Dishonored: playing in 2D vs 3D on the siliconmicrodisplay ST1080

It is nice to be surprised once in a while in the jaded world of sequel ridden games releases. 2012 for me largely all the surprises have come from Indie developers .. that is until Dishonored unlocked on my Steam account. 

You can tell when the video game season is here from the number of official reviews for games released before the actual reviewed game releases. So we have had to wait reading canned reviews for several days whilst Dishonored waited to be unlocked on our Steam accounts.. This is usually a sign of fear on developers parts,but in Dishonored`s case they need not have been afraid, this game is going to feed the needs of Looking Glass fans long suffering without any more Thief or Bioshock for that matter ... Here is a little of the start of play...running at 1024 768 on Windows 8 Intel HD3000 i7 Lenovo X220T ..you get around 30fps ..so lets see how it plays in 2D first. ...

Playing in 2D on a 100 inch hmd screen is cool, but let's face it ...it`s not Danny Zuco .. slick back your greaser hair ..Sandy that`s my name don`t waste it ... cool now is it ..? No hip daddyos ... the way to play Dishonored is in 3D without ghosting on a 100 inch 1080p display like the ST1080 ..set your 3D display to top bottom to view the magic in the video below:

Dishonored's world reaches and plummets great vertical heights and depths, it looks nice in 2D, it will floor you, make you gasp in 3D ... 

Here is an example we look up and see a high high ceiling early on in the game in 2d

it looketh high no? Now lets try a 3D looksee : At this point in the game you are scaling a chain up one of those vertical shafts and in 3D you FEEL the height above you ....

and below you : 

and above you 

And in front of you stretching out into the screen... 

Playing in 3D greatly riffs off Dishonored`s penchant for using height or verticality ( made up word to cope with describing games such as Crackdown)  and much like a first time tourist in New York you spend a lot of your 3D gaming time looking up and damaging your neck in this game .. you can see me do it in the video below.. but it adds greatly to the experience of playing this game and you really get to appreciate the talent behind designing these levels, in Dishonored going vertical is a gaming mechanic and playing in 3D just makes it even more awesome when you leap down and take out a bad guy from 30ft above..

Foreground effects too are enhanced, ok so there is the staple separation of you weapon wielding hands and hud from the background in 2D it looks like this ..

and in 3D : 

so deska :

und so 

dozo: 

Und so we have the expected separation of yourself from the background ,but that does not a true 3D gaming experience make ,these shots should make you feel the depth too that you get when playing Dishonored in 3D . 

However what makes Dishonored such great game to play in 3D is that detailed environment , the vertiginous and deep level and even more important claustrophobic level design, check out this simple scene where we look down through a metal railing floor at a plague of rats about to .. ok that would spoil it.. no just check out how the metal grail occupies a completely different layer to the rats below  you can feel the distance ..you are walking above them when playing in 3D 

Playing in 3D enhances your immersion in the game world , 

so you feel more claustrophobic

the darkness has a depth to it 

as does the light 

and the nice people and places you visit ... 

( you can see the effect on the bad people you meet in the video above)

Playing Dishonored is thus impressive using Tridef 3D generic settings, this is my first play captured with FRAPS ... the game is running on just Intel HD3000 power .. which reminds me I have to go back and try System Shock, Bio Shock and the Thief series in 3D ... 

The game like Max Payne 3 defaults to an above below 3D setting if you have a 3D viewing device set it to top/bottom to view the pictures  and video of actual gameplay in 3D, note this is recorded live, 3D was not added later !  The Intel HD3000 continues to surprise me .. playing 3D games from a ultra portable like the Lenovo X220T connected to a 180g portable display like the ST1080 which gives me a 100 inch 3D 1080p view ...well that is the reason my gaming rig still sits unassembled ...... I do not need it ... !

As for Dishonored, you may have heard it is similar to System Shock, Deus Ex ( the JC Denton in a black trench coat one) or Bioshock or Thief even... Yes it does have similarities , but Dishonored is far more organic and this is the way so called open game play games need to evolve. You see in System Shock or Deus Ex you had choices ..but they were set  you could a) hack a door b) sneak past a guard c) fight and you would pretty much be aware of these choices every time you moved up to a door or enemy.Then you would go through your a,b,c of action power up loot and move on... 

In Dishonored everything is far more organic you make your decisions and you chose your course of action on the fly .. as events happen and you change your mind .. just take a look at me playing the game for the first time .. I am not consciously choosing to switch from stealth to action or vice versa, it just seems to happen and flow a lot more than it does in other games . This makes your experience quite different when playing Dishonored, than that say of Assassins Creed which has you move from a to b to stab c and run off .. just take a look at the video and see how many different ways of attacking each obstacle the game gets you involved in.. it`s as if they tapped into your gamers intuition... you want to try something ?You want to suddenly shift from creeping around to all out berserker mode? Dishonored will let you ... and playing in 3D I can tell you is the only to way to play and experience total immersion..well as possible as that is with todays tech. 

It`s 2012 and we game from Steam or the Cloud on ultra portables with integrated gpus , there are cobwebs in my gaming rig from lack of use, the heat of the sun 30 inch LCDs are off too .. as I am playing on a 100 inch virtual 3D screen in ghost free 3D which I am wearing ...!  

While casual console to pc migrants are purchasing their first brightly coloured ( soon to be confined to tweeting/facebook duty) gaming rigs ..the PC gamer is evolving and moving on ...come on Palmer get me my Oculus Rift soon... When you get hold of your first gaming 3D hmd the first thing you going to find yourself doing is gaming away from your rig more and more .. 

Not quite Gibson but we are getting there..in fact in many ways we are beyond that vision of the future .. and without the need for Panther Moderns ... thank the maker...!

So gamers light those hmds if you got them free yourself from your desktop and dive in to the 3D gaming extravaganza that is Dishonored using Tridef 3D.. and boy do I hate not spelling it Dishonoured .. 

Get Dishonored from Zavvi in the UK now 

Dishonored on Amazon UK

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