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On today's episode we're talking Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Angry Birds Star Wars.

#dishonored Dishonored isn't available until tomorrow, but reviews for the stealth-action title appeared far and wide today. Reviewers seemed mixed over whether the story writers were too busy hiding in shadows to pay attention to the tale's conclusion, but seem unanimously agreed on one thing. Stepping into the shoes of an assassin hell-bent on revenge may not be exactly honorable, but with dozens of different ways to leave (or avoid leaving) a grisly trail of creatively murdered bodies in Corvo's wake, it sure is entertaining. More »

#dishonored Call it morbid, call it gruesome, call it what you will. But murdering corrupt guards in creative ways is one of the most satisfying things you can do in Dishonored, the triumphant stealth-action game that hits store shelves tomorrow. More »

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.

There’s going to be a backlash against Dishonored. It can’t be helped: when a game makes big promises, a justice squad will quickly arise to loudly demand that it accounts for not meeting them to the very letter, and in this case I suspect there’s an additional flock of people who have been led by marketing to expect an all-out action game. I can predict, even sympathise with, some of the complaints, others I suspect will be absolutely mystifying to me. It’s the finest hour in what we might loosely but innacurately term ‘blockbuster shooters’ in years – I’d feel petulant were I to demand it give me even more. But there is one complaint that may reach a crescendo in short order, and that is the issue of length. For me, Dishonored was a deliciously long game, clocking in at about 25 hours even without the total replay I intend on having very soon. For someone else – someone who has a lot of numbers in the name they use when playing Halo 4, say – it will be insultingly short. It may not even make a double figures quantity of hours. That’s not the game’s fault, it’s theirs. They gobbled the onion up whole, too greedy or too lazy to peel apart its layers.

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*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: It's time to end the Lord Regent's rule, and if you succeed Emily can be crowned Empress. You must return to Dunwall Tower and infiltrate the place where you once served as Lord Protector. Ever-paranoid, the Lord Regent has upgraded security over the months and has a heavily-defended safe room to which he will escape if you set off any alarms. IGN shows you how to get through mission 6 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: It's time to end the Lord Regent's rule, and if you succeed Emily can be crowned Empress. You must return to Dunwall Tower and infiltrate the place where you once served as Lord Protector. Ever-paranoid, the Lord Regent has upgraded security over the months and has a heavily-defended safe room to which he will escape if you set off any alarms. IGN shows you how to get through mission 6 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: Betrayed and poisoned by Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton, you've awakened in the ruins of the Flooded District, where the assassin Daud has you under guard. Recover your gear, confront Daud, and find a way out of the Flooded District. IGN shows you how to get through mission 7 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: Betrayed and poisoned by Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton, you've awakened in the ruins of the Flooded District, where the assassin Daud has you under guard. Recover your gear, confront Daud, and find a way out of the Flooded District. IGN shows you how to get through mission 7 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: Betrayed and poisoned by Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton, you've awakened in the ruins of the Flooded District, where the assassin Daud has you under guard. Recover your gear, confront Daud, and find a way out of the Flooded District. IGN shows you how to get through mission 7 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: Betrayed and poisoned by Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton, you've awakened in the ruins of the Flooded District, where the assassin Daud has you under guard. Recover your gear, confront Daud, and find a way out of the Flooded District. IGN shows you how to get through mission 7 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* BRIEFING: "You've escaped the Flooded District and now you're winding your way back to the Hound Pits Pub." IGN shows you how to get through mission 7of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* IGN shows you how to get through mission 8 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements. Briefing: "You've returned to the Hound Pits Pub to pick up the trail of your old 'allies' and find out where they have taken Emily"

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* IGN shows you how to get through mission 8 of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements. Briefing: "You've returned to the Hound Pits Pub to pick up the trail of your old 'allies' and find out where they have taken Emily"

