And so we continue our adventures with Empress Emily Kaldwin.

Gwen sadly couldn’t join us for this recording, but we still had a great time regardless.

If you want to watch content like this as it’s recorded live, be sure to tune into my Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud.

The Clockwork Mansion is one of the most creative levels out there, and one of my favorite in Dishonored 2. The nature of a modifiable area, combined with immersive sim gameplay, leads to a ton of creative design space. We saw an example of this with a few of bonecharms located in spaces between the walls and hidden in places one can only reach by re-configuring the environment.

It’s also a perfect reflection of it’s master: Kiran Jindosh. Like many of his inventions, the manor is undoubted both clever in it’s creation and impressive to behold. Jindosh wishes for people who visit to behold his genius with every reconfiguration of the house. However, as impressive as it is, it’s ultimately impractical. No one would ever need to live in a home like this, simultaneous expensive to build and unwieldy to use despite the ostentatiousness. While I do not if the idea for the Clockwork Mansion or Kiran Jindosh’s character came first, they both compliment each other well. In a way, Jindosh is the Elon Musk of Karnaca.

We also talk a bit about challenge runs. One of my commenters talked about how they would like a game where players cannot beat guards, either through stealth takedowns or in fights. While I can appreciate the idea, I do not believe it would be an easy sell unless it had a small budget. This is why players who enjoy that type of challenge will often play games like Dishonored with their own imposed constraints. I myself made a couple of such runs with all the games in the franchise. I’m okay mandating difficulty for myself (which is why I love the Custom difficulty options), but I despise when those constraints are forced upon me.

Sorry I didn’t post anything last week. I was too sick to stream, and thus too sick to make anything for the blog.

This time, I have a guest joining me for the run. Gwen is a friend of mine who loves Dishonored even more than I do, so she’ll be a great co-host for the rest of our time with the franchise.

If you wish to see content like this as it is recorded live, be sure to follow my Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud.

I feel like the Crown Killer is wasted this early in the game. The intro sets them up wonderfully as this secondary villain with skills on par with our lead characters. Their presence is felt all throughout the first mission, and the objective as Megan Foster tells it before we arrive at the Sanitarium is to find a lead on who she might be. I was thrilled on my first run, thinking that they might be a recurring antagonist I’ll need to fight off throughout the game as I try to stop Delilah.

Then, when I get to Adermire and learn that we don’t just need to find a lead on the Crown Killer, we need to take them out. They spend all this time building up an incredible powerful villain only to eliminate them outright as one of the first genuine targets in the game. Thankfully the mission is still interesting, and I love the twist with Dr. Hypatia, but it still feels weird to deal with such a threat so early on.

On another topic, Gwen makes some really interesting points on where the series can go and how they could have improved the Chaos system in lieu of just scrapping it outright. I’m not as down on the Chaos system as a lot of other people because I like the dichotomy between having the power to kill guards quickly and easily, but choosing not to use it out of a sense of morality or “honor”. That said, there’s no denying that Death of the Outsider is a stronger game for its absence.

Next time, we’ll finish up our sojourn with steampunk Elon Musk, and keep gushing about one of the best levels in the game.

And at last we move on to the main event: Dishonored 2.

While I really like the original Dishonored and its DLC, it’s undeniable that Dishonored 2 improved onto it in many ways big and small. Even post-release, there were a number of additions to the game that further separated it from its predecessor.

I went on a lot about it at the start of the stream, but “Custom” difficulty is one of the smartest ideas I’ve ever seen. Considering so much of the immersive sim’s appeal is in the ability to tackle problems in the way you feel is best, giving players the ability to tailor the difficulty to their own preferences is the most logical conclusion of that.

Of course we’re going to play as Emily. Even before Dishonored 2 came out, I thought a lot of Corvo’s powers weren’t all that great. By comparison, Emily has not only a better suite of powers, but they synergize and combine a lot better than many of Corvo’s. Especially once the late game upgrades start to kick in, Emily can set up interesting combos that her father could never dream of. Hopefully, as I continue my journey, I can show off at least some of these.

In terms of non-lethal play, Dishonored 2 added a few invaluable tools to lessen the pain of attempting such a run. While in combat, if an attack is parried, the player can take a staggered guard and choke them out, rendering them alive, but unconscious. This allows a skilled fighter to still complete a low chaos/non-lethal run when if they find themselves incapable of sneaking around successfully. Furthermore, they gave players the ability to do a non-lethal, but loud drop take-down. This allows for a loud, but otherwise pacifist run of the game.

