Recent reviews by Elthrael

This is, simply put, a very superb game.

Stealth gameplay is well thought-out, there are numerous approaches to your mission and a lot of powers and gadgets to help you on your way. This game enables you to endlessly (ab)use your environment for sneaking, takedowns etc. During my first playthrough, I went for low chaos and it was (gadgets and powers aside) still challenging enough to keep me occupied and fun enough to not be frustrating. The ending on Low chaos is also immensely satisfying.

My second playthrough was guns (swords? powers?) blazing high chaos madness. This is very fun as well, the shooting and crazy running, sword fights (you can really see Arkane's touch here) and I'm pleased to see a game where all the weapons and gadgets are equally deadly if used right. However, this is also one of my gripes: a lot of the things in this game are overpowered. Now, I'm not really a huge fan of games like System Shock 2 where your character is really puny and helpless, but Dishonored is another extreme: you're virtually indestructible (once you reach a certain point in the game). I did not try to up the difficulty, but I doubt it would've made a huge difference; a Level II Windblast or a Bend Time/Bloothrirsty massacre would still probably wipe enemies with ease. Also, the High chaos ending is really, REALLY dark and depressing, so think carefully about what playing style you choose.

Another thing I've noticed about this game, which is a huge bonus for me, is that it has this "Half-Life" vibe to it; I dont' know why, but it just reminds me of Half-Life 2 for some reason and even the original Half-Life. Perhaps it is the pacing: there's a really good balance between story, action and exploration.

All in all, a great game, one of those games sure to be on "must-play" lists in the future. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be "BioShock and Half-Life 2 had a steampunk baby whose occasional nanny was Dark Messiah of Might and Magic".

Great gameplay, the movement-to-controls connection is flawless, you really feel like you're doing all the things you're instructing you character to do. Funny enough, to me, it was easier to play on a keyboard/mouse set-up than a gamepad because of all the fast changes of direction.

The story mode is a bit bland and to me, it was completely uninteresting. The combat is difficult and completely unnecessary - the story mode is great when it's a fast paced, adrenaline pumping chase and pretty decent when it's a "figure out how to get the heck outta here" puzzle, but the pacing isn't all that great.
It's worth completing the story just to unlock the races.

And I got this game for the Races!!! That is where it's at! Great courses, challenging times and running the courses is just immense fun. There's always a "shortcut" left to discover, or a jump that you can make better, something that you didn't time perfectly the last run, in short, there's always room for improvement.
You could even have some oldschool gaming fun with friends, trying to best each other's time on a course, I've done this before and we had a lot of fun. So yeah, Races, Races, Races.

A very "consuming" game - I was hardly able to get away from it.

There are a lot of things to do - almost too much, the 400 Riddler trophies are a bit ridiculous, but there are other interesting things, like side missions and such. The only thing I thought was really repetitive and just there as a "filler" was the Riddler's Revenge DLC. Challenge campaings? Yawn...

It's a very fun game to play, gameplay is very smooth and it's just plain fun to glide around as Batman and beat up bad guys. It's really good at making you FEEL like Batman, and as a fan of The Animated Series, I think they hit that vibe very well with a dash of fresh ideas.

I'd HIGHLY recommend this game to any Batman fan, and even if you're not a Batman fan. It's a very solid product, great immersion and awesome gameplay.

One side note: I think it's absolutely necessary to play this with controller. I didn't even try playing with a mouse and keyboard... a controller makes so much sense and the controls are very intuitive.

Many a day of my life was lost playing this game as an early teen. I returned to it now, 7 years later and it still smokes any non-military (meaning not in the vein of CS, Battlefield etc.) competitive shooter out there.

As AlexOfSpades put it, "before the days of shooters that holds your hand and aim for you, that regenerate your health and show you what to do like a baby, there was this." Yes indeed. I have gotten so accustomed to these games that, when I bought this game and went straight to my old habit of a warm-up Masterful bot DM, I had my ASS HANDED TO ME. Time. And Time. Again. Until my rusty inner gaming beast finally tossed away the awful crutches that today's games forced upon it and I once again felt the rush of a full-blown UT deathmatch.

This shows what a bunch of wimps today's "fast-paced shooters" are made for. This game requires insane concentration, mental sharpness, quick decision making and finger/fine motorics coordination of a freaking Navy jet pilot. Stand still - dead, wrong weapon for the situation - dead, miss a powerup - dead, let the enemy pick up a health pack - dead, shoddy tactics in team matches - dead. No room for error (providing you have set the difficulty level high enough to actually be challenged). It's a wild ride and there is no better feeling than finally letting go of your poor, burned-out mouse and seeing your username at the top of the scoreboard.

Technically, the game excels at everything. The weapons are perfectly balanced, the powerups are perfectly distributed, the gameplay is smooth and uninterrupted. The graphics are 2004 appropriate, but even today, they are a thing of beauty, the colors are clear and it doesn't have the murky, gray/brown "drape" like UT3. The only thing that kind of bugged me was no native widescreen support, but the fix is super easy, no problems there.

However, as much as I can gush over the "old days" of adrenaline-fuelled arena bloodshed, it's dated. Not the game itself, as I said, it is arena mayhem at its most perfect, but the concept itself has sadly fallen out of fashion. There will always be devout maniacs such as myself and a lot of people who gave this game a thumbs up, but ultimately, I think there's little hope of this kind of action coming back in this form.

Long story short: if you spent days trying to find a tactic to bring down a Power Core in a certain map, or spent days honing your no-scope headshots, get this, and feel the rush. If you're a modern gamer new to this game, get it, take it easy at first, up the difficulty when you feel you have the grasp, and realize that CoD is about as intense as PacMan. If you're expecting to get your mind blown by anything other than a Flak Cannon, don't get this game. This is nothing new. It is something old. And it still kicks gobs of ass.