Dishonored EP20: Havelock and Load

By Shamus Posted Thursday Apr 25, 2013

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 82 comments


Link (YouTube)

True story: The YouTube page for the owner of this video offers a popup that says, “We detected your video may be shaky. Would you like us to stabilize it?” It’s amazing that they not only have software that can fix shakycam shots, but that they can also detect such shots and they automatically scan for them in every single video that gets uploaded.

Foolish YouTube. You can’t stabilize Josh!

The next episode will bring this season to a close.

 


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82 thoughts on “Dishonored EP20: Havelock and Load

  1. dudecon says:

    It gave me the same suggestion for my Minecraft videos. It makes them look really… strange. Almost dreamlike. Or perhaps more like a nightmare.

    1. Knight of Fools says:

      Yeah, it’s wonky at best. What it does is widen and shorten the picture in tune to what it thinks is the camera shake, and it ends up just making the entire thing look disorienting and stupid.

      Of course, I’ve only tried it with real videos. I’m sure it’s even worse in video games.

      1. TenMinuteWatcher says:

        Here is an example of this feature used on a video game recording. It’s really… Something I guess?

        1. Peter H. Coffin says:

          Every time the titles move around, it makes me think that otherwise the camera view would be moving and *WOW* is that original player twitchy.

  2. Sozac says:

    Does this mean no Knife of Dunwall? If you guys need a little aversion before the next season, I would like to see you guys do some DLC from previous SW. I’ve heard great things about the ME3 Citadel DLC and I want to see your guys’ take on Honest Hearts and OWB (even though Old World Blues might not be fun to watch even though it is the best out of all of them). But I would like to see Knife of Dunwall!

    1. Klay F. says:

      I’m not gonna play the Citadel DLC so I don’t know if its any good, but its definitely the most thematically inappropriate piece of DLC I believe I’ve ever seen.

      1. Micamo says:

        The utter ridiculousness of its premise aside (oh it’s okay Shepard, millions of people are dying a day, but go ahead and spend a few days faffing about in a casino on shore leave, the reapers will wait), I’d be willing to give Citadel a chance. Sure it’s different, but it’s not like they could possibly have done worse than just give us more of the same.

        1. Thomas says:

          Bioware are good at humour, that and twists are the things that have been pretty consistently praised across all their games(maybe not so many jokes in Jade Empire?), it’s probably good that they decided to play to their strengths with this one.

          1. Sozac says:

            Lol, are you forgetting the Drunken Master Style of martial arts and The Black Whirlwind. Jade Empire had good comic relief and probably my #1 unintentionally funny Bioware moment. I died laughing when the game let me get away with romancing both of the girls. They both stand next to each other holding out their arms to go into the tent and I’m like “WHHHHAATT?” It’s a shame the girl character didn’t have a chance to try this with Sagacious and Sky because I think my suspension of disbelief would would get expelled.

            1. Thomas says:

              But the drunken master is an actual thing. Bioware didn’t invent it, Jackie Chan (?) did.

              1. Harry says:

                Jackie Chan didn’t invent it either! Though he did popularize it.

                1. Thomas says:

                  Thanks for the link, I was wondering if it was something like that

      2. Sozac says:

        I’ve heard about the premise, but I think Mass Effect gave up on theme a while before Citadel.

        I agree with Micamo. I’d give Citadel a chance (if I had the money). I could never take Mass Effect seriously anyway. None of it struck that same chord Bioware games can get at me (even DA2 was more emotionally gripping to me). ME one of the few games I feel okay being an evil bastard in. I’ve also heard it has excellent writing and to tell you the truth, I’d take good writing over serious themes anyday.

      3. StashAugustine says:

        It’s the best DLC ever made for Mass Effect 2. It’s really funny, but it does kinda hurt the atmosphere, which is onw of the things I really liked about ME3. I’m not finished with my all-DLC run yet, though, we’ll see how it works in practice.

      4. ehlijen says:

        Yes, it is ridiculous. But that’s because Bioware basically admitted that they didn’t know how to write something good for ME anymore, so they gave up and wrote something hilarious instead.

        If ME hadn’t been killed already by many previous design and writing decisions, Citadel DLC would have killed it. But it was already dead, so Citadel is just the clown trying to cheer you up about that.

        Whether you like clowns, is up to you of course. But if you can appreciate the meta humour in writing this stupid story for a game about the end of the world, it’s definitely worth a look.

        It’s not a good story, but it is an entertaining piece offering.

      5. Jokerman says:

        The entirety of ME2 and 3 were thematically inappropriate. At least this DLC seems like it is being honest about it.

