Dishonored
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FIFA fo fum, we see sales of Skylanders to English mums
Welcome to the fourth consecutive week of FIFA 13 topping the UK Charts. No need to feign surprise. Also, don't expect FIFA's run to end by next week, unless Medal of Honor: Warfighter shocks and awes us all. Then again... there's always Forza: Horizon. Racing games can be a wild card on the UK charts. The big debut this week was Activision Blizzard's Skylanders Giants. The sequel outdid the premiere of its predecessor with a second place start, while the original Skylanders, Spyro's Adventure, debuted at number 16, but saw great success after. Bethesda's Dishonored slipped to third and -- there it is! -- the insidious Just Dance 4 keeps working its way up the charts. You can't turn your back on it for a second. Soon it'll be number one and working all that Gangnam Style. Now saddle dance past the break for the UK top ten.
Dishonored is 2012's biggest new IP launch in UK, FIFA 13 sees 1st place hat trick
FIFA 13 was – and, probably still is – the top selling game in the UK. For the third week in a row the footie sportsball game, despite a 63 percent decline in sales last week, retained its premier position.Bethesda's Dishonored actually debuted in second place. According to Chart-Track, it's the biggest new intellectual property launch of the year, besting Square Enix's Sleeping Dogs. Even combining sales of Pokemon Black (#3) and White (#5) Version 2, Dishonored would still hold its second place position.The other major launch last week, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, premiered in seventh place behind the insidious Just Dance 4. The aliens are winning. Check out the UK top ten after the break.
Stiq Flicks: Dishonored and Leon The Professional
Stiq Flicks – from film and video game industry freelance writer Kevin Kelly – examines video games and attempts to pair them with matching films. It's like wine and cheese, but with more aliens. Dishonored puts you into the shoes (and mask) of a mysterious bodyguard who has been framed for the murder of his Empress employer. Saved from death by a band of insurgents, he becomes an assassin who stalks in the shadows and kills silently ... or with extreme noise, depending on how you play the game. Whatever way you decide to go at it, Corvo's ultimate goal is to find and protect the Empress' daughter, Emily. Which brings us to our film pairing for the game. In 1994, Luc Besson wrote and directed Léon, which was called The Professional in the United States. It starred French actor Jean Reno as a Léon, a skillful hitman "cleaner" working for the mob who takes a very young Mathilda (Natalie Portman) under his wing after her family is murdered by crooked cops. The character of Léon is a fleshed-out version of a similar cleaner character that Jean Reno played in La Femme Nikita, and Besson himself has said, "Now maybe Jean is playing the American cousin of Victor. This time he's more human." Which is an understatement. Although Léon is a hitman, he's more human than plenty of the heroes of cinema. %Gallery-154130%
Meeting Atypical Aliens and Assassins
You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro. This holiday's unceasing glut of games is a go, with store shelves making room for the onslaught of snarling aliens, sneering assassins, and slow-mo soldiers walking away from large explosions – or sometimes partially melted helicopters. These are the usual, commercially sexy suspects.It's best not to judge a game by its cover, though, and this week's front-facing embellishments are exceptionally deceptive. At a shallow glance, XCOM: Enemy Unknown may seem like another case of meathead military dudes mowing down extraterrestrials. Dishonored, meanwhile, conveys a stylish stab-a-thon with its masked, supernaturally talented anti-hero out for revenge. Look longer and you'll find that both have roots in classic PC gaming, and both sell something console owners might not even know they want.
PSN Tuesday: Dishonored, Sherlock Holmes, Retro City Rampage, tons more
Today's PS Store dump includes a barrage of full games as part of Sony's Day 1 Digital promotion and its ongoing indie focus. For full games, we have Dishonored, Birds of Steel, Devil May Cry HD Collection and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.PSN gets Retro City Rampage, The Walking Dead Episode Four: Around Every Corner, Derrick the Deathfin, Machinarium, Worms Revolution and more. Retro City Rampage is also hitting Vita, alongside Dr. Who: The Eternity Clock, Spy Hunter and Sunflowers.Vita is getting three new PSOne Classics, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4, Destrega and Saiyuki: Journey West. There's also a free demo for this week's big release (that isn't Dishonored), XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2. Check out the complete lineup here.