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* "The leaders of the Loyalist Conspiracy have moved to a monumental lighthouse, the final military project devised by the Lord Regent. It's time to confront them, decide their fates, and determine the future of Dunwall." IGN shows you how to get through the final mission of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* "The leaders of the Loyalist Conspiracy have moved to a monumental lighthouse, the final military project devised by the Lord Regent. It's time to confront them, decide their fates, and determine the future of Dunwall." IGN shows you how to get through the final mission of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* "The leaders of the Loyalist Conspiracy have moved to a monumental lighthouse, the final military project devised by the Lord Regent. It's time to confront them, decide their fates, and determine the future of Dunwall." IGN shows you how to get through the final mission of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

*POSSIBLE MISSION SPOILERS* "The leaders of the Loyalist Conspiracy have moved to a monumental lighthouse, the final military project devised by the Lord Regent. It's time to confront them, decide their fates, and determine the future of Dunwall." IGN shows you how to get through the final mission of Dishonored without killing anyone or being detected. Completing the game in this fashion earns you the 'Ghost,' 'Shadow,' and 'Clean Hands' trophies / achievements.

In one day, we will release Dishonored, our new first-person action game developed by the talented team at Arkane Studios. Dishonored puts you in the role of Corvo Attano, bodyguard of the Empress of Dunwall. A pretty good gig… until you’re falsely accused of killing her, kidnapping her daughter, and subsequently imprisoned and tortured by the sinister Lord Regent. Despite this, you remain the best hope for saving Dunwall, where plague is rampant and the city is on the verge of dystopia.

Early in your adventure, you will receive “The Outsider’s Mark” — a mysterious tattoo on your left hand that grants you supernatural abilities. As you progress through the game, this mark will allow you to unlock new abilities, each of which can be upgraded to a second level for improved functionality.

Below is a look at two of the development team’s favorite abilities:

Devouring Swarm

Devouring Swarm summons a vicious swarm of rats that will consume corpses or attack the nearest living thing. Level two summons a larger, more vicious swarm of rats.

Wind Blast

Wind Blast releases a powerful blast of wind, knocking your enemies off their feet. This power will also douse fires, shatter wooden doors, and reflect projectiles back at the enemy who fired them. Level two increases the power of the blast.

Have questions about the game? Let us know in the comments below. And if you’re looking to play the game tomorrow, don’t forget it’s available as a PSN Day 1 title!

#review I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the pitch meeting for Dishonored. "Well, it's Deus Ex meets BioShock," someone undoubtedly said. "Oh hey, and let's throw in some Half-Life 2 'cause why not?" More »

Expectations are high. A stealth game that utilises the brains of Deus Ex veteran Harvey Smith and Viktor Antonov, architect of the imaginary, would always be an intriguing proposition and Dishonored’s industrial plague-ridden city is a curiosity that would stand out in any crowd, but in the particular crowd it finds itself in – early twenty first century first-person games – this is a game that stands out like a whale in a sardine tin. I’ve been sneaking my way through this brave new world, and now I feel obliged to tell you wot I think.

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I wouldn't call setting a dude on fire "dishonorable," per se. But fish possession? Dastardly!

Dishonored is something special. 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 very specific story of Corvo Attano and his reaction to the conspiracy against Empress Kaldwin.

Is Bethesda's supernatural stealth-'em-up worth a stab?

Interactivity sure is neat, huh? Why, I bet one day we’ll even be able to control the characters directly – like, with a mouse and keyboard. I know, I know: silly old Nathan and his craaaaaaazy ideas. Ah well, let’s jump back to reality, where we abandoned our pursuit of true “video games” in favor of smellovision back in 1983. Today, I have for you an interactive trailer of Dishonored. It lets you choose between many enticing options – sometimes up to four! A word of warning, though: it’ll knock you unconscious, throw you into Jello, and then drag you straight into spoiler territory if you’re not careful.

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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 More »

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.

The final episode in the webisode series introduces Piero, a key figure in the city of Dunwall, who also plays a pivotal role in Corvos story.

The final part of the Dishonored: Tales From Dunwall animated series is here. Sterling work, these, which put me in mind of Thief’s cutscenes. The style isn’t anything like the same, but there is style and lots of it. Part one and two are also available for your viewing.

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