    2. MrGuy says:

      I know I’m averse to playing games that have been done.

      So many good “next season” options!

      1. Heaven Smile says:

        You want them to waste time on Citadel DLC instead of making videos on System Shock 2 available on GoG.com, Planescape Torment, or even Fallout 1? are you really suggesting them to waste time on something painfully obvious? here, let me put this link to make it easy for everyone, from the guy Koobismo:
        http://www.koobismo.com/2013/03/the-pinnacle-of-fanservice-a-citadel-dlc-review/

        1. MrGuy says:

          Lemme introduce you to what the word “averse” means.

          1. Sozac says:

            Lol thanks. I knew that I was using that wrong, but I was too lazy to look up the word I meant to use. Diversion! I can’t believe it. I’m not even going to bother to edit that. I hope they put it on my tombstone:

            Sozac
            “Life, just a little aversion to Death.”

    3. StashAugustine says:

      I do think Citadel wouldn’t work very well for SW, it would basically be alternating between everybody being quiet while something funny happens and pointing out all the little inconsistencies in a comedy.

    4. Humanoid says:

      If they’re going to do DLC from previous games then obviously they should start with Bring Down the Sky.

      And also various new train DLC for Trainz.

    5. anaphysik says:

      Um, you are aware that they spent 8 episodes on Honest Hearts already, right? *facepalm* Start here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=12498

      1. Sozac says:

        Fuck! I meant Lonesome Road. Man I messed up a lot in that comment.

  3. hewhosaysfish says:

    I’m watching Josh repeatedly jumping on all the guards’ heads and thinking you used the “Goomba Stomp” title a couple of episodes early.

    1. McNutcase says:

      Not really. A defining part of goomba-stomping is that it kills the stompee, and that’s clearly not happening here.

      1. hewhosaysfish says:

        Ok, but I still give Josh an A for effort.

      2. Josh says:

        Really, this is more of a Koopa-Stomp.

  4. Jacob Albano says:

    If you follow Martin after he shoots at Pendleton, he’ll deliver a little monologue with his pistol aimed at his head. After he’s done, he kills himself. It’s a pretty cool scene. If you sleep-dart him while he’s talking it counts as a target spared.

    Same with Pendleton, actually; I can’t remember if his guard attacks you, but he’ll talk to you for a little bit before dying of his wounds. Again, you can dart him and put him to sleep.

    I do agree that the High Chaos ending is significantly more interesting than the Low Chaos one. The atmosphere is just far better.

  5. Thomas says:

    It’s late in the game to be asking, but was the name Havelock, Pratchett inspired as well? It seems to be a pretty common name for that sort of period but you never know

    1. Jakey says:

      Kinda swaying back and forth on this one. Havelock as a first name is very uncommon, which would’ve made it a pretty obvious reference, but the Admiral’s full name is actually Farley Havelock and the surname-variety Havelocks are dime a dozen. But then again, this is a game that directly name-dropped Pratchett.

  6. MrGuy says:

    So THAT’S where I left my hagfish!

  7. newdarkcloud says:

    The final level, while very fun on both High/Low Chaos (moreso on High Chaos) is by far my biggest objection to the game.

    There are just too many things that are affected only by the Chaos factor and nothing else. It’s like these characters and the world itself bend and conform to some arbitrary force’s will for no reason.

    Also, it’s looks like Samuel not shooting the air is a bug from here. I’m assuming since you possessed the fish the game didn’t think Corvo was there to listen, so it had Samuel just go away.

    1. MrGuy says:

      It's like these characters and the world itself bend and conform to some arbitrary force's will for no reason.

      You’ve summed up The Outsider pretty accurately, yeah.

      1. newdarkcloud says:

        That’s being a little unfair. While the Outsider seems to have a lot of influence, the only real way he can assert it is by giving people magic whale powers. Even then, he can only let them do their own thing and can’t directly control them.

        1. MrGuy says:

          Just so I’m clear, you’re asking me to be fair to The Outsider?

          1. newdarkcloud says:

            Yeah. Sorry about that.

        2. MetalSeagull says:

          Teleportation doesn’t seem very whale-like. But I suppose a game based on more likely whale super powers would be pretty boring: sustained underwater swimming, effortlessly withstand crushing pressure, filter krill at lightning speed.

          1. Well, you could stretch withstanding pressure to having temporary invulnerable skin (maybe doing an inverse ratio so that more force=less damage which could be interesting). Filtering krill could become filtering all biological agents for temporary disease immunity.

            But yeah, dunno what you’d do with the swimming unless it’s an Aquaman game.

