amazing piece of design that I continue to unpack and discover new and interesting toys and styles to engage with.
I feel the same. I love D2 much more than the first.
I personally think that the story is the best in D1 DLC, D1 has a pretty decent story, and D2 story is quite bland. However, the atmosphere is great, and gameplay is absolutely fantastic. Number of ways to achieve your goals is astounding!
I haven’t gotten it yet I’m getting it very soon and I have played dishonored a bunch of times on very hard and stuff and all dlc
This is basically why I have something like +100 hours in Prey. The story is rather simplistic and even annoying at places, but the game mechanics is so profoundly interesting that I've played the game through and through in almost every way possible. The space missions in Prey still get me every time.
@@seva4370 The most problematic part of Dishonored 2's story is that it's just a rehash of the Knife of Dunwall DLC. Delilah tries to overthrough Emily, causes chaos and at the end gets stuffed in to her own painting, rinse and repeat. with the only difference being that in the DLC she tried to take Emily's body and in 2 she tries to take the throne off her. The reveal that she is Emily's aunt retroactively makes that particular story point quite icky and messed up as she is trying to get what she wants by taking over her own nieces body...who at that point is a child.
exactly this! DH2 really could’ve been a masterpiece if they spiced up the story, and came up with something new instead of recycling delilah, sokolov, and billie lurk. I don’t mind them bringing back a couple old characters but Delilah absolutely should’ve been done away with and they way they tried to make sokolov look like a lovable uncle to emily when he was canonically an asshole sleazebag in the first game was just weird.
But the gameplay is phenomenal. Very fluid and with many massive improvements from the first game that make both high chaos and stealth a lot more fun. The world looks amazing in Karnaca with beautiful landscapes.
Jindosh's non-lethal is a sort of redemption too. If you pay close attention to the news articles it becomes clear that while before he was a tyrannical psychopath ruthlessly experimenting on his servants, after what you do to him he becomes extraordinarily kind hearted and empathetic towards others.
Oh, totally missed that
Yeah, after having his brain ripped apart and being turned into a vegetable.
turns out when you fry someone into becoming functionally retarded they end up being pretty nice to people
He does rip legs off beetles
@@ginge641 thats bad, dont get me wrong... but he's a happy one
I absolutely loved the Daud centric DLCs. I enjoyed them even more than the base game.
kidpresentable of course you did, it actually had an interesting story and better levels and characters.
Michael Madesen has a cool voice so it was cool to actually have the characer talk. i was dissapointed in Death of the outsider that you are stuck as billie
Fuck off.
@@johnstark7850 the worst level was the first one. fighting those heavy butcher guys is like fighting a tank with your fists.
yes no if you get stuck in a fight, either blink to air assassinate or just stab them in the back
Also with Delilah at the end, the point was that while her grievances were real, and she's powerful as an individual... She greatly overestimates her ability to successfully administrate a kingdom and in so doing ends up causing far worse problems than the ones that caused her to seek the throne in the first place. It shows an overall lack of empathy and megalomania, a sort of dark reflection to Emily's well intentioned but neglectful rule
6:18 I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to choke out an enemy but just ended up blocking behind them like an idiot
I prefer the low chaos for the first Dishonored just because it means Samuel lives
Is that because you kill him when he berates you?
@@Torgo1969 no, there's a picture of him in his boat about to get swallowed by waves in the high chaos ending
@@Mollifyable Deserves it after berating Corvo and sounding the alarm!
@@mariosfunadventureswithlui6197 Good point. I try to do low chaos when I play the D games.
Sam’s a fine lad, but it kinda felt good to kill his snitchin ass at the end of high chaos.
I love this channel because you spend so long talking about why a game is great, which is much harder to communicate. I'm tired of longform videos that are just nitpicking mechanics, if you spend 50 hours with any game its clear you'll find mechanics that don't work as well as they could. The parts of a game that work well and actually feel good aren't quite so easily evident and you do an excellent job of identifying and analysing why they work so well.
I'm addicted to Dishonored. Its not like those games when you finish it, it becomes boring. For some reason, I always find it fun and interesting playing in a single level again and again for hours
I only recently discovered your channel, but I am LOVING it so far. Also, Steely Dan in the intro? Got my attention.