Metareview: Dishonored
Our own Alexander Sliwinski enjoyed the world of Dishonored, and hopes to see it fleshed out even further in future games – the birth of a franchise, if you will. Other reviewers may not be on the same train, but they're certainly on the same track: In a crowded fourth quarter, Dunwall has managed to stand out as a top tourist destination. IGN (92/100): "It's a shame that Dishonored's story isn't greater than the sum of its decidedly memorable parts, but its gameplay absolutely is. Each mission is built as an elaborate network of choices for players to explore, and the same can be said for Corvo himself. Each player's selection of powers, perks and other upgrades will inform how they see and interact with this world, and no two play-throughs will be exactly the same. Dishonored is a game you'll talk with your friends about, and that you'll want to play multiple times. In this game there are always other paths to be taken and other challenges to conquer, and that's a refreshing thing indeed." Gamespot (90/100): "It's a rare game that feels so compulsively replayable, but Dishonored is such a game. The compelling abilities, the bold artistic design, the colorful characters, and above all, the freedom of choice--these are the things that mark Dishonored as one of the truly remarkable games of this year." Game Informer (87/100): "Though I was frustrated by the chaos system and how it steers your actions, the heart of Dishonored is about being inventive, adaptable, and ruthless. The team at Arkane Studios has injected an array of cool possibilities into the simulated city of Dunwall, and discovering them all is a blast. When you come face-to-face with the people who wronged you, your only dilemma is deciding which poetic method of elimination will produce the coolest result." Eurogamer (80/100): "This is a muscular and confident game, one with the utmost faith in its own fiction and a dedication to gameplay satisfaction at a microscopic level, paid off in dozens of situations that feel completely random and organic, even when they've clearly been planted there for you to find. Tighter control and a more generous approach to replay value would elevate Dishonored to true classic status, but it stands as one of the year's best all the same." Giant Bomb (80/100): "An excellent game, and one worthy of your attention. Dishonored's greatest contribution to the genre games like Deus Ex helped establish will be best appreciated by those who've been with it from the start, but Arkane has made a game rooted in manipulating artificial intelligence that plays just as well to the guy or gal who wants to shoot stuff. That's impressive."%Gallery-167794%
Dishonored devs sneaking off to Austin tonight to sign game copies
If you're going to pick up a copy of Dishonored tonight, and if your want that copy signed by the developers behind it, and if you live anywhere near Austin, then boy are you in the right post. That's because Arkane Studios staff, including co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio, are signing copies of the game tonight in the Texan team's hometown.
Dishonored review: A whale of a tale
Dishonored is something special. It's a self-contained first brick in what is sure to become a larger universe; a stealth action game that lets you play as a creeping assassin, or abandon that notion and go through it as a first-person shooter with mystical powers. Don't want to kill anybody? That's a perfectly executable idea. There are so many options that revisiting the full story more than once for various outcomes is part of the experience.You are Corvo Attano, royal protector to the unmarried Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and her daughter Emily. It is immediately apparent that extreme care and effort went into the setting of Dunwall, a fantastical city overrun by a rat-spread plague, but it's not like the city of Rapture was to BioShock. BioShock fully explores the story of Rapture, it is the story of Rapture. Dishonored, on the other hand, is not the story of Dunwall – it is merely set there.There are many elements emphasized regarding life in Dunwall, but hardly any of them are explored in this specific story. It creates a bit of dissonance over time, since set pieces and locales you'd swear should be included are not. This is all to say that Dishonored is the specific story of Corvo Attano and his reaction to the conspiracy against Empress Kaldwin.%Gallery-167794%
Dishonored interactive trailer goes down the path to revenge, contains light spoilers
Through the use of internet magic, Arkane Studios lets us sample a mission from Dishonored ahead of its October 9 launch. Just be warned: this is an actual mission from the game, with light spoilers.
Dishonored's attempt to Cure Violence with revenge, by Vice
Vice, founded as a punk zine in 1994, is now a major global brand with a network of television, documentary and digital production studios, an online hub, magazine, record label, publishing house and advertising agency. It's notorious for brash exposition and unapologetic presentation, finding the dark yet honest angle in its productions.Vice has taken on Bethesda's Dishonored as its first attempt to market a single product, and while it doesn't have to dig far to find the dirt in an assassination video game, it managed to take the "revenge" angle in an unexpected direction, as noted by Gapers Block. Vice filmed Chicago Interrupted, a documentary chronicling the violence-prevention group Cure Violence as its members attempt to diffuse dangerous street situations, ending with a plea for America to not become desensitized.Chicago Interrupted begins with an advertisement for Dishonored, whose tagline is "Revenge solves everything," and the documentary was featured on Eye for an Eye, Vice's multimedia project to market the game, before being pulled yesterday. Part one is embedded above and still features the Bethesda and Dishonored intro.One of Dishonored's draws is the ability to play the entire game in stealth mode, without killing anyone, but it is an action assassination game at heart. Perhaps the juxtaposition of real-world violence is supposed to make us think twice about killing people in-game, but that street travels both ways. Showing how fun it is to slit people's throats in the digital realm right before chronicling the grim reality of violence marks the very desensitization Cure Violence stands against.As gaming becomes an increasingly mainstream endeavor, new companies will handle its subject matter in various ways to find a sweet spot of marketing and social sensitivity. Vice may have just stumbled on one of those thresholds.
