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Early Look at Steampunk Action-Adventure Game Dishonored

Posted by Soulskill on from the neo-victorian-deus-ex dept.

Dishonored is an upcoming first-person action-adventure game in a steampunk setting. It's being developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. As the game nears its October 9th release, Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun got some hands-on time with the game, and was impressed by how it is shaping up: "The level I played saw me overpowering a government official from his laboratory high on a building above the lavish pseudo-London cityscape, and lugging him out to a riverside rendezvous. Initially I went in through the front door, bluntly killing the guards with a knife and sneaking inside. But I could have used all manner of other entrances, and other powers. I could have slipped in undetected by distracting the guards. I could have possessed a rat – zooming into the hapless thing in a manner of bodily possession/transformation reminiscent of forgotten FPS Requiem: Avenging Angel – and then rematerialized once I’d run in through grates and rat holes. I could have possessed an NPC and used the meatsuit to pass through the energy-field barricades. Or I could even have employed a short-ranged teleportation power, blink, and leapt and mantled my way up across the rooftops."

58 comments

  1. Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now certainly the goth chicks at school will be into me.

    1. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goth chicks fuck with the force of their wish to piss off their parents combined with their desire for attention. It's not quite 1000 suns but it's pretty close.

    2. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goths as in Geats/Gutes or those emoish chicks?

    3. Re:Steampunk! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Goths as in Geats/Gutes or those emoish chicks?

      Or just Goths as in Goths. Although the only date you will get from these Goth chicks is an archaeological one.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never underestimate my powers of Necromancy.

      Or access to Time Travel Machines.

      Yeah, I could bring back Abe Lincoln, or Assassinate Hitler, but why do that when I can do hot chicks?

    5. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best thing about goth chicks is that they frequently wear stockings.

    6. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goth chicks fuck other people with the force of their wish to piss off their parents combined with their desire for attention.

      FTFY.

    7. Re:Steampunk! by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Is it still a good thing if the stockings are to cover their hairy legs?

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    8. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, being freed from the continuity of linear time, Steampunk really opened up creative writing. Steampunk has been popular for longer than most realize.

      In the beginning there were mushrooms...

      http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/thumbnail.php?file=cat_124/1236.jpg&size=article_medium

    9. Re:Steampunk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't the skin smell like ammonia when they've been doing drugs?

      That's one way to save on perfume.

    10. Re:Steampunk! by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 1

      Hello Dr.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  2. I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Ok - so one series of books in such a setting by one author - I can accept. A whole fracking genre? That just means quite obviously that the writers suck and can't come up with their own ideas, and for this reason I will never give any steam punk a chance. Imagine hundreds of books set in the Dune Universe or the Star Wars Universe or Cory Doctorow's shitty wet dream of a universe he calls a novel...... crap.

    1. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what you're saying is that we only need a few books set in space, or a few books set in magical lands with wizards and dragons, and a few books with zombies and a few books with vampires and we're golden?

    2. Re:I don't get steampunk. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

      ... Imagine hundreds of books set in ... the Star Wars Universe ...

      I actually count 320 so no imagination is required. I don't really have a point, just that everything is already run into the ground.

    3. Re:I don't get steampunk. by dyingtolive · · Score: 1

      I agree. We should allow some sort of limited monopoly on ALL genres! Each genre gets 7 books, first to file wins.

      Yeah, THAT'LL encourage creativity and new ideas...

      --
      Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
    4. Re:I don't get steampunk. by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      There are 20+ dune novels, even more books about dune, and comics. There are also movies and tv shows.

      How is a steampunk setting any different than a post-apocalyptic setting or a space setting or an alien world setting?

    5. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad examples. Those are all vastly more general settings than steam punk.

    6. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Everyone's just waiting for Bioshock Infinite to come out.

    7. Re:I don't get steampunk. by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      How so?
      Steampunk could be on any planet, at any time, with little to no problem. All it needs are fancy clothes, overly elaborate gadgets and some dirigibles.

