Vivian on 16/11/2012 at 11:29

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There's still too many syllables in the first line! Shorten it to Viv. Or 'English Vivian', that works better. Start on a sharper sound:

English Vivian,
shrieked like a moron,
purporting his quarry had pinched Yahtzee's jargon.
But when he was asked
to explain all his sass,
he retreated with haste, up his own ass.

Although I didn't say you were ripping off Yahtzee, just that you weren't very funny and the sunglasses look stupid. BUT, now you come to mention it...

DDL on 16/11/2012 at 11:42

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....do the sunglasses prevent correct use of mirrors?

SubJeff on 16/11/2012 at 13:27

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Not a chance. I've never heard such awful fretwanking. It's not even good fretwanking, that I could forgive especially as some bits of the cover are actually superior to the sublime original.



yo yo Captain Spandex what up i hear all youtube ranters have spotlights in their eyes by law and you were the only one smart enough to use sunglasses to get around this inhumane state of affairs



Thing is, I don't even hate your videos. I just think we differ in opinion. Watching you itt was amusing enough to justify your existence though.

And I've always liked your username.

Sulphur on 18/11/2012 at 09:11

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So to sum it up: Cap'n Bananapants posts a video review of Dishonored that's supposed to be played for laughs, we don't find it funny, and a verbal melee ensues involving race, meter, fashion sense, and the difference between inspiration and ripping off someone's schtick.

Are we at the point where I post Dishonored slash fic yet? I've been dying to tell you guys about where else Corvo was branded with the Outsider's mark.

Clockface on 18/11/2012 at 12:59

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I was disappointed by Dishonoured. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, and definitely one of the best this generation, but I felt it should have been better, as the mistakes it made were (I feel) easy to forsee.

I mean, for a start, it's too easy. Being able to teleport and see people through walls makes stealth almost trivially easy. Plus with the second level of the see-through-walls power (can't remember what it's called) you don't even have to search for anything (coins, health, spirit-health, etc) as it's all shown clearly for you. And the way each power only has two levels of ability (the first is that you get the ability, the second is that you get the stronger version of that ability) seems like a real cop out - there are so few abilities anyway, why not give each ability three or four levels of upgrades.

And why is there no ending to the game? You (easily) make your way up the tower, confront the last boss (who you don't even fight, or at least I didn't), then you find Ella and it's game over. It's like the game shipped without it's entire last level - surely there should have been some sort of ending battle?

And the game world didn't carry conviction; coins were left everywhere, such as on shelves in public places where anyone could steal them. When the assassin and his men find and disarm you, they leave your weapons and money stashed away - surely they'd divide the money and probably the best weapons amongst themselves, not leave it all in one easily retrievable bundle? And the slightly cartoonish look of the characters harmed the atmosphere of the game, as it should have had a more serious and heartfelt tone to it, considering the game's storyline (you get betrayed and framed for the murder of a woman, who is your friend and mother to a little girl who is also your friend, and have to become an outlaw where once you were (presumably) a well loved and respected body guard.

To be fair, the problems I've listed in the above paragraph (money left in the open, unconvincingly, the way the slightly cartoonish feel of the graphics clashes with the storyline, etc) are flaws I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't liked the game so much - if the game was bad, then minor flaws like this would go unnoticed amongst much bigger flaws. But the problems I mention in the paragraph above that (the game is too easy, the ending of the game is extremely unsatisfactory, etc) are much more serious, and shouldn't exist in a modern game.

What really annoys me, though is that the game is so inferior to Deus Ex. Twelve years after the release of Deus Ex, and on *much* more powerful hardware, yet Dishonoured is so much simpler in gameplay and depth. Alright, so Dishonoured looks fantastic, aside from the ill-judged cartooish faces of some people (and some of the dialogue doesn't fit in with the olde world atmosphere of Victorian style London), and does most things very well, but not only does Deus Ex (still the game I compare all FPS/RPG games too, and still my favourite ever PC game) have much more variety and upgradability re: weapons and abilities, but Deus Ex, with it's *hugely* inferior and far less detailed graphics (even when it was released, Deus Ex was ugly) still manages to beat Dishonoured in story, atmosphere, immersion, and (most serious of all) enjoyment.

One problem they both share, though, is that both games prevent you doing things you would do in real life (at least you probably would, if you were the person you play in the game). I mean, it's irritating in Deus Ex that, for example, when someone offers to sell you something you can accept or refuse, but there's no option for you to say "How about you give it to me for no money, and I don't break your arms?", even though you (as JC Denton) is supposed to be so tough and (if you play him that way) ruthless. In the same vein, when Pendleton gives you the note, you don't have the chance to read it, which isn't right (you should choose if Corvo is honourable enough not to read other people's letters) and when you find out that Pendleton has tricked you into fighting a dual with that Lord bloke, you should, when you see Pendleton next, be able to kill him if you so choose. Alright, so it would necessitate the game being able to branch into a modified version of the story from then on, but it's an RPG so it should support that. Anyway, it wouldn't need much extra dialogue, as (for example) the others, who are planning to betray you anyway when you're of no further use to you, could say "We understand, he had no right to trick you into fighting that dual, we don't need him now anyway." and the game continues more or less as it would if you'd chose not to kill Pendleton.

I can't remember at this distance if the big betrayal in Deus Ex did surprise me, but in Dishonoured it was very predictable. I was expecting it a mile off, given that Pendleton and the Admiral (or whatever he was, I've not been back to the game since I finished it) were so obviously portrayed as cunning, manipulative, and conceited, plus what story led RPG doesn't have a 'surprise' betrayal in there somewhere? And when the boatkeeper said "I'll wait out here" my spider sense went into overdrive. To be fair, though, part of the reason I was so ready to suspect betrayal was that the game does do a very good job of making Pendleton and the Admiral so unlikable and obviously manipulative and self-satisfied.

Like I say, I really do like Dishonoured, and so most of these things are problems I wouldn't have noticed in a lesser game. But I was really hoping that the game was better than it turned out to be. I am wondering if some of my complaints are caused by them leaving out some levels or features that they are planning to release as paid for content, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I hate the way premium DLC is going (especially since it's causing less and less games to support user made mods, as the companies don't release the software development kits as they want to make the addons themselves and sell them to gamers instead of letting gamers write the addons and give them away for free), but on the other I'd *really* like to see (good) new missions, abilities and levels of upgrades for Dishonoured.