HiGame

Just before Bethesda re-released Skyrim: Buggy Pretty Version, the company*announced a new change to its review program — and by “new change,” we mean “a cowardly attempt to avoid being buried by complaints that might jeopardize sales.” Bethesda argued it wanted everyone in the game industry to “experience [its]*games at the same time,” which is a ridiculous rationale with which to justify not telling people whether*a single-player game is amazing before they can purchase it themselves. It does, however, make perfect sense if you don’t want people to cancel preorders for a title that lands with the grace of a dead sperm whale flung out of a C-130 at 15,000 feet.

That’s the situation we find ourselves in with Dishonored 2, a game that’s being praised for its mechanics, its gameplay, and its story — on consoles. On PCs, frame rate stutters, crashes, and other problems are killing gamer opinion. Reviewers who have the console version have praised it to the heavens, while reviewers with the PC version have been reporting dropped frame rates to the point that it’s making some people seasick, even on advanced rigs. Pascal GPUs like the GTX 1080 can’t hold a stable frame rate, even with detail levels set to medium at 1920×1080, while reviewers with AMD solutions are reporting feeling seasick if they increase detail levels above Medium, even with GPUs like the R9 Nano.

Full disclosure: I’m a huge Dishonored fan. While the plot of the first game is a bit predictable, the characterization of the world and its people are excellent. There’s a rich backstory to explore, and the game world adjusts to how you complete missions. Decisions you make in early chapters impact how the game plays out and ends, and there are near-infinite ways to complete your objectives thanks to a robust set of skills and abilities and some evil room for experimentation. Not since Half Life 2’s Gravity Gun have a I seen a game that allowed for so much fiendish delight — Dishonored’s various abilities let you fire a crossbow bolt at your target, pause time, attach a deadly razor trap to it, and then watch as the combined bolt + spring razor wreak havoc upon impact. You can even put traps on rats that will then be triggered if the rat swarm approaches an enemy.



The art and visuals have been updated, while clearly recalling Dishonored’s distinctive style.

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