Writing on Games Jesus Christ you are everywhere.
It is known
welcome here ! take a chair and a cookie sir ! enjoy your stay and have a tea or a good drink, listening to these wonderfuly long game analysis ! (also good job on your channel ! love your stuff too. I run a french gaming analyse/news webzine were i share your and Noah's content : facebook.com/tuyatrojouey/ ! )
Writing on Games love your channel
Your videos are awesome
i never placed non lethal Corvo as a good guy per se, just a way more controlled one.
high chaos Corvo is all rage and bloodlust. he wants his revenge and anyone between him and it are just more lambs to the slaughter.
low chaos Corvo is all about tranquil fury. he's pissed and *will* have his revenge but he's more sensible about it. he doesnt need to kill random guards because they never did anything to him. low chaos corvo has enough ice in his veins to direct his rage instead of wildly discharging it as well as to realise that a blade to the spine is in many ways an easy way out.
low chaos corvo wants his enemies to suffer, but just his enemies. high chaos corvo wants their death and he wants it now, so you better stay out of his way or die.
the most mercyful of all possibilities would be a Corvo that is stealthy but lethal to his targets. no collateral and the people that need to be taken care of for the plot to progress are dealt with quickly and with relatively low cruelty.
That's exactly how I play him. Lethal but hidden, picking enemies off one at a time, or in quick succession without giving anyone involved enough time to react. I usually spare the guards if there are civilians nearby since it would leave the chance of them getting hurt up in the air. But if there are no civilians, it's free game.
@@Zayindjejfj and that's exactly one of the chaos systems' greatest failures, because if you do that - as I did - you're still treated as a murdering maniac.
@@ExValeFor I know. For example, the wailer assassins and guards killing plague victims shouldn't be so much of a punishment. They're actually deserving of punishment. They contributed to the destruction of Dunwall's society. But don't worry! I'm the REAL bad guy cause I decided to use rat swarm ONCE.
@@Zayindjejfj My favorite (not) part is how they made it even worse in Dishonored 2. Carnaca is an even bigger shithole, and using the Heart you get a concrete characterization for each enemy if you decide to spend time tagging them. I played through the game making sure only to kill the really fucked up ones, but all of it was just set dressing. I think you get slightly less chaos added if you kill the ones the Heart decides are bad, but it's a miniscule difference; I gave up on trying sometime around the Jindosh level because every other level gave me a High Chaos rating.
@@ExValeFor If you got a High Chaos rating in every mission before the Clockwork Mansion then you were getting spotted/killing too many, not hard to get Low Chaos even with killing, just don't kill civilians.
I love Dishonored 2 but somehow it overall feels very different from the first game. I can't quite put my finger on it but the best way I could describe it would be, Dishonored 2 has the gameplay and Dishonored has everything else.
The Jindosh riddle does actually have a pattern where you can identify which thing belongs to whom depending on where the names and accessories are placed in the text
When fighting the Lady Boyle I choke her to put her unconcious....the thing is that made her fall the flight astair
Later I had to drop her on the ground to open the door to the basement...she received the door right in the face
Later a bug with me trying to use blink to go through a window had me launch her like a baseball through the room
She stil lived
I accidentally jumped on her and that killed her, strange how this works, huh
flight of stairs or flight astair? :o
D2's Clockwork Mansion and Crack in the Slab missions are outstanding creations. It's really difficult to overstate how unique they are, and we salute the D2 designers and programmers. But having said that, the poor sound propagation should have been fixed, as that is the main factor that renders both games inferior to the first 2 Thief games from MANY YEARS AGO.
Oh, and the gigantic Owls in the mission with the witches are awesome, as are Owls IRL.
I'm deaf. Can you upload your script to the captions tool?
Hi Noah, is there any chance we could address this? You're video essays are excellent and it's a pity if some people are missing out. I'd be happy to help out if I can.
@Kim Jong Børre I'm not sure if it works like that or how UA-cam handles content creator comment notifications but I'm here to add my voice to the chorus.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 It's the top comment for me so I guess it works.
