Dishonoured

I’ll be honest, I never got far through Dishonoured. I started it several times, and each time something annoyed me enough not to want to go back to it. Although, probably at least two of those times it was the overlong opening sequence that most put me off. If I have to sit through one more cutscene where I’m supposedly being taken to my execution or life imprisonment, I will despair at the quality of writing originality in the industry.

In my first playthrough, the furthest I got was the distillery. It was the first proper level part of Dishonoured, which is linear but partially open-world, with side-quests. I fannied about for a bit, using my magic to shoot across buildings in the steampunk sort of environment, with mediaeval fears of the plague crossed with Victorian technology, Gothic and Middle-Ages architecture, with French Revolution army costumes (think Les Misérables) among the array of creepy cloaks and masks. It fits together remarkably well, making an eerily  atmospheric game.

Once I got into a proper level situation, I started to notice a problem right away. It’s a stealth game in large part, but the stealth options suck. Your most common means of stealthy, non-lethal invasion involved pouncing someone from behind and slowly strangling them. This is extremely slow, and gets dull within about four pounces.

Exploration & Cookery Game

One thing that I find disappointing about Skyrim is how cooking serves no purpose. There’s a paltry Xbox achievement for cooking, mining and chopping wood once. The health benefits you get from cooking are nothing compared to the most inexperienced alchemy, the ingredients of which are cheaper and abundant. Besides which, pre-made potions are two a penny – much more common than cooking spits.

Then there’s the fact that you mainly find food items in towns, where you least need health items. The weight values of vegetables versus their healing properties make them not worth carrying around. Finally, if you calculate it, you notice that selling the individual food items raw fetches more gold than cooking them together. Not that any of them are worth anything like as much as any other piece of junk you can pick up out in the field.

It makes food in Skyrim a gimmick, one that you’ll get bored of quickly – just like chopping wood, which is the least time-efficient way of making money. If you never stole a single item in the whole game, you’d still make plenty of money just going out questing. If you don’t go out and quest, there’s no point playing Skyrim in the first place, which is an exploration RPG, not a life sim. In other words, cooking is pointless.

Mirror’s Edge

Mirror’s Edge is a puzzle-platformer, the mechanics of which are based around parkour (free running), i.e., using city infrastructure as an urban obstacle course. You play Faith, a runner who gets embroiled in a conspiracy and must scuttle across rooftops to evade the authorities while uncovering the truth.

Story

It’s a conspiracy thriller, told part in-game using radio communication and part with cutscenes, usually involving tough people talking about how they Godda Do What they Godda Do. Adequate if you like that sort of thing. There aren’t any surprises here.

Graphics

It has a basic 3D style which is already starting to look a bit dated, but not so you’d be driven to distraction. It isn’t the most polished or visually striking of games. Interestingly, Mirror’s Edge has inverted the old style of the SNES games which used more realistic graphics (sometimes actual film) for cutscenes to make up for the blocky game animation. Mirror’s Edge has manga-esque cartoon for its cutscenes, which have a more retro look than the game itself. Since Mirror’s Edge is in first-person perspective, this means that you don’t see the image of Faith depicted in the box art until the very end.

Bully: Tips and Easter Eggs

Here is my personal list of organically discovered not-so-obvious elements of Bullworth life. Bear in mind, this is the scholarship edition on Nintendo Wii, so there may be differences.

Also check out Fun things to do and Tricks and glitches.