Dishonored's complete 'The Tales from Dunwall'
Dishonored concluded its three-part webisode series The Tales from Dunwall today. We thought it would be nice to put them all in one place for you. The vignettes cover the backstory leading into Dishonored's revenge tale.
DVR alert: Dishonored on Face Off tonight
Syfy's special-effects makeup competition, Face Off, will feature Dishonored on tonight's episode. The artists will be tasked with creating creatures and makeup that evokes Arkane's steampunk-inspired setting of Dunwall.Given the stylized looks of Dunwall's citizens, it'll be interesting to see how the contestants avoid going overboard. Face Off is on at 9PM Eastern/Pacific.
Dishonored's lore explained in new 'The Tales from Dunwall' shorts
Dishonored kicks off a three-part webisode series entitled The Tale from Dunwall today. The first episode, "The Awakening", tells the rise and end of Esmond Roseburrow, the man who discovered the energy source that makes Dunwall's whale oil-punk universe possible.
Dishonored devs reflect in new video
Though this Dishonored developer diary is labeled "End Game," don't worry about spoilers. The ending to which it refers is the completion of development, which then leads to a difficult round of testing thanks to the complex interactions possible in the game.
Dishonored sea shanty 'The Drunken Whaler' available for free, remix contest announced
Bethesda recently started offering a free mp3 download of "The Drunken Whaler," the creepy tune heard during Dishonored's E3 trailer, seen above. A collaboration between COPILOT Strategic Music + Sound and Bethesda Softworks, the song set a cold tone for a murderous video of the game back in June.Bethesda also kicked off a remix contest for "The Drunken Whaler," which will net the top ten winners a t-shirt, poster, and copy of Dishonored. Fans have until September 28 to get their dubstep remixes in for a chance to win.
Latest Dishonored diary uses possession as inertia damper
Dishonored is as much about how one kills as it is about who one kills. Creativity must exist in any job, particularly in the assassin's line of work. Building off the "creative kills" we've seen before, this latest diary adds a few more ideas to the ol' supernatural murder book.
Dishonored: Rat Assassin scurries to iPad
Dishonored: Rat Assassin now lets you skewer New York-size rodents on iPad. Having hit iPhone and iPod Touch a couple weeks ago, the game places you in the role of a Fruit Ninja who has decided it's time to upgrade to something with more flesh and more fleas.Doesn't anybody remember the good ol' days when all you needed was a man with a pipe?
Go deeper! Dishonored's second dev diary discusses more design
We've gotten used to developer diaries being more marketing hype than actually discussing design ideas, but that's not the case in this Dishonored clip. Going deeper than last time, the team responsible for fleshing out the game world discuss industrial design and morphology of Dunwall's stylized citizens.Okay, so the last few minutes of this 10-minute video gets into the "look what stars we got to do voices" territory, but by then a solid seven minutes of information have gone by. Dishonored is one month from launch, with an October 9 North American release date.%Gallery-161677%
Dishonored developer diary discusses design
It wouldn't be a potential hit Bethesda-published game if Dishonored didn't start by breaking out of a prison situation. The first developer diary for October's supernatural assassin simulator focuses on Arkane Studios' concepts for the art and world design of the game.For those who can't read, there's a fair amount of French in the video, so we hope you paid attention in class. Then again, that warning served no purpose if you can't read. Dishonored begins the hunt October 9 and 12 in North America and Europe, respectively.%Gallery-161677%
Dishonored gets free Rat Assassin iPhone game
In anticipation of the impending launch of Dishonored, Bethesda has released a free iPhone spin-off game. Entitled Dishonored: Rat Assassin ... well, it's pretty self-explanatory. That is to say you assassinate rats, not that you play as a furry, diminutive assassin.If we were to say the words "rat ninja," you'd probably have a good idea of what to expect from the gameplay.