If you go to your settings, you can turn on Closed Captioning which I'm sure you already know. They also have automated captioning which tries to translate what Google thinks it sounds like they are saying. It's not the most accurate. You probably already know that stuff, and maybe it doesn't work for this video. Sorry if I'm just repeating stuff you've tried.
I will attempt to see if I can add captions
I agree completely with the conclusions here--especially about how extraordinary the visual storytelling and moment-to-moment experience is, vs. how disappointing the story is. (My personal read is that the decision to offer 2 protagonists, while SUPER cool & one I was grateful for, because I like being able to play as a woman, had a negative impact here. It meant they couldn't structure the game as the player character's story, because there was no one player character. So instead the whole game is basically Delilah's story.)
Anyway. Particularly good video. But I keep seeing people mocking the idea that whale oil could be the basis of this country's economy & it drives me batty. There was a brief period of time--in our real 19th century, so parallel to the game's setting--when the world ran on whale oil. Whale oil really WAS our best fuel. This is what Moby Dick is about--these sailors are going around the world to kill sperm whales for the OIL, spermaceti, which was brought back to be burned as fuel in lamps, etc.
There's a really great book, truly a FANTASTIC book, that explains the context a little bit better--Nathaniel Philbrick's IN THE HEART OF THE SEA. Ignore the movie which everyone says is bad. It's non-fiction & started in Nantucket, the entire economy of which was built around WHALE OIL. Fortunes were made, whole American dynasties born, out of whale oil.
It's a real thing people. It sounds far-fetched but, as we are all learning every day when we turn on the news, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
I think we can also reasonably assume that maybe these fantasy whales produce a particularly useful kind of oil.
@@NShomebase Considering the oil literally glows blue and powers giant walls of arcing electricity and other mechanical marvels, I think this is completely fair to assume.
36:15
Dishonored confirmed as the opposite of Char. "Captain! He's moving at one third normal speed!"
a fun thing about a lot of the art assets in dishonored 2 that seem so realistic: Arkane actually commissioned (or built themselves) a lot of them in real life, both to prove that they could and to use them as reference for programmers
I thought the timepiece was a lot of fun and reminded me of Titanfall 2 and it’s time gauntlet. In Titanfall 2, however, the enemies you face think it’s a cloaking device and continue to shoot into the general area they think you’re in, hoping to hit you, never once realising you’re not in their time period anymore. Great game ideas.
Noah the intro made me think my headphones were unplugged
What I did when I played this game was:
I would go into an area, save my game, proceed to kill everything and everyone over and over reloading the game each time while getting familiar with the environment. Then when I got bored I'd proceed without killing anything and choose the non lethal options.
Lol that's actually a pretty good idea.
Dishonored is like a great stage performer, it always leaves you wanting more.
The Jindoss Lock at 41:00 or so is a pretty standard type of logic problem, one that a childhood of reading logic puzzles lets me understand quickly. It took a couple read-throughs to identify the relevant information, but once I had done that it was simple for me to create a table for organizing said information. It's a table I've seen a hundred times. I made one for this puzzle right here:
prnt.sc/g6mexb
You then fill in information based on what the puzzle tells you. For instance, Countess Contee wore blue (which also means that she didn't wear any of the other colors, and no one else was in blue). Also, Madam Natsiou was sitting next to the lady in a red dress, meaning that the Madam wasn't in red. Since Natsiou was at the far left, the lady in red must have been sitting between her and the center lady. Continuing through the puzzle, we end up with a grid looking like this:
prnt.sc/g6mizl
From here, we can sometimes draw a few additional conclusions. We might see that the lady in white is both Ms. Finch and drank whiskey, meaning that Finch was a whiskey-drinker. Barring that, we might be able to made some deductions by elimination. We can do this a bit; for instance, Lady Winslow is known to have drunk rum, meaning that she can't wear purple (the wine-drinker's color), have sat in the center (where the whiskey-drinker sat), etc. Once we've gone through all of this, we get the following grid:
prntscr.com/g6mogb
Once those options are exhausted, we need to carefully analyze the remaining options. For instance, Purple sat to the left of White. Since Red sat two from the left, Purple can't be on the far left (or she would be to Red's left), nor can White be in the center (or Red would be to her left). This lets us eliminate a couple of half-related possibilities, which happens to let us determine (by process of elimination) that Madam Natsiou wore green. This leads to its own set of conclusions, one of which lets us eliminate all possibilities where the lady in blue didn't drink whiskey, which lets us put her in the center, hence leaving the right two spaces for Purple and White. This leads to a lot of logicking, and after that the grid looks something like this:
prnt.sc/g6mrx8
At this point, we need to start trying out possibilities and looking for contradictions. For instance, the lady from Baleton drinks either absinthe or rum. If she drank rum, she would need to be Lady Winslow. However, Lady Winslow is known to not be from Baleton. Therefore, the lady from Baleton drank absinthe. Assuming Dr. Marcolla was from Karnaca lead to a similar contradiction, requiring Countess Contee to also hail from there, which let me determine that Marcolla must be from Dabovka, which lead to a flurry of other conclusions.