            1. Fleaman says:

              I’ve seen video of a whale swimming in a circle and blowing a thick jet of bubbles that forms a cylindrical “net” that captures fish inside it for other podmates to scoop up.

              I guess that could be, like, a crowd control spell?

    2. Ringwraith says:

      Samuel actually won’t alert everyone if you’re not very high chaos, and is just rather bitter about it instead. Seeing as Josh has really only done two parts of the game while racking up a high bodycount, he probably didn’t qualify for Samuel’s “you’re a monster” speech.

  8. Weimer says:

    You can kill Samuel when he brings you to the last level, by the way. The ending awknowledges this with a still scene of Corvo standing next to his grave.

    1. Thomas says:

      Dancing on it?

  9. newdarkcloud says:

    I should also note that you likely did get Low Chaos in that mission, but the game shows you the Overall Chaos you’ve accumulated so far on that screen.

  10. Hitchmeister says:

    I worry about the part of Josh’s brain that tells him things like, “You died and reloaded. Make sure you pointlessly throw the bottles at Piero and Sokolov again. That’s important.”

    1. MrGuy says:

      More proof that wine bottles are a gateway bottle.

      Sure, it seems like throwing wine bottles at natural philosophers isn’t hurting anyone. But after awhile, the high wears off. Throwing wine bottles at natural philosophers isn’t enough anymore. They’ve heard about bigger bottles that can be thrown at natural philosophers, like whale oil bottles. They’re curious and ready to try something more “hard core.” And those bottles can ruin a life.

      Friends don’t let friends throw wine bottles at natural philosophers.

      1. impassiveimperfect says:

        Since Shamus has introduced forums, he should now introduce social media elements!

        All so I can give that comment a +1 or Like, or equivalent.

        (“You rolled [number of likes] natural twenties”?)

  11. newdarkcloud says:

    Attention all Shamus Youngs, this is your friendly reminder that the Spoiler Warning Page has not been updated in a while.

    1. Phantom Hoover says:

      That always happens; the page has the first few episodes of the current season, then it stops being updated until the next season starts. I dunno if it’s just Shamus being too lazy to update it or if there’s some technical reason.

    2. Humanoid says:

      There are also some very long-standing typos in the AC2 and ME2 descriptions, and possibly one in the ME description as well.

  12. rrgg says:

    It seems in retrospect Martin should have been the conspirator most eager to betray you, him being the high overseer and all while Corvo is best of buds with the outsider.

  13. Blov says:

    The problem with Martin’s characterisation isn’t that it wasn’t there, it was that there are three completely different Martins in the game. In the first scene we see him being snarky in the face of torture and then in every scene until the end he acts all stoic and religious with an undercurrent of ambition and then at the end (in a high-chaos runthrough), the anti-noble sentiment the heart implies he has spills over into infighting against Pendleton.

    There’s definitely potential for some sort of snarky reformed murderer religious bloke with concerns about his low birth in the game but we don’t really see any of it get put together, or actually come out. If they’d just put a lot more attention into making sure it looked like the conspirators were doing things around you, and especially telegraphing their infighting as you go along, the game would be so much more satisfying from a narrative perspective.

    1. guy says:

      The final scene characterization seemed fine to me; he was actually in the conspiracy for the principle of the thing, and now that the main objective has been accomplished he’s disposing of the miserable sinners he had to associate with in order to get this far. Starting with Corvo; at one point he mentions that he recognizes the Outsider’s Mark (possibly from when he laughed in the Outsider’s face)

      1. Blov says:

        I’m fine with the characterisation at any one point; there just doesn’t really seem to be much consistency between the bits of characterisation we see. We don’t get to see him doing anything particularly moral in the game, we don’t really see much of his fall from grace and consequently his suicide’s pretty empty.

        Again, I think the whole problem with the conspiracy is that you don’t really see them *doing* much until the final scene. If you saw Martin trying to restrain Havelock, clashing with Pendleton about what the conspiracy aims to achieve (say, just changing hands of the current noble-led system vs. something more egalitarian) and showing some of the knowledge from his past as a less-than-entirely-legit individual, he’d have something of a character arc. As it is, like the admiral we’re sort of left using tropes to explain his motivations and reasoning because none of it is really shown very strongly.

  14. burningdragoon says:

    It looked like Samuel was pulling out his gun right as Josh possessed the fish. Obviously after seeing that, Samuel figured pissing you off would be too big of a mistake.

  15. MetalSeagull says:

    In my first, high chaos, play through I worked my way through the Hound Pits killing everyone, only to be given an easy way to kill everyone. Little late, there, guys. I guess I could extra murder them.