Though the premise of Delilah’s coup is a silly one, it’s one of those things that needs to be accepted just so that the story can progress. There’s some cool things that Dishonored 2 does with it’s plot and chaos systems in this game, and I look forward to talking more about them.

At long last, we were able to stop Delilah and save the Princess Emily from her fate as one of Delilah’s puppets. This is the end of Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches.

If you wish to see content like this being recording live, remember to follow me on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud or on Twitter @newdarkcloud.

Overall, both this and The Knife of Dunwall go a lot to refine the base formula set by Dishonored, and address a lot of the concerns from the original game.

They also did a lot to put female characters in positions of power in both DLCs, which was a common criticism of the base game (where most of the female cast were in subservient roles as maids or prostitutes). Many of the quest givers and faction leaders in this DLC, even the main villain, are female. Heck, they even introduced Billie Lurk in Knife of Dunwall, who would go on to become one of the franchises most interesting characters.

For players of Dishonored 2, this DLC also introduces Delilah, who becomes especially relevant in that game. Her scheme to take control of Emily is interesting, even if I think it could further developed before the grand reveal. Overall, a really good DLC.

And speaking of: Next time, we start Dishonored 2. Look forward to it.

When I popped the disc for Vampyr into my PS4, I wasn’t entirely sure what I should be expecting. I knew the broad strokes: That I was taking the role of a surgeon, newly turned into a vampire during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 London. But beyond that, I knew nothing about the what the game could be. Starting a New Game, before I became a creature of the night, a message popped up on screen:
“In this game, difficulty is tied to your actions. The more lives you take, the easier the game will be.”
Without knowing it, I was already introduced to one of the most fascinating concepts in Vampyr. Other vampire games before this have tried to capture the constant push and pull between a bloodsucker’s need to maintain their humanity and their need to feed. Vampires: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, for one, did this through the “humanity” mechanic inherent to the tabletop RPG series it draws from. The way Dontnod’s Vampyr chose to systematize this inherent push and pull has stuck with me long after I finished my adventure because of how clever and unique it is.

Being an action RPG, players gain experience in the process of playing Vampyr for completing quests, advancing the story, and helping out the people of London. However, these sources are finite and the amount of experience gained from fighting enemies in the streets is minuscule. While players can use them to gain power, they will eventually find themselves several levels behind their foes. Defeating these enemies is still possible, but the damage bonus afforded to the hunters, rogue vampires, and assorted beasts of the night for being higher level reduces the player’s margin for error. Mechanical skill can make up for the difference in power, and weapon upgrades can help close the gap. Yet even the best player will die many times due to the difference in damage output. Death may be temporary, merely costing a percentage of blood points to revive at the latest checkpoint (which are mercifully plentiful), but it is still a setback. To truly even the odds, it is necessary to imbibe the blood of the innocent.
While the story has newly undead protagonist Dr. Jonathan Reid work to uncover the source of and stop the Spanish Flu epidemic, the true conflict is between the player’s competing desires to grow stronger to more effectively combat the above threats, and to protect the citizens of London. There are 4 districts that the player will travel to throughout the course of the game, and each of those districts has a health meter for how healthy the population is. By healing the sick and saving people from the predators that stalk the night, players can improve the health of each district and the lives of the people within. If an area’s population gets too feeble, then they’ll no longer be able to defend themselves and vampires will quickly overrun the area: It’s population either dead or turned into undead abominations.
Each citizen also has an amount of experience that they can impart to the players if they are drained of all their blood, an act the game refers to as “The Embrace”. While this heinous act can empower Dr. Reid, it comes at a dramatic cost to the well-being of the community, reducing its overall health. The more influential the person is to the community, the more experience they are worth, and the worse off their neighbors will be for their absence. In this way, we as players feel Dr. Reid’s struggle between his profession and his vampiric nature through the mechanics of the game itself. By abstaining from human blood, he is deliberately hindering the development of his powers. However, embracing his true nature is a fundamentally destabilizing act, especially while the city is in the throws of one of the worst biological disasters of all time.
Yet that is only one way that Vampyr emphasizes this conflict of character. Players do not simply level up once they meet experience threshold like in many other RPGs. To cash in on all the upgrades they can afford, players need to seek asylum in one of the many hideouts scattered across the city and spend the day resting. Unfortunately, time does not stand still for the world outside while they are sound asleep. The people of London act out their daily routines during this time, and that’s when the effects of Dr. Reid’s nightly activities start to make themselves known. If the player has been treating people’s illnesses and reigning in the impulse to feed, they’ll see the health of each borough improve. If they’ve been neglecting their duties or feasting upon the populace, then the regions will suffer and may fall if left unchecked.
Time doesn’t advance until the player rests in this manner, so by spending experience to grow stronger, players expose the city to the risks that their actions have opened up. Even if they’ve been a perfectly good steward to the civilians, the people may still grow sick as a result of their daytime activities. This means that even the player who chooses not to feed needs to be careful of when and how often they rest, lest they need to “make the rounds” and spend too much time and resources so that London remains healthy. In this way, Vampyr even makes the passive accrual of power a risk to the population, and exacerbates the consequences of unchecked hunger.
One of the first things that Vampyr teaches players about it’s version of its titular monsters is that they do not necessarily need blood to survive. They are immortals, and aside from their own weaknesses, they will endure. That said, blood allows them to stay strong and use the powers that their undying form affords them. Every part of the game is a constant reminder of this fact. Whenever Johnathan Reid talks to an innocent person, there is a HUD displaying the amount of experience their blood would confer to him. Each death, each difficult fight, and each overly long load time serve to underscore how the adventure would be so such easier if the player would give into their instinct and consume. But despite this, the only way to get the game’s best ending is to endure. Only by affirming their strength of will, and resisting this nearly constant temptation, the player can prove that they held onto their humanity even through the worst of it. That is the strength of Vampyr, and why it shines as one of the best examples on how to mechanically capture the horror of the titular (yet archaically spelled) bloodsucker.