prnt.sc/g6myfj
And so on. (It's getting late, so I have to stop there.)
I hope at least one person reads this and finds it helpful in solving some other logic problem. Maybe it's one in Dishonored, maybe not. Either way, happy logicking!
You a G for this
Very helpful - thanks!
Amazing work as always sir. It's because of you that I have been inspired to write more in depth about games that I feel have a lot more to offer than just great gameplay and story. Keep up the great work my friend.
A video about Dishonored that starts with Steely Dan? this can't be bad
Ah, one of the most delightful discoveries in my UA-cam-recommendations list in weeks. Reality can stay on hold for the next 55 minutes and 48 seconds.
xebek 49 seconds
Noah, it's hard to believe five years have already passed since you did this video.
Whale oil was actually a big thing i the early industrial ages since it was used for oil lamps and soap.
Oh wow, this is eerie; I was thinking only yesterday that it had been a while since the last Noah Gervais video. Got my evening sorted!
H.D Beird similar thing happened to me too. I was watching another video, fell asleep, and woke up to one of Noah's previous videos and wondered to myself when a new on was going to come out. low and behold lol.
I've heard about Dishonored many times, but never had an interest in playing them, until now. Thank you for the deep look inside, Noah! And congratulations!
52:25 Ahh, shit. Of all the broken intros and outros to your videos, this is my new favorite!
@Noah Caldwell-Gervais
You sound like an old-fashioned 1940's news reporter
I mean this as a compliment
Great video
Anytime Steely Dan is used its deserving of a like. Either way, Great video. I agree with the point that the main reason dishonored 2 wasn't as glorious as the prequel was because the prequel existed. It is a fine game in its own right. But Dishonored is nearly a perfectly crafted world and compelling story that few can hold up against in the FP stealth genre.
Absolutely excellent analysis. This was my GOTY for 2016. It's just so good visually and mechanically to play for immersive stealth-sim fans.
This is serious genius. Easily the best single piece of games criticism I have ever seen or read. The scope and detail of your analysis reminds me of a WWII history I just read, Inferno, that captures both the insane scope of the war and the daily lived experience of the people trapped inside of it. Your analysis helps me understand art better. Thank you.
you're talking about how hard the riddle was, i didnt even know there WAS a riddle i just turned around and assumed someone would have the answer
I hope one day all of Noah's videos have captions for the hearing impaired.
Much appreciated man! I generally start checking your channel two weeks before every episode. Really respect everything you do. Oh, and happy marriage!
Almost screamed when I saw this in my discovery queue. Love your work, Noah!
Is there going to be an auxiliary video for "Dishonored: Death of the Outsider"?
That game is a disgrace and shouldn't even be talked about.
@@JWStreeter Nah DOTO was a short and sweet refined version of Dishonored 2.
@@JWStreeter I'll be interested in why you feel that way about it. Personally I don't care much for it. I think some levels are cool but overall the game is a waste of potential and the ending is even more disappointing than Dishonored 2.
Is it just me or did something screw up the audio at your end segment? Your voice is really quiet Noah while reading out that list
Good to see I'm not the only one who dislike "head bob".
