Dishonored

Dishonored has some admirable shooting, sneaking, stabbing, platforming, magicking, and even level-upping mechanics, providing some really amazing degrees of freedom in its assassination missions. But it isn't just that there are so many options -- what's amazing about Dishonored is that so many of those options are good.

Frequently in this kind of open-ended action game - like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for example - there end up being two or three golden paths through each scenario, which is cool, but clearly distinct from a true sense of agency. With the elaborate nuances of its level design, the meaningful differentiations in magic upgrades, the number and variety of optional side-missions, and the viability of combining and mixing-up approach techniques on a whim, Dishonored can actually play more like Skyrim than your every-day stealth action game.

There are shades of other games in here, too: as in BioShock, there are plenty of ambient objects to find and read, unraveling more of the game world's backstory; not unlike Batman's recent game outings, your character can't take too many direct hits before eating it, but you can use the environment to escape in a pinch. And these influences only contribute further to Dishonored's incredible sense of depth and variety. I feel like Dishonored might be the first game in a long time that I actually play through more than once, just to try playing through it a different way.

Of course, I say this having only, thus far, finished the game's first major assassination (and having only scratched the surface of its magic powers). Who knows where the rest of the game will take me?

Progress: Dealt with High Overseer Campbell