Welcome to the final part of Interactive Friction plays A Way Out. This is the final part of our playthrough of the game, and one of the better parts of the game. Or at least, one of the most interesting parts of it.

If you want to watch content like this as it is recorded live, be sure to follow my Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

At the time of recording, we had yet to start our run of Detroit: Become Human, which is why we talk about it as if it’s not out yet. (It wasn’t.)

It seems also silly to have this really personal story about two guys escaping jail and taking revenge on someone who wronged them both end in a third-person shooter co-op campaign. It’s lower-budget, but the idea is the same.

While I really like the scene where we confront Harvey, it’s one of the most cliche scenes in a game full of them. That’s the main problem with A Way Out. All of these scenes are well made, but I’ve seen most, if not all of this before in other movies and/or games.

And if it was more than just “another movie-like game”, then the ending might have more impact if I had some attachment to either Vincent or Leo. The twist is executed well, but it hinges on drumming up emotions that I just didn’t have towards the protagonists. I wish I had more to say than that, but there’s just nothing to work with.

Good game, but I wish there was more meat to sink my teeth into.

And so we being the second of Dishonored’s story-based DLCs: The Brigmore Witches.

Unlike the previous DLC, we weren’t able to finish the whole thing in a single session. The plan will be to finish the last mission and then transition into Dishonored 2 if there is time remaining.

If you wish to see content like this, be sure to follow me on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

What I find most interesting about the Brigmore Witches is the way it experimented with new gameplay concepts in Dishonored, and remixed a few old ones together.

The return to Coolridge is a intriguing from both a lore standpoint and a gameplay one. It’s always fun to see how a game designer can reuse old assets in new ways, and this was no exception. Further, it’s a complete inverse on the first mission in the base game. Where Corvo had to break out of prison, Daud needs to break in to rescue somebody. And as the stream audience pointed out, Dishonored is clever in the way it uses randomization to make sure that players still need to go through the motions, even on repeat runs. They can’t have magical foreknowledge of safe combinations or objective locations.

On top of that, we even see an (optional) return of the social stealth mechanic from Lady Boyle’s Last Party. It’s limited, and there are a lot of ways to break cover, but it feels good to hide in plain sight as I did in this mission.

As for the next mission, the most obvious mechanic being toyed with is conflict between multiple warring factions. We’ll see another twist on this core mechanic in Dishonored 2, but here it feels very much like they were testing the waters. They start with both factions hostile to Daud, but also each other. The player can use the tension between them to take care of guards without actually staining their own hands in blood. Then, once the Dead Eels become neutral to Daud, they feel the freedom of being able to navigate a space without being accosted by guards.

In terms of upgrades to the toolkit, this is where Corrupted Charms, that offer a positive and a negative effect, were first introduced. I have mixed feelings on them. While I like to make interesting trade-offs, Dishonored is a stealth game at its core. Therefore, it seems strange to take on effects that hinder the player’s ability to sneak around. Meanwhile, since combat is to be avoided, most players will ignore any adverse conditions that effect fighting prowess. It’s doesn’t matter if I take more health damage per hit, I shouldn’t even be getting hit in the first place.