Tony McModeNut i hate it too. gives me a headache.
Same. Instant migraine for me, same with motion blur/screen shake alot of the time.
If you want you can turn it of in the options menu
ik this is old but head bob makes me feel like my character is on a boat in a massive storm makes me speedrun to the options to turn it off
Hmm you talked of Metro.
Time for a Metro Game/Book analysis? Or STALKER? Or Witcher, remediation and all? :P
+1 on Dishonored.
It would be lovely if you made downloadable podcasts out of these
The time travel level of dishonored was so amazing, I wanted an entire game built around a mechanic like that
Fun fact: if you read the books, you find out that lady boyle eventually kills the dude and takes over his estate. Not that that makes the choice in-game less repugnant but it's and interesting eventuality.
Architecture and many other things were made so well (AFAIK) is because they hired real architects and other people in different fields to create realistic stuff. For example, i read somewhere that they were debating how to disable windmill powering walls of light in Dishonored 2. Game designers wanted for players to shoot blades down thus crippling it, while engineers (i think) said that's unrealistic and bullets/bolts wouldn't be capable of doing that thus they went with a simple lever to turn it off.
It's not as interesting as shooting it down, but at least its plausible thing.
That's just one example i remember, i bet they did this with many other things in-game too.
Single handedly, one of the best gaming related channels on UA-cam.
speaking of metro, I hope you get around to doing a full series on metro, or even just metro exodus, it may be interesting to do all in one video to see the evolution, though
I really hope you continue analyzing and reviewing more games. I enjoy your writing style.
Noah, where do you I donate for quality mic and pop filter?
I am super excited for this one Noah. Thanks for all the hard work.
I absolutely loved this and I feel really sorry for you having to talk for a straight hour with next to no breaks. Good job
It's such a treat to see one of your video's pop up in my sub box Noah, appreciate every one of them.
Thank you Noah! We love you and your wife. Good luck, we wish you nothing but success.
You know, this is the first of your video that I stopped watching midway through - To actually play the game again after I gave up on the first mission (High Overseer Campbell) years ago. And you know what, I'm baffled as to why I couldn't play this game. I'm having so much fun. So thank you, as always.
I definitely get what you're saying about appreciating the in-game art as actual art - such as the statues. I had that reaction to the Sokolov paintings. Specifically those from the first game - the new ones in the sequel seem a bit half-assed, sadly. But the original ones are amazing. Not just nice game scenery but genuine, beautiful art by itself. That attention, not just to detail but also art and design, is one of the things that make Dishonored so outstanding.
Man I fucking LOVE Dishonored. I don’t know what it is about Arkane but they have a direct passage my brain’s pleasure centers.
Woah! I never noticed that what happens to Stilton had such major effects on the present!
Definitely convinced me to get Dishonored 2 whenever I get a decent PC again, as well as replaying the original one. Though on a mechanical level I liked the first game, my enjoyment of it on a narrative dimension was somewhat hurt by what appeared to me at the time as the artificiality of a singular fixed number as a threshold between high and low chaos. I had gone for a more organic first playthrough, not going out my way to do everything non-lethally, but trying to avoid killing as much as possible. This, however, resulted in a situation where a single decision in the late game where you can choose to dispatch several enemies in one blow put me over the limit, getting me the high chaos ending despite the fact that it was rather at odds with the narrative that emerged from my actual playing of the game. This left a rather sour taste, as it basically rendered moot the decision to avoid combative approaches with none of the fun of having engaged in the combat. This was a rather unfortunate first encounter with the game, rather demotivating when I look back at it, as after getting a low chaos ending by avoiding that single decision just for the sake of completion, I dropped the game feeling rather unfulfilled narratively and mechanically.
Finally got around to watching this after playing through the second game again on hardware that didn't struggle to run it (I am a cheap bastard with a cheap laptop). I love this series for being exactly the balance of stealth and combat for me, personally. The tone shift from the second to the first slotted nicely in my brain by thinking of the first as a prequel, a storybook version of events Emily tells herself as she dreams of something more energetic than being a good ruler. So seeing her take the long walk back up to the top by seeing her father's homeland worked for me. Either she gets some bloody, firsthand realpolitik or she can learn how to set up the dominos of one good deed begetting another. Your inaights did give me new perspective on how the narrative construction is not as solid as I remembered, but I still love this game for what it does to my brain, specifically.
