I can’t really write an official ‘review’ of ‘Dishonored’ because, while I’ve sunk about twenty hours into this game, I’m nowhere close to finishing it.

This is my own fault, not the game’s. No, the game itself is actually pretty amazing. Arguably, Dishonored is everything Bethesda has been trying to do with its RPGs for a solid decade and has both failed and succeeded in equal measure. That requires some explaining, so I’ll do my best to lay it out.

The Game Is Rock Solid, Technically

That sounds like I’m leading by damning with faint praise, but consider the track record of the publisher. Bethesda’s games have always been marked by two things: A huge amount of ambition and a huge number of bugs. Skyrim’s notorious “chug bug” for the PS3, where frame rates start crashing because nobody at the company thought to check how the PS3’s RAM worked (seriously), is just one example. Bugs ranging from the funny to the game breaking have always been a hallmark of the company’s work.

Update: Since it seems to be getting on people nerves on Reddit, here’s why I’m calling Bethesda out. If a game is released and it’s got a lot of bugs, that is as much the publisher’s fault as the developer’s. Game publishing is no different from any other form of media; the developer is required to deliver a product, and the publisher’s job is to decide whether or not that’s up to snuff and then, you know, publish it or send it back. I’m singling out the publisher here because Bethesda as a publisher has a long history of being rather lax on bugs, and if you don’t believe me, consider a few of the games they’ve released from other developers.

Here, that’s not the case. This may be due to the fact that it’s a series of dungeons instead of a series of dungeons and a huge open world. That would seem like a step backward. Except…

All The Levels Are Sensible And Wide Open

I talked about this before, but one of the strengths here is that more often than not, the buildings are laid out according to sensible building plans, not some obvious setup to drive you relentlessly forward. Part of this is the fact that they have to make sense: The game doesn’t give you a lot of directions, at least not in the HUD. Another part of it is, though, that you need to figure out your strategy ahead of time. Your resources and gold are limited so you’ll need to tackle each area in a manner that doesn’t get you killed. That can be… annoying, but it does bring out the key point of the levels, which is…

Exploration Is Key

If you love poking around and finding different clues and hints, this is the game for you. Part of the fun of the game is listening in on guard chatter, which ranges from dirty jokes to grumbling about the job to hints about something else to try in the level.