The stun mines also start to finally give non-lethal players some utility in what they can do. They didn’t go far enough in The Brigmore Witches, but just starting to experiment with more non-lethal options opened the door for Dishonored 2 to refine a lot of what was introduced in both Brigmore Witches and Knife of Dunwall. It’ll be excited to speak more on that once we get to it.

Interactive Friction returns with the second part of our three part series on A Way Out.

We successfully found A Way Out of jail. And now, we’re in another predicament. With Harvey and the police after us, we need to evade our pursuers and get revenge. Will we find A Way Out of this? Or will the Oscars defeat us once and for all?

If you wish to see content like this recorded live, be sure to tune in to my Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud.

First off, I did not realize how offensive the “Reeeeeee” meme is when I recorded this stream. Now that I know, you won’t be seeing me doing it again.

Second, you can find the Far Cry 5 article I mentioned here.

Whether this is good or bad is hard to say, but the most striking part of this game is how much fun I’m having when I ignore the story and wander about looking for things to interact with. We didn’t do absolutely everything we could in these scenes, but we definitely had our fair share of fun.

It’s a shame that whenever the main story becomes the focus, the game gets noticeably weaker. It’s not to say that they’re telling a bad story by any means. The problem is that it does nothing to stand out from the other jailbreak stories that exist elsewhere. Neither does it stand out much as a co-op game. While there are strong elements in both the beginning and ending of the game that leverage the split-screen co-op gameplay, the whole middle part we play here is… okay.

Sam and I have the problem where almost as soon as we see the setup we know instantly how its going to go beat-for-beat. It happens more than a few times in this video alone. Despite the cries of “Fuck the Oscars”, it’s clear that Josef Fares still has a love for cinema, and the tropes common of this genre of film.

It’s disappointing in a way, but what’s here is still really good.

Now that we’ve finished vanilla Dishonored, it’s time to keep going with the DLC. Starting with The Knife of Dunwall, the developers at Arkane started making a ton of improvements to the core game that had a huge impact of the end-user experience.

Remember, if you wish to watch these get recorded live, you should subscribe to my Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

The most immediate change was to Blink. Unlike Corvo, Daud has the ability to stop time and precisely aim where he lands. This might sound minor, but it makes it a lot easier to perform some of the trickiest maneuvers. Where Corvo has to carefully time his blinks while in the air, Daud can simply hold still, cease gravity’s pull, and accurately jump to his destination. This change was so welcome that it became part of Corvo’s arsenal in Dishonored 2.

And though the performances often fall flat, the addition of voice acting did much to solve the problem where the player character’s silence felt uncanny. In also helps to have Billy Lurk serve both as an assistance and a soundboard for Daud to play off of.

This is also where Dishonored starts to experiment with more non-lethal tools. The staff at Arkane seemed nervous about making non-lethal tools function similarly to lethal tools, but it was a start. Even in this run, we found more than a few uses of Chokedust both defensively, to retreat, and offensively, as cover to safely knock out enemies mid-combat. If memory serves, Brigmore Witches would further expand on the potential for non-lethal play.

Which is why we’ll continue with that next time.

It’s been really fun to play Dishonored on stream, for all the people who joined in. In this last session, we were able to finish the Campaign in Low Chaos.

Remember, if you want to see this content as it’s being recorded live, be sure to follow my Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud. The next time I have a variety stream slot open, I’ll continue with the Dishonored DLC (Knife of Dunwall/Brigmore Riches).

Credit to both IGN and AARONMACKENZIE for their videos on the High Chaos run of the game. It made it easier to talk about them with a visual handy.

While I adore the original Dishonored game, and believe it serves as an excellent start to the franchise. This is where the core gameplay was established, going back to the sandbox 0451 games of old.

That said, there was a ton of room for improvement. While the idea of non-lethal gameplay helped add to the idea of players choosing their own path, the implementation left a lot to be desired. There weren’t many options for non-lethal players in terms on interesting gameplay since most of the equipment and power set was designed for lethality. Devouring Swarm, Windblast, Springrazors, Grenades, and Pistols were all practically useless for a non-lethal run. And the non-lethal takedowns for assassination targets, while appreciated, felt like a last minute addition most of the time (because they were).

I wrote some words about the chaos system way back when, and while my old writing leaves a lot to be desired, I stand by the sentiments expressed in that article.

As we delve further into the franchise, I look forward to exploring the many changes and additions made during each game, and how they addressed some of these problems.
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