There are two levels in this series I always have a tendency to go absolutely high chaos on. In the second game, it is Jindosh's manor. Both because playing cat and mouse in an active deathtrap delights me, and because they hurt my science grandpa. And I take exception to that. The other is the Flooded District in the first game.
In my first time through, I put myself in Corvo's shoes so deeply I cut a bloody swath through the people who had killed "my" empress, even though my run had been nearly bloodless until that point. (I left some unconscious bodies in places a rat swarm could eat them. A harsh lesson for my pacifist run hopes.) I even managed a lucky Blink above Daud, pushing me out of the AI's notice for just a hair, letting me do a drop assassination. It was not until my second playthrough that I learned you could even get the choice to spare him. That has always left an impression on me, that I could do that and not break the game's stride for even a second.
Also in the Boyle mansion I always sign my name in the guestbook. And then ghost the mission.
Instant like for the Steely Dan intro and a great video to introduce me to your channel, subscribed.
Finally got around to finishing all the Dishonored games so I felt like I could finally watch this critique and join the year old conversation! First off I love your work, it's always very insightful and in depth, treating each game like a fine peace of art. The one thing I'd have to disagree on with you though is the non-lethal fate for Jindosh in Dishonored 2. I'd argue it is on par with the redemtive nature of every other non-lethal solution to the games antagonists. By no means did I do exhaustive research, but I distinctly remember coming across in game newspapers describing how after his "accident" he's been extremely pleasent towards his employees for the first time. So I'd argue that the game posits that his high intellect and ambition was what had made him a cruel person, and by removing it you've helped him. That's my inexpert opinion anyway.
-sincerely,
A semi-intelligent person on the internet
Hey dude, I've been mentioning your channel alongside Joseph Anderson and Super Bunnyhop, and channels like this, so I hope you get more subs :)
Antiform Check out Errant Signal if you haven't!
tomservo110 Also check out MrBTongue; although he rarely uploads anything, he knows his stuff.
And don't forget about Matthewmatosis. That man is a god
Finally got around to watching this after it sat around in my "Watch later" playlist for a week. Very enjoyable and thoughtful video about a games I love. Good job with this mate, I'll definitely have a look at your other videos whenever I have time.
Plus I loved that you also talked about the DLCs and Daud.
No one does analysis like Noah.
This channel renders most of UA-cam obsolete
This my all-time favorite game, but I can't watch this because I haven't played Dishonored 2.
agreed, but at least I hope I can watch the first part. Like I didn't play SC2 LotV so I will watch that later. But I was kinda expecting this from this guy, the game fits so well in his video collection.
You can still watch the first part where it only covers the first Dishonored. That's what I did and I didn't get anything spoiled.
wow dude why havent you played dishonored 2 its amazing. 3 fps streets that look worse then a naked homeless man that just shit him self. like I think the game is fantastik. I give dishonored a score of 9/11. avalebal at a store near you now.
+Blast King please stop it still hurts
I am sorry. I just wonted you to think of something wish istint dishonored 2. by the way I know how it feels.
Always excited to see you post a new video, keep up the great work!
I've been debating whether to give Dishonored a shot since I've heard many varying opinions about it, and this video convinced me for the most part that I should... except for one thing.
The choice of Lady Boyle's fate.
As someone who personally takes a lot of pride in doing completely non-lethal runs of stealth games that allow it, it's a huge slap in the face that a game would force the choice on me of either murdering a woman, or sparing her, only to force her to experience the worst kind of violation of body and mind. I take pride in non-lethal play because I like being good, and that I believe the enemy, however evidently heinous, should be allowed to live and choose to walk away from their past life. I don't do it just so someone can get raped by a creep; I wouldn't wish rape on anyone even if the creators tell me "Because they're evil" or what have you. The character in question would have to do something that gets *deep* under my skin in order for me to ever wish that on someone.
