Friday, October 12, 2012

Dishonored Story Playthrough: Mission 0 - Meet The Empress



The point of this blog will be to write about my experiences playing through Dishonored, and what I do in the game, talking as if I am the character Corvo you play as, while also mentioning game mechanics like they actually exist.  I will play through it with 4 completely different play styles, making comments on each.  The styles are as follows:

1)      Explore - explore everything, even stuff you weren’t meant to, and experiment; sneak, knock unconscious, or kill depending on my mood or what the characters say or do to me. 
2)      Kill Everyone – My quest to kill everyone, that includes every main character, every NCP, and all creatures (except rats--in Thief it was spiders).  BONUS:  The dead cannot be moved and must be left where they fell.
3)      Knock Everyone Unconscious.
4)      Ghost – Go through an entire game without touching a single enemy or being seen; don’t kill them, or knock them unconscious.
 
The blog will only cover Play Style #1 – Explore for the first few months, as I don’t plan to play the game that obsessively (yet).  Also, I frequently search out everything, meaning it takes me twice as long to finish a game than a normal person.  Frequent comparisons to Thief:  The Dark Project, Thief 2:  the Metal Age, & Thief:  Deadly Shadows will appear frequently .  Also, this will never be a review.

Mission 0 – Meet The Empress

Play Style #1 – Whatever

     When I woke, I found myself upon a boat.  I have just finished traveling to the other 3 majors cities within this country of ours, and am returning to Dunwall (even though I was born in one of the other 3, though my mind is weary from the travels to even remember my hometown).    My companion for the last 4 months hopes that a cure for the plague has been found while we were gone, but I’m not going to hold my breath. 

     Our boat is ushered into a small alley that is quickly closed off.  Water pours from the side walls like little waterfalls and our boat rises 5 stories into the Empresses’ castle’s boating dock.  I grow impatient and jump into the waters below (and just realized that I am holding my breath), just happy to be home in my natural clean waters, but I almost say under too long.  How stupid would I appear if I died the day I returned?  I start talking to the workers and learn that Sokolov has installed new pumps to make this boat dock work better.  After about 5 conversations, each of the workers grow bored with me and start tuning me out, as nothing I do will make them talk to me anymore.  I have truly returned to a less caring city than the one I left.

I look at the world below as I stand on the edge, wondering what it would be like to jump into the jagged cliffs below; maybe there is a loose platform down there that won’t kill me head on.  Sure, I’d be trapped down there, but I’d show the creator a thing or two.  I guess I’ll try to jump in another life.
    
     Ahead I see from free-floating text in the sky that the Empress is 60 feet away from me.  What powers did I obtain while I was away?  Luckily, I just close my eyes and meditate hard enough; expunging these stupid powers.

     I run into Lady Emily on the way.  She is like a daughter to me, even though the Empress and I share no romantic feelings .  She wants to play, but I’ve just returned home with grave news, and her mother has been waiting for this news for months. 

     On the way to the Empress, I run into world famous inventor Anton Sokolov (responsible for making an elixir that prevents you from getting the plague and stopping it; maybe) painting a portrait of High Overseer Campbell (the leader of the religion in Dunwall) .  If this were a novel, I’d say I was being introduced to all the major characters in my story, but that type of thinking it jettisoned as I steal the bottle from the table, upsetting Solvolk because he doesn’t have it for reference anymore.  Surely no novel would include such antics.

     I talk to the High Overseer and learn he believes that the disease was brought about by a lack of faith in the country, and that faith is all that is needed to overcome the plague.  Right.  At least Sokolov slips in some words to let me know he isn’t a fan of Campbell, either.

     On the way to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, I talk to every person I see as much as possible, even the maid; come on, I haven’t seen many of them for months.  I then circle underneath the stairs, gaze at the beauty of the city, look in bushes for hidden treasure, and see the remnants of what looks like a few miles long bridge foundation (sans bridge) stretching into the city.  What happened to that bridge?  Why is our castle away from the city and not part of it?

     On the way to the Empress, I run into the Spymaster; every time I hear him talk he sounds like he’s above everyone.  I tell the princess the sad truth that our mission; it was a failure and the other cities will quarantine us and stop their trading to make sure they don’t get the plague.   She is thinking about the next step, when, out of nowhere, she spots people running toward us from the rooftops.  I fight off some of them, but then others magically appear, and another holds me in the sky with his magic.  The Empress is killed and tells me to watch over Emily, but she has been kidnapped.  Again, others appear out of nowhere, only its the Spymaster and 2 guards, accusing me of killing the Empress and kidnapping Emily (even though I can’t kidnap someone when I am still present). 

Continue To "Mission 1 - Prison Escape: My Fellow Guards

Return To "Chapter Select"

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