Goombd Was There! - E3 2012: Dishonored

Bethesda had a big presence at E3 this year. While not presenting a humongous list of games in their booth, the handful of titles they did show were pretty impressive. Among them, at the top of Goombd!'s favorites, was Dishonored, a hybrid game of stealth and action set in a gorgeously designed 'steampunk' world.

Visually, Dishonored is pretty striking; backgrounds emulate the look of matte painting concept art drawings, characters have an European comic book influence to their design and the overall presentation is very slick.

It's easy to throw out the word 'hybrid' about a game, and in Dishonored's case, it's probably the best way of describing it - there is, however, more depth to be found once you get past the fact that Arkane Studios took lots of notes from games like Bioshock and Thief and applied some of the best parts of these series into Dishonored.

While 'hybrid' certainly does not describe that mix of designs, it can easily fit to explain how you can actually go about in Dishonored. As a revenge fueled assassin that happens to have some cool powers (some reminiscent of Bioshock's spell book) and is bent on taking down a country's tyrant ruler.

In the guided demo, our assassin was given the mission of killing two distinct targets that happened to be in a brothel. The approach they could take was free form, and from what I witnessed, Dishonored handles both of the obvious ways to finish the mission quite well. A violent method with guns blazing attracted an army of guards, and after a pretty bloody shoot out and display of some of the supernatural abilities that were set to 11 in the demo - you won't be nearly as strong at this point in the actual game - so both targets were dead in a matter of minutes. The game doesn't shy away from violence, and deaths were pretty graphic and detailed in just about every kill.

On the other hand, the stealthy approach was about as sneaky and clever as you would expect, with some interesting twists throw in for good measure. Dishonored features a morality system, that according to Bethesda, acts as a crossroads in regards to which branches the story takes along the way. While nothing brand new, this system is in full effect when you play the game being stealthy. There are ways to avoid killing innocents, but at the same time, you can achieve a similar result, in a quiet fashion, while making a pile of corpses along with the intended victims.

According to the developers, and what I got during the demo, your options won't be so binary, allowing for a mix of the two, thanks to the different paths you can take both in gameplay and in how you evolve the main character's powers. This upgrade system was not shown during the demo, and as mentioned before, the assassin was overpowered for the demo's sake.

Dishonored was one of Goombd!'s highlights at E3 2012 and it's stated for an October release on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Keep an eye out for a write-up on it soon!

Goombd Played! - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

What can you say about a game like Skyrim? Possibly, that it's a huge undertaking for anyone planning to play it. Like previous Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim is immense, filled with little bits of content just about everywhere. Are you ready to get started?

Dragons are back to terrorize the Tamriel continent of Skyrim, the snowy home of the proud Nords. Sadly for our viking friends, the drakes aren't their only worry. The Empire is moving into their territory as well in their quest to gain even more power. But that's not for your lowly character to worry about. He or she has bigger problems. They're about to die at the gallows.

Without spoiling anything, it's obvious that your avatar in the game survives and it's exactly at that point that Skyrim begins. You're left alone, in the middle of a destroyed town with only a nudge about where to head next. Do you follow your fellow prisoner to safety or will you trust an Imperial who just moments ago was ready to lob off your head?


Skyrim is a game about decisions. They start with whether or not you want to help a greater cause or with the mundane task of deciding about your character's gender or race. If you don't want to focus on the main story, that's fine. Wanna rush it all and get it done with? Cool. You'll find something cool to see and mess around with at just about every corner of the icy lands of Skyrim.

Like in Oblivion, the guilds are easily best distractions in terms of quest content in Skyrim. Sadly, some of the groups seen in Cyrodil, like the Fighter's Guild, are nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, the groups that did survive the cut manage to provide some of the coolest quest lines in the game. If you were like me and loved the Dark Brotherhood missions in Oblivion, get ready to be blown away in this one as well.

Most of the action in Skyrim is reliant on how you build your character and how you decide to use your powers. In the Elder Scrolls tradition, abilities level up as you use them, for instance, if you're a heavy bow user, your marksmanship points will go up as you line up and make shots. That also goes for involuntary skills like heavy or light armor, as you take hits. Unlike previous games, though, you can also level up by talking to certain trainer characters and pay your way up the scale or by reading special books that you can find by exploring.


Irregardless to how you decide to take your character, there's always a companion just around the corner that will easily counter balance your development skills. Bethesda took one of the best aspects of their other RPG series Fallout and applied it to Skyrim in the form of companion characters "for hire". These guys are very damn useful, especially for less resistant character builds like wizards and can take a lot of punishment. Unfortunately, they aren't as well developed as your buddies from the Capital Wasteland and very rarely bring more story elements for you to mess around with.

In terms of story, I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed with Skyrim's main quest line. The build up for the most of the game is very well developed but it just doesn't go anywhere. The ending is not satisfying at all. The world keeps going, people go back to their routines and heck, even though you did something that should have rid the world of a particular kind of problem, as soon as you step back into the world and keep playing, lo and behold, they're still around causing havoc.


Still, if you take into account the sheer number of things to do in this game, the fact that the main story is its weakest element is pretty much forgivable. The guild quests, allied with just about a ton of extra tidbits and areas to spelunk in are easily more exciting and will be the main crux of your activities in this game.

I'm very much looking forward to see what Bethesda will do with Skyrim in terms of DLC, especially after loving what they had to offer in Fallout 3 and finding most of the areas that heavily hint on possible threads to explore in future downloadable content in this game. You can be sure that once you're through with everything this game has to offer, you won't be done.

Skyrim is easily recommendable to just about anyone looking for a fantasy world to dive into. The content is rich and the shortcomings are easily overcome by the sheer amount of awesome stuff to do in the frigid land of the Nords. Whether or not you decide to be a hero or a villain, one thing is for certain, this is one of those gaming experiences that are not easily forgotten. |10