    Oh, and Samuel being judgmental really bothered me. First, it seemed out of whatever character I imagined him having. He seemed like a practical guy, being swept along by the actions of the upper classes with the real power. I don’t see how you being a little stabby is worse than propagating a plague. Second, he’s also trying to use you to achieve his ends. He wants Emily rescued. He wants the betrayers taken care of. If he’s so offended by your actions, why help you achieve them?

    1. Ringwraith says:

      Because he also knows Corvo is the only person capable of doing it. Hence the reason why he tries to ensure his survival when poisoned. He doesn’t have to like it though.
      In the event he thinks you’ve gone way too far and alerts the guards on Kingsparrow Island, he’s only mostly doing it because he figures you’ll survive anyway, and you seem to have gone looking for fights, so why not have the fight coming looking for you? Cuts out the middle-man.

    2. Blov says:

      Samuel judging you would work if they’d managed to make you feel bad about your actions so far. As it is, they didn’t. Was really nice that they made him do the flare move in game so you can actually *respond* to it (e.g. I shot him when he went for the gun… you could go for a sleep dart, possession, just try to get out of there quickly). It allowed for an expressive playing response to Samuel – a lot of the more modern Bioware games by contrast have the weird thing where you’re allowed a verbal reaction to what someone does but can do nothing really in-game… but I think we’ve been conditioned by modern RPGs to tolerate that lack of gameplay interaction much more than we tolerate lack of verbal interaction when something we want to comment on comes up (hence the reaaaally mishandled bath scene).

      That said, making Corvo a literally mute protagonist would’ve made his silence in the face of people being jerks or being nice or unreasonably trusting much more credible.

  16. djshire says:

    I forget, does the drinking game include a rule for “Josh finding new and interesting bugs”?

    1. impassiveimperfect says:

      I know there’s one that’s simply “when Josh finds (okay, we have to admit, causes)a bug”. Don’t know that it’s required to be new or interesting.

  17. Rohit says:

    Samuel didn’t fire his gun on my playthrough either. I think that only happens if your chaos is even higher.

  18. guy says:

    Yeah, Samuel doesn’t necessarily fire his gun, probably depending on exactly how high your chaos has been.

    I’ve seen it suggested that the reason why the storm happens on high chaos is that the Outsider fiddles with the weather to suit the mood, giving you a storm for the climactic battle and final killing, and bright sunlight to make you work for your sneaking around. Certainly fits with the alternate Outsider I suggested in the stream today

    Actually, it would probably be an improvement in general if the Outsider were openly screwing around with the missions. Would be fun if it worked both ways; sometimes the Outsider arranges for extra guards to show up and other times he/she/it blows out a Wall Of Light blocking a potential path.

    I didn’t mind the mass infighting at the end. Given the amount of backstabbing that the conspirators have been doing, it was pretty much inevitable they would try to off each other at some point.

  19. Mormegil says:

    The only thing that has happened since you last saw Samuel is that you fought some assassins and some weepers. So if he objects to your conduct it has to be based on how you did the missions for the conspiracy. If he objects so much to the high chaos path, why would he save Corvo’s life? Surely he’d just end things when asked to by Havelock. Having Samuel turn into the moral compass at this point in the game doesn’t make any sense.

    1. guy says:

      It kind of seems like he’s sick of the entire buisness and wants the conspirators and Corvo to wipe each other out. But yeah, it’s a bit odd he saves High Chaos Corvo

    2. StashAugustine says:

      This was really unintentionally funny for me- I did my high chaos run starting at the sewers. No one had any contact with me, but apparently the fact that I was murdering a bunch of people they didn’t know existed while they didn’t know I was alive made them psychotic.

  20. kenup says:

    Wow! This episode reached AC2 levels of laughs. At least now Josh knows it’s bad to jump on people’s heads. By the way, the whole “one guard just notices you, everyone knows where you are” trope is pretty common in games, I think. In DXHR the enemies might even shoot at Jensen, before the guard that spotted him finishes his “Oh, shit!” part.

  21. RTBones says:

    Funny – I kept waiting for Sokolov or Piero to die every time Josh reloaded and threw wine bottles at their heads. Then Sokolov dies when Josh whales on him. It is to LOL. It is enough to make me wish there were a few seagulls in the game. I can see it now – Josh gets off the boat, possesses a seagull, flies ALMOST to the top of the lighthouse, bypassing the entire level, only to have the possession timer run out while he is eleventy billion feet in the air, at which point he falls a LONG way, and as he’s falling, blinks on top of a guards head, which kills the guard and leaves Josh unscathed to merrily go back to murdering his way through the level from the beginning.

