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Gwardinen, you can go back and play a level once you've completed it. You just have to select it from the main menu.

Speaking of Stalker, I ended up finishing Call of Pripyat after all! (I had committed it to this thread earlier) I guess when I put it down I was already 75% done and I just needed to head into Pripyat itself which led to a fairly linear set of tasks that brought the game to a close. Man... Stalker games seem to have trouble with endings. They always try and build things into a sort of climax which falls short due to limited tech, not to mention the very nature of the game being slow, careful exploration, rather than call of duty style shoot-outs. (Though the leadup to the wish granter in SoC was some of the tensest gameplay of any FPS I've played. It was just when you got there and had to avoid helicopters by sprinting awkwardly across large open areas that it fell apart).

The claw, I've noticed some frame drop from loading assets but nothing as bad as it sounds for you. Sno, I get what you're saying, but disagree that the designers had one play style in mind. I'm doing a second playthrough that's action focused and it feels just as natural to engage in a sword fight or wire a wall of light to be lethal as it does to sneak through the shadows. Aside from NPCs being more negative toward you and different endings I don't see how the game discourages any kind of playstyle. If anything, every kind of playstyle is encouraged. Speaking of achievements, it's simply not true that they're focused of stealth. Half of them are not possible to achieve without killing people. If there's a criticism to be made it's that the game can't really be fully experienced in one playthrough. On that you are correct. Doing a stealth run necessitates ignoring most of the skills you can unlock. But that's only an issue if you're viewing the game as a traditional linear narrative that you consume once and put aside. Quite the contrary I think it's one of the most replayable video games I've ever owned. There are so many things to do and so many different ways to do them that playing the game again doesn't feel even remotely dull.

Yeah pretty much any game that is a console port, excepting FPSs of course. Mark of the Ninja just came out on Steam. Awesome game, that, which obviously works great with a controller.

How are all of the things you mentioned not possible in a stealth-only playthrough?

Awesomecast. I tried pickpocketing that maid and then she turned around. But all that happened was she got pretty scared. I mean I was scared too, but I thankfully couldn't translate that emotion into my avatar.

Sounds like you're doing it pretty dang right, Twig. I'm on my second playthrough, on very hard, being a violent asshole that jumps around and kills everything. It's great. It is absolutely a different game than the first time around and that is probably why I'm not yet tired of it. Also, in honor of this thread's title (and because it's fun) I've started a tumblr of gif-ified recordings of the game: http://gifhonored.tumblr.com If anyone wants to contribute, feel free to message me! I'll hopefully be updating it pretty often. It's super hard to get a good-looking gif under the 1mb tumblr limit though.

Nice write up. I wouldn't agree that the exploration is entirely prescribed. For example: I'm also not sure how Assassin's creed felt less gamey. My 'alternate paths' in AC were usually... the roof. Dishonored's levels tend to involve roofs, ledges, interiors and waterways. Lots of verticality where as in AC it always felt like a roof/street binary. I agree that the story and morality (damn you orv!) systems are really poorly done. The morality system winds up being one of two ending cinematics. Woo. Your actions don't appear to have ripple effects between levels, at least not much more than lip service during mission briefings. Like being able to work with the gangster even after you poisoned his elixer in the last chapter. I get how it can be explained logically but it makes it appear that your actions have no repercussions. (I've also explained my position on other plot points earlier in the thread) Difficulty felt weird to be sure, balance is non-existent. I'm not sure how much I entirely mind that though... it makes it seem less like straightforward game design where you start easy and work your way to a big boss at the end. I'm not sure if they exactly succeed in branching out toward a more wild imbalanced direction but it certainly gives the game a very different feel than most of what is out there.

He was also fantastic as Piter de Vries in Dune. I'd blame direction over acting on the poor delivery of Piero's (and pretty much every character's) lines. Really it's a shame (as it always is) that the story doesn't live up to the gameplay. They flesh out a lot of concepts superficially (the outsider, the assassins, the motivations of the regent) and fail to develop them. The world itself is very interesting, and listening to characters is usually fascinating, though they could have recorded quite a few more idle NPC barks. "Think we're getting a promotion after the raid last night?" "He says to undress i undress" being the ones I heard most. Honestly, I'm not hugely surprised after playing through the sophomoric writing of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (and exemplary mechanics). Its just frustrating because narrative constantly trails behind mechanics in games and it doesn't seem to be catching up even when the gameplay strides forward in leaps and bounds.