    8. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So I take it you think all high fantasy, World War II, or western settings are complete crap too?

      A genre can be redone well a million times over. The creativity doesn't lie in the setting, but in the execution.

    9. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Antipater · · Score: 1

      And I don't get how people can use the word "frack" unironically (and outside of the oil industry). But you learn to suppress the vitriol and just pass on by. Let the steamfolks be, because we all have our own quirky little vices.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    10. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Isn't Dune a bit steampunk?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    11. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Gilmoure · · Score: 2

      Depends on the millennium. Dune spans like 50k years.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    12. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Thud457 · · Score: 1

      ... Imagine hundreds of books set in ... the Star Wars Universe ...

      I actually count 320 so no imagination is required . I don't really have a point, just that everything is already run into the ground.

      I see what you did there....

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    13. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is a steampunk setting any different than a post-apocalyptic setting or a space setting or an alien world setting?

      The difference is that steampunk is not defined by setting, but rather by use of devices that defy science (even future science). I don't think of it so much as a genre, but as an excuse for poor creativity.

    14. Re:I don't get steampunk. by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Obvious troll is obvious.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    15. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, not exactly. What he's saying is that only one author should write books set in a magical land with wizards and dragons, and while that author could write a whole series of such books, no other author should have wizards and dragons in their books. So I guess that means any fantasy author other than Tolkein sucks and can't come up with their own ideas. Then again, I'm pretty sure Tolkein didn't invent dragons and wizards all by himself, so you shouldn't give him a chance either, let alone all the other fantasy authors.

      Same goes for space-based sci-fi. Whoever the first author to dream up a sci-fi book involving aliens on another planet was, all others after him suck and can't come up with their own ideas, so you shouldn't bother with them. I'm guessing that means only HG Wells is OK.

    16. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but rather by use of devices that defy science

      I am sure the alchemists of the day had a perfectly cromulent scientific explanation for manipulation of the phlogiston to power those devices.

    17. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Omestes · · Score: 1

      No there aren't. There are six Dune novels.

      And then there is the cash grabbing series written by his son and Poul Anderson because they needed more money.

      Actually it might have started with good intentions, but that didn't last past the first series. Well, maybe not good intentions, since his books always seemed more based on the David Lynch movie than his fathers books...

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    18. Re:I don't get steampunk. by flimflammer · · Score: 1

      Wow, really? Poor creativity? Because the devices defy science/"future science"? It's "creative" as long as it has warp drives and phase inverters?

      I can't believe you seriously included "future science" into your argument. If there's anything that makes an absolute mockery of real science, it's scifi science.

    19. Re:I don't get steampunk. by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The difference is that steampunk is not defined by setting, but rather by use of devices that defy science (even future science). I don't think of it so much as a genre, but as an excuse for poor creativity.

      It's called "suspension of disbelief".

      Steampunk, list most subgenres within the science fiction/fantasy umbrella, has little or nothing to do with the technology described... it's a backdrop for the story actually being told. Done well, it's fun and whimsical. Done badly... well... ever seen Wild Wild West? If you're getting hung up on the "science" of it, you're missing the point completely.

    20. Re:I don't get steampunk. by westlake · · Score: 1

      Ok - so one series of books in such a setting by one author - I can accept. A whole fracking genre?

      Sreampunk tech is fun to draw and fun to animate, with a lot of personality --- but little that is magical or over-powering.

      You can see how the machine works.

      Things tend to move within a late Victorian and Edwardian world. That has always been an extraordinarily rich lode to mine for the writer of pulp fiction, the weird tale, and the classic adventure story.

      The fantasy RPG looks back to the myths and legends of an distant and comforting agrarian past. You'll find damn little of that in Lovecraft or Doyle. You cannot move back, you can only move forward.

      "Do not raise up what you cannot put down."

      The spectral Hound of the Baskervilles is a theatrical illusion.

      What is real and terrifying is to see the face of a later-day killer exposed in the centuries old portrait galleries of the Baskerville clan and to know that this has happened again and again.

