Bear with me, babe, I'm trying to juggle the two. Damn holiday releases!

I just left prison, but I think I'll restart. We're honorless together!!

This game looks right up my alley even though I hadn't given it much thought before.  But I'm going to hold off for a bit.  Toger, how does it perform on the Xbox?  I'll likely go the PS3 route.

There's cover? Is cover different from "sneaking?" 

...I need to look more closely at the control mapping.

Okay, gotcha.

I'm amazed you have to hold a button for that - especially such an inconvenient one for long-term holding. Or do you just need to hold it when you want to lean?

In general this game feels like one that would play well on a console, though Arkane did a really good job with the PC options. The way you move, the most important powers, all seem like they'd work hitch-free on a game pad. Possibly even more hitch-free than with M&K; I'd love to have more than one power and one weapon active at a time, though I only have the two hands.

Impressions coming today, time permitting.

I hope I don't torture anyone into an outside-of-budget purchase, but this game is good.

Like, Thief good.

In fact it's basically Thief. Not sure if I'll love the mythology quite as much, but in general Arkane hit this out of the park.

The PC system requirements are crazy. 64-bit XP is supported but 7/Vista (64-bit) are recommended.

What's weird to me is that the high requirements don't seem necessary. I have a pretty solid gaming rig but not top of the line these days, and I don't think Dishonored has ever dropped below 59FPS when it's capped at 60... and that's with everything on and maxxed out. I have friends who're holding off on buying the game because they fear they don't meet the requirements. Part of me wants to say "you'll probably be fine," but I don't like to do that because some games just won't start if they detect your hardware doesn't cut the mustard, even if they'd run fine.

I wish they'd release a demo so people who are on the fence could test their rigs.

Togs, I'm pretty sure you can double back at any point within the mission - I'm not 100% sure, since the switch from the streets to the Overseer's Compound is kind of... bigger seeming, but I'm betting you can.

So far as I can tell guards do not respawn, not even zone to zone, and are broken into two types: those who have a basic patrol they stick to, and a handful in each area that seem to have the run of their zone. Their sudden appearance can make it seem like they respawn, but I don't think they do.

The rune by the Boatman is tricky to get using all stealth; those guys dumping bodies really command the area. Be careful!

I did find his secret room, observing it first by entering through the sewer as you did. The assassination objective is really cool in this mission because of the decisions you have to make. I managed to achieve what I think is probably the best possible outcome, but it took a lot more effort.

Rat swarms suck. I have had limited success tossing corpses near them, so they go to that rather than at me, but they strip a corpse so fast that you don't have much breathing room.