  22. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Ugh,that choice with the electricity thing is the stupidest choice in the entire game.Its like they gave up at this point and just said “Fuck it,lets just stick the kill/knock out in the dialogue”.Its nonsensical on so many levels,and just further highlights how their not-morality meter is actually just another run of the mill morality meter.

    1. Ringwraith says:

      I think it may because they semi-backed themselves into a corner with providing a non-lethal option for everything, as tallboys cannot be dealt with other than being killed or evasion, and you are all but required to incapacitate everyone in this area.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        A simple solution:
        High chaos,the scientists make it so that it kills everyone.You can turn it on,or just knock out everyone yourself.
        Low chaos,they make it so that it knocks out everyone.You can turn it on,or kill everyone yourself.

        There,the same choice preserved,only better suited to this mechanic,and not as stupid or blatant.

        1. Thomas says:

          Kind of irritating if, like Josh, you didn’t want to kill people this level, despite being high chaos in the past

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Well yes,but isnt that the point of having consequences for your actions?If you want to suddenly do a 180 it should be a bit harder than simply picking up the other option in the dialogue.

            1. X2-Eliah says:

              But it should be possible. Your suggestion puts it on rock-hard rails.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                No,it doesnt.It still makes it possible,only with more effort.If you want to do the opposite of your current chaos path,you need to go and deal with every guard personally.The only only problem remains with having to deal nonlethally with tallboys on high chaos,but that can be skirted around in numerous ways(putting a mission specific tool somewhere).

            2. Ringwraith says:

              I think it would be worse if they tied the choice to something you had no control over. Maybe if they defaulted to one or the other and you had to do something to switch it over maybe, but otherwise I think it would feel much more forced.
              The game even allows you spare Martin and Havelock on a high chaos Kingsparrow Island, which is more choice than you get on the low chaos version of events due to Havelock pre-emptively killing Martin before you can get anywhere near him.

              Bioshock actually allowed this kind of character turnaround, if you harvested little sisters but spared the ones who had wronged you, or some other combination that stuck you as a mixture of a character, the ending reflected it, even allowing you to choose to die to pay for your wrongs.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                “Maybe if they defaulted to one or the other and you had to do something to switch it over maybe, but otherwise I think it would feel much more forced.”

                Thats exactly what I proposed anyway.It defaults to either kill or stun depending on the chaos,but you can still say “No,Ill do it personally”,and do it the opposite way without turning on the machine.

  23. Harry says:

    I must say, as someone who’s been watching since the start of the Fallout 3 series, this was the funniest Spoiler Warning I’ve ever seen.

    Josh jumping on heads was brilliant, but the icing on the cake was accidentally killing Solokov while Piero looked off in the other direction, and then repeatedly botching murdering Piero as empty barrels bounced off his skull. And then Land Fish. Oh my God.

    *tips hat* Thank you for cheering me up on a bad day.

    1. Gruhunchously says:

      Amen to this.

  24. Slothful says:

    From the way Josh plays, it looks like it would be possible to play a low-chaos run just by running fast enough from everything, rather than being stealthy.

    1. WJS says:

      Probably, although he dies a lot here going a very short distance. I’m pretty sure if he’d actually tried to do anything but just run past them, it would have been quicker.

  25. I finished this game on low chaos about a week ago, so yes, I think the stormy night works way better than a sunny day.

    Also, wait? Callista dies in high chaos? Nuuuu. (Btw, just HOW incompetent do you have to be to turn on a bunch of servants and straight up murder them, yet only manage to get 2 (3) and the rest get away? And WHY would you want to kill two brilliant scientists–the geese that lay the golden eggs?

    And, holy crap! Martin and Pendelton alive? I did not see that at all on my playthrough. They were dead up in the lighthouse when I found them.

    Finally: I enjoyed storming the lighthouse fortress. This was one of the few places I allowed myself to kill dudes, although it only ended up being a handful. I sneaked around turning all the defenses against the guards, ultimately trapping the survivors their own fortress.

  26. WJS says:

    Wow, I have a bunch of stuff I want to say about this one. Begin the wall of text!

    “It’s OK to kill everyone in this mission”
    Really? Why are these guards any different to the ones working for the old Lord Regent?

    I like a rainy atmosphere as much as the next guy, but “dramatic weather” is kinda cliché. It was pretty cool to have the epic final level be a sunny day. Dissonance is cool, like the frothing viking berserker who collects pink fluffy teddy bears or something.

    Third Lord Regent? Huh? What am I missing here?

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