    21. Re:I don't get steampunk. by chrismcb · · Score: 2

      Imagine hundreds of books set in the Dune Universe or the Star Wars Universe or Cory Doctorow's shitty wet dream of a universe he calls a novel...... crap.

      There ARE hundreds of books written in the Star Wars Universe. And there are hundreds written in the Star Trek Universe.
      But you know what is worse, there are THOUSANDS written in the real universe. OMG! The horror! Imagine all of the unimaginative novels written by authors that suck and couldn't come up with their own ideas, so they wrote about our own real universe.

    22. Re:I don't get steampunk. by dasunt · · Score: 1

      It's called "suspension of disbelief". Steampunk, list most subgenres within the science fiction/fantasy umbrella, has little or nothing to do with the technology described... it's a backdrop for the story actually being told.

      I must point out that "suspension of disbelief", in most circumstances, only works if the system gives the initial impression of being internally consistent. So no writing a story about wizards and magic and then having the protagonist nuke the villain in the last five pages. The audience doesn't expect that. It's cheating. However, a magical device equivalent to a nuclear bomb is clearly fair game, especially if it doesn't appear out of nowhere and is otherwise consistent with the level and possible distructiveness of magic in the world.

    23. Re:I don't get steampunk. by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 1

      Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover the color brown.

      I don't mind some of the aesthetics, but over all, Steampunk holds no real attraction for me - Maybe I've just got too much of an investment in black clothing and spider-themed jewelry. ;)

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    24. Re:I don't get steampunk. by Leo+Sasquatch · · Score: 1

      You can see how the machine works.

      I played with steam engines as a kid. I made miniature hot-air balloons, with candles and large thin paper bags. I rebuilt car and bike engines as an adult, because I understand how these things work. I don't understand electrons. I don't really know how my PC works - I built it, but it was just a question of assembling the components in the proper order and loading up a ton of software that someone else wrote. When it goes wrong, my only usual recourse is to switch off and on again, and in severe cases, re-install Windows.

      I think a lot of the appeal of steampunk is that people do understand it - dirigibles, semaphore, steam and diesel engines are things you could explain to any educated person of the last few hundred years in a few minutes. Mobile phones might as well be magic boxes to 99% of the people who carry them around - Clarke's Law has kicked in with a vengeance.

  3. steampunk = poorly thought out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anymore when I hear the word "steampunk" I think "bad writing". It was an interesting fad at one time, but now it just means your creative people are lazy.

    1. Re:steampunk = poorly thought out by Elbereth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, this seems to be the way that pop culture works. The first wave is exciting, new, and creative. The second wave is a refinement that may or may not sell out to the mainstream. The third wave is cheap and crass commercialization, almost entirely populated by hacks and fad-chasers. Around this time, all the hipsters will abandon it, and your parents (or even grandparents, if you're young enough) will start making references to it. My 60 year old mother talks about preparing for the "zombie apocalypse", when she goes out shopping for canned food. All you can do is grit your teeth and wait for the fourth wave, which is an ironic deconstruction. This will bring the hipsters back, unfortunately, but it will also cause people to recognize how intensely stupid and insipid the third wave was. Hopefully. After this, it can go in any direction, and there have been some cases where the ironic deconstruction was misinterpreted and turned into a big influence on the genre.

      Roger Corman once dismissed the term "genre film", saying that people who use that phrase are simply unable to admit to themselves that they're making exploitation movies. This is why I like Roger Corman's work: he knows that he's making crap, and he doesn't have pretensions toward art. He's very self-aware. As long as we have people producing "genre fiction" or "genre films", we'll have hacks with delusions of artistic merit barfing out insipid, derivative work. This tends to pop up in the second wave of any fad and dominate the third wave.

    2. Re:steampunk = poorly thought out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry that you are so angry that your grandmother has heard of zombies and has a sense of humor.

    3. Re:steampunk = poorly thought out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to hear of your hate towards your mother.

