Monday Gaming Diary: No more stealth games, thank you

I have the distinct pleasure of reviewing both the game and strategy guide for Dishonored, so it’s fairly obvious what I’ve been playing in my spare time since this past Tuesday. While Dishonored allows players to play however you want, whether it’s stealthy or guns a’blazing, you must have some stealth if you’re going to make it very far. Corvo is as resilient against swordplay and gunfire as Sam Fisher, so if you have no plan in mind, you’re going to be reloading quite a bit. We all know how much I such at stealth, so I always opted for a strange combination of the two. I only killed everyone if I had to, but I really tried to slip by most sentries most of the time. Too bad it never quite worked out very well most of the time.

Fortunately, my occasional blunders were rarely game killers and they rarely caused high chaos rankings, especially since I did my best to not kill my targets. That was another thing I really liked about Dishonored: there’s always a nonlethal solution to the puzzle. Your chaos rankings affect how your allies treat you and the ending you receive. However, this only added to my stress levels; I really wanted that low chaos rating at the end of most missions, and sneaking in, not raising alarms, not killing everyone on sight, etc. affects this as much as how you treat your target.

I was incredibly tense during my entire playthrough.

Between Deus Ex: Human Revolution last year, my sad attempt at Splinter Cell: Conviction, and Dishonored, I really don’t want to play another stealth game for a long, long time. I hope Assassin’s Creed III doesn’t have too many don’t-get-detected missions or I’ll be rolling on the floor and sobbing. Being stealthy puts me on edge to the point I don’t enjoy playing. I can barely watch friends play stealth games, because I get that tense and nervous on their behalf. I know for many, this is the appeal of playing, but it’s definitely not for me.

I’ve done my stealth game of the year; I feel like I’ve had paid some penance of something to someone.

I can play more Retro City Rampage now, yes?

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