Kay, any game which can take you back to playing Thief is A Good Game Okay, perhaps not, but Dishonored is brilliant. I played it for the first time just over a month ago and it blew me away. Everything from the slick UI and sound design, to the beautiful environments and Corvo's fluid movement were so impeccably designed. I can see why some people found it hard to adjust to Bioshock Infinite's straightjacket afterwards! I want to do a chaotic playthrough of Dishonored now I've completed it with minimal casualties. The combat looked so smooth and satisfying it was a shame to play non-lethally throughout! Apparently it plays out very differently if you cut your way through the game though. The Knife of Dunwall DLC looks terrific but I'm yet to pick it up.

I've been playing Sine Mora recently and picked up The Swapper yesterday, which I can safely say, after ten minutes with it, is one of most gorgeous 2D games I've ever played. It's got all the signs of being a great game too - a very cool core mechanic and an intriguing narrative (written by Tom Jubert, the Penumbra and FTL guy) that taps into the idea of that mechanic and notions of the self. I'm getting Moon and Metroid vibes from it, which is just perfect for me. Like The Dream Machine, the graphics are all handmade from found objects and clay. The sound too is apparently made in the same way, from found noises, like in And Yet It Moves. Very cool in my book. I used to do a lot of sound recording and editing at university which I used in my screen work and it's such an exciting and enjoyable way of making something sound unique.

June should be a bountiful month for ps+ folk; from IGN:

For starters, five new games are joining the Instant Game Collection at various times throughout the month. The new games that will be free are: Deus Ex: Human Revolution(PS3), Machinarium (PS3), Saints Row: The Third (PS3), Orc Attack (Vita) and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward (Vita).

For those keeping track, that’s $154.95 worth of fresh, completely free games in June.

The following games are leaving the Instant Game Collection throughout the course of the month, at the date designated: Sleeping Dogs (PS3, June 4th), Closure (PS3, June 11th), Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (PS3, June 11th), Infamous 2 (PS3, June 11th), LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3, June 11th), SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny (PSP, June 18th) and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend (Vita, June 25th).

Kay, if you finished with a high chaos rating then I think you'll have got the darker ending which I haven't seen. There's a chance that things will have differed in other areas too as a result of this. I managed to keep my chaos rating low so I got the happier ending (I think you have to keep the death toll below 20% of the total number of guards/civilians per level to get low chaos).

I wouldn't want to say whether it's worth playing again seeing as I've only finished it once myself, but I can say that, depending on how thorough you were, there's a ton of stuff to discover if you're keen enough and plenty of things that can be handled differently. If I play again I'll be a blood thirsty maniac hell bent on getting a high chaos rating for the alternative ending. I'll also switch some of my decisions around to see what different things happen. As a more non-lethal Corvo I found it very difficult to resist getting stuck into all the weapons, equipment and abilities, they just sounded so much more fun than the sleeper hold and sleep darts!

xtal, I totally agree with your thoughts on the heart. I actually liked the idea of it, just not the execution. Click, listen, click, listen, click, listen, click, repeated dialogue, walk away-- on every person in the game, just in case. It was the same with the dialogue in general. Just give me Deus Ex: Human Revolution's two-batches-of-dialogue-and-you're-finished please. To my knowledge, nobody in that game had anything fresh to say after a couple of interacts which meant I could just crack on with things without having to OCD-interact for a third, fourth, fifth time.

As far as playing chaotic goes, I can only imagine it's a hoot because pretty much every game mechanic gets used that way guns, swords, mines, grenades, rats, wind, fire darts, etc. (rather than just non-lethal stuff like dark vision, blink, sleeper hold, sleep darts, possession etc.) and you don't spend most of your time hiding and waiting either. From what I've heard off Joel, who's played through twice -- one low chaos, one high (his final part covers the high rating, which I've not read yet) -- he says the differences are marked and quite illuminating in places. I think the experience is still a bit too fresh for me to be playing through again any time soon but I certainly would like to when my memories dull a bit.

Synonamess Botch said
Xtal you mentioned a while back that you had picked up a copy of King's Field The Ancient City.  Have you had a chance to play it yet?

 

I have not. Saving it for a rainy day, whatever those are.

Pokey, I also found L.A. Noire's final act to be its strongest. Too bad it took so long to pick up. I can't remember, but it was probably, as you said, the arson desk where the missions finally became a bit interesting. This may be a ridiculous complaint, but I honestly think there were too many cast members of Mad Men in L.A. Noire. To the point that I thought I was playing Mad Men: The 1930s: The Game at times.