      As you are talking about zombies, you must be American, so you always have the option of getting guns and shooting her to death?

    4. Re:steampunk = poorly thought out by westlake · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, this seems to be the way that pop culture works. The first wave is exciting, new, and creative. The second wave is a refinement. The third wave is cheap and crass commercialization, almost entirely populated by hacks and fad-chasers. Around this time, all the hipsters will abandon it, and your parents will start making references to it.

      Gene Roddenberry famously pitched Star Trek as "Wagon Train In Space."

      Flying under the radar often gives the artist the freedom to do and say whatever he pleases.

      The Phantom Blot (1939) is the most chillingly pathological of all Disney villains:

      a killer who can't stand the sight of blood ---

      and so expends his energy in crafting peculiarly sadistic and morbidly amusing Rube Goldberg death traps for his victims, each slightly and deliberately flawed.

      If he is not there when the trap is sprung, he cannot be held responsible.

      But the Blot makes his only appearance in the "funny animal" serial adventures of the Mickey Mouse comic strip, a kid's comic strip, at least at first glance, and a genre the critics and censors and Disney himself still generally ignored,

      ------

      The novelist doesn't have to grapple with the problems of theatrical production, film or video.

      The producer has to decide whether a project is technically feasible and whether the audience is there to make is profitable.

      That tends to come closer to the end of the cycle then its beginning.

  4. YA DOG by laserdog · · Score: -1

    dis game SOUND CERAZY

  5. How will it compare to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arcanum, or if you prefer Planescape:Torment?

    Also Corsets?

    1. Re:How will it compare to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did someone say corsets? :-)

  6. All That Aside by billsayswow · · Score: 1

    All the talk of whether or not Steampunk is total rubbish aside... is it just me or is this guy a terrible writer? Is this what passes for journalism these days?

    1. Re:All That Aside by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      Steampunk is mostly rubbish, most of what if scenarios coupled with are along the lines that are essentially "what if we had technology advance faster at a certain time AND everyone was retards".

      However.. summoning rats and all that other magic bullshit make this sound more like Lovecraft style pre-1900's magic show.

      The writer seems to have serious troubles with what defines a rpg too though...

      still, might be a good game, but it's still a magic show, might just as well call it a fantasy setting since obviously the magic isn't explained with high scifi technology(like nanobots or shit).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:All That Aside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Steampunk could be great if anyone did it well. This game though, from what I saw it has problems. I won't play an RPG as an assassin and that's what this seemed to be. Want something more like Thief again where you don't ever kill anyone :-)

    3. Re:All That Aside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is a pretty good take on steampunk.

    4. Re:All That Aside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Supposedly the game is more like deus ex in an industrial revolution setting, complete with plenty of nonviolent options to solve everything.

  7. Slashdot posts previews now? by Tridus · · Score: 2

    When did this start? Game previews (especially ones this far out) are a total waste of time. They're controlled by the publisher, and positive 100% of the time. It's nothing more then free PR for the publisher.

    Why is this now something worth being posted?

    --
    -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    1. Re:Slashdot posts previews now? by billsayswow · · Score: 1

      This IS the website that now posts articles simply stating that a game came out that day.

    2. Re:Slashdot posts previews now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bribery.

    3. Re:Slashdot posts previews now? by Hentes · · Score: 1

      While RPS rarely sells out, even the review says that it was a waste of time, because the demo was too short to form an opinion.

    4. Re:Slashdot posts previews now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps this game comes with source, or will be released for Linux?

      In that case, I would be interested to know about it.

      If not: WTF!?

    5. Re:Slashdot posts previews now? by gshegosh · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, I'm sure it's not a _FREE_ PR.

  8. Girl Genius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously, you've never tried Girl Genius

    Give it a whirl.. come back.. and let us know what you think.

    The start of the Girl Genius comic is here: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104

  9. Don't Get it? What's There to Get?? by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 1

    It's really quite simple

  10. Wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're all a bunch of whiney bitches.