If I'm able to achieve the low chaos ending despite killing a major enemy like Boyle -- because death is much more merciful than subjecting someone to violent rape in my eyes -- then maybe I can bite the bullet. It'll always leave a sour taste in my mouth that Dishonored considers a woman being violated the non-lethal "good" route, but at least I can make the choice to end her life in rebellion to the other option and still get the good ending.
Whoah. Thanks a lot for this video Noah. Been expecting D2 but loved that you started with D1!
Great analysis. These are the reasons why dishonored is my #1 favorite game series....Anyone who likes Dishonored should play Prey. Its made by the same studio and its incredible.
first time i got to the jindosh lock, i sat there for like half an hour and solved the riddle and missed out on the great level
Have you ever considered an thorough look at metal gear solid?
that would be a big project.
Superbunnyhop did that, so did mathewmatosis.
I think he only does PC games, and even tho some MGS games are on PC most of them are not. It's a shame, I would love to hear Noah's take on them.
do you think he'd accept a console if it was donated?
I asked him on twitter and he said it's the controllers that are the problem for him, said that he can't handle them well
Nice to see you back with another compelling and satisfying review.
That ten bucks a month is already going to good use.
As the "This American Life" of Video Games, you are truly a UA-cam gem, Noah. :)
Been waiting for this one, and watching within the minute of it being uploaded. That is how good your content is noah.
Good to have you back Noah! missed your insightful content!
Well done with such a long essay! Sound quality and a little editing of mistakes and missteps is all that keeps this from being professional quality! Great voice and inflection!
You've got me interested to see the rest of your channel. :)
Well done!
I'd LOVE to see more games use the VOID engine, it's so beautiful!
Your such a fucking gem of a youtube channel, excellent writing!
You make the fundamental mistake of equating non-lethal with mercy. In Dishonored, non-lethal is about vendetta where it's not just enough to kill the targets, they must be made to suffer.
OP and 73 others apparently didn't watch that far. :)
Lol looks like 77 people didnt make it even to 8:15
the game still gives you the good ending if you don't kill people tho so it kinda is framed like a good thing
Just finished Dishonored 2. Totally agree on the art - it's a gorgeous, fully realized world. Loved spending time there.
First video of yours and you had me at steely dan. Bless you sir.
dude holy shit i love this??? ur voice is so good and the way you speak about things is so good, thank u so much for making amazing content
I wish you would do book readings, your voice is so soothing and professional
The cast of the original Dishonoured is shockingly star-studded
That moment in D2 where delilah where she jokes you sharing her bed as you two are the closest you could have to what you lost... I know she is joking but I realized that my high chaos corvo who wanted to see everything burn... could totally have taken her up on that offer and it might be the happiest he could have been. He might even get Emily back if Delilah had willed it.
I can't think of another moment like that in a game for me.
When does she make this joke?
I'm curious
Honestly I hate how you can only save Aramis Stilton BEFORE the ritual. If you watch it without dealing with him first he is destined for madness. I wish I could go back to the garden and knock him out after but if you go back after he’s gone, having gone to the ritual
4 years later and I’m still right
Finally a UA-cam who isn’t afraid to turn up the fov slider
Just started playing Dishonored 2, I cracked the Jindosh lock and it took over 45 minutes, a real treat to have a real puzzle in a game for once.
Even if we clearly can climb the building.
This and the Thief series are probably my favorite games. Also makes me wish Stephen Russell would show up in more things.
This video made my friday night. Nothing like ending a week with a glass of whiskied coke and some deep analysis of one of my favorite IPs out there. Thanks Noah!
Great video as usual Noah! Keep up the good work.
Here's the thing, I like the violent playthrough because the story of an anti hero that takes the easy way out, and dooming the world as a result is totally up my alley
The first game is superior in every way except game play, which is the sequels strong point. As pretty as Karnaca is, I'd much rather have Dunwall.
Edit: I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't care for the Clockwork mansion. Sure it's fascinating and beautiful, but as a compeltionist and one who prefers a low chaos and/or ghost playthrough, it's an absolute chore to get through. Stiltons mansion with the timepiece was amazing though.