Except that 'saving the planet' is such a tired and uninspiring premise at this point that there's hardly any immersion to ruin by having friends play with you. (at least for me)

I think the crack dealer analogy makes sense, and not just in the video games industry. I work in broadcast advertising and I don't even have cable or watch network television. I never even see the product of my own work unless it's on at a bar. I think this kind of disconnect is a natural part of actually being neck-deep in the mechanics of the product you are selling. Now I imagine this is quite different when there is a very small team behind a game. When you have an intellectual stake in your product I bet you think more about the end result than if you're just one of many people contributing. Which may separate the honest prospectors from the claim jumpers in the case of free-to-play games.

Witcher 2 is actually another game I'd like to play through again. I went with the humans for the most part and would like to see how the storyline plays out if I had sided with the Elves. And you're right, it's not a good/bad dichotomy in that game, just a matter of picking a side and tagging along. I've played the Mass Effects multiple times going either paragon or renegade. Both are fun and valid ways to play and despite the binary nature of the conversation choices I don't think it paints one as a 'good' route and one as 'bad.' When playing renegade you're just a brusque asshole that's tough but fair. It's not like, say in fallout 3, where you nuke megaton just for the hell of it. There are always reasons for being a dick in the Mass Effect universe so I had fun exploring that mode as well as the white knight one. Dishonored mostly reminds me of Witcher 2 in its decision making: the whole world is evil, and you're just a pawn. Still, there's a much more standard dichotomy in Dishonored since one route gets you a 'better' ending supposedly.

ha, thrik, I work on those confused spots. the 'bag of holding' location is very purposeful. those guys are oddly blatant about their 10 year old sense of humor.

I'm playing it on hard and it feels like normal. Then again, I'm not engaging in combat when I can help it... and I bet that's where most of the difference will be felt. Once I finish it, I'll go back and play on 'very hard.' This is one of the few games were I honestly think I'm going to complete a second playthrough, there are just so many awesome little details in the world and ways to interact with it.

I'm so totally going back to play this lethal, if only to try this move: It's kind of amazing that this kind of stuff can exist in the same universe as my sneaking around simulator.

If you're not afraid of violating Steam's TOS you can log on through a VPN originating from North America to unlock it. I have some UK friends who have done this.

Whoah, I never saw that Bioshock demo. You aren't kidding, it totally highlights all of the things that made the gameplay of Bioshock great.

I'm having fun using Blink and feel relatively challenged going for no alarm/no kill on hard. Though I also just finished the physician level and do agree that blink makes the end bit trivial. Still it didn't make me feel like it was the only tool worth using. I possessed animals and people throughout the level and took every route I could find, both high and low. Most of the challenge in the game comes from not being spotted, not necessarily about finding the right route to take. I think the game encourages you to take all routes, especially to get at all those shiny runes lying around. (I enjoyed the safe painting puzzle too, very resident evily) Anyway, it's only 3 levels in, I'm interested to see how difficulty ramps up later on.

maybe try playing on very hard w/blink?

There are definitely some AI glitches I've noticed. Some NPCs that auto hate me (and if I run into them accidentally they get hurt and run away alerting guards) Some NPCs that should be fighting each other but don't. And stand there, not looking at each other, but not returning to their predefined paths. It was kind of funny because it was a weeper kind of caressing the shoulder of a bottle gang thug who was spouting barks about 'i'm gonna kill ya when I find ya' and not turning around or moving at all.

Every time I hit pause iTunes skips the cast back 2 minutes and I can't track forward without skipping ahead of where i paused. So I get to re-listen to 2 minutes every time I need to go do something. So I'm afraid to hit pause. I'm essentially in podcast jail right now.

My.... god.

Even Enslaved? Or are you just talking about texture quality, not animation. Subsurface scattering would help skin stuff immensely, and it looks like the next Unreal Engine is going to be all about that.

Do you guys follow this guy's blog: http://enwandrews.tumblr.com/ He strips away the GUI and takes super nicely framed screenshots of games. Really gives you an admiration for all the detail and work that went into building the game environments. Both Rage and Mirrors Edge are well represented, actually. Pretty relavent to this discussion I think.

Playing this right after Mark of the Ninja certainly makes the distinction painfully apparent. I did have at least one moment when a guard spotted me from what I thought was too far off and confused me thoroughly as to the capabilities of the AI. Then again I did have another moment right after where a maid came into a room I was in and I blinked to the top of a bookcase and laughed maniacally to myself (not in game). I might be in the part of that venn diagram that thinks both types of gameplay are equally awesome for wildly different reasons.