Late Wednesday night my paycheck hits and *ping* my cellphone registers the money has entered my account. I have been done with my Christmas shopping since the first week of December so this money is mine. I log onto the Playstation Store just as I do every week or so to see what specials they have going, as I am a Plus member and they regularly have sales and free games for me to snatch up before they expire. Hitting the new arrivals section I spot a new Dishonored DLC, Dunwall City Trials. I remember hearing about it when it was announced shortly after the game released. For only 5 bucks, I decide to give it a go, I click the checkout button and download the one gigabyte file and install it to my PS3. I had to work the next morning so I turned off my system and decided to play they next day. Now that I have finally had a chance to play the new levels, are they worth the money? Or do they fall short of the gap?
Dunwall City Trials is not your typical DLC, instead of new weapons or costumes or even new story levels, it offers "challenges." Which are pretty much mini missions that have nothing to do with the single player campaign that so many of us adored. Each of the 10 normal mission are separated into 4 categories: Stealth, the normal sneaky sneak missions that are most like the normal game. Action, missions based solely on killing enemies. Agility, these are missions that see how well you can maneuver using your powers. And the final type, Puzzle, which have you trying to kill enemies or specific targets in strange challenges using bend time and kill chains.
Many of the missions are hit or miss as most lack that charm the main game had so much of. The only challenges that have somewhat of a feel of the original game are the stealth mission which are great additions in of themselves. Mystery Foe is a mission that plays out like the Lady Boyle mission in the campaign. The target changes every time so you must find clues that are randomly scattered around the area. Each one gives a small hint about the target, find all four and your target is immediately revealed. Kill the target without finding all the clues and you get a nice score bonus. But kill the wrong target and you fail immediately. If you get discovered and the target escapes you also fail. So while being less forgiving, it has a style that fits well withing the main game. The other stealth mission Burglary, has you breaking into an apartment to steal 6 golden eggs hidden in the area.
The other challenges sort of fall short in terms of success, some more than others. There are some fun ones to amuse yourself with, such as the drop assassination mission where you must perform drop assassinations to get to the bottom of a level. It's very fun until you try to get a good high score and your jump is slightly off center, making you fail the attempt and alerting the guard. This basically makes you have to restart the challenge again...and again. It is a very cool challenge but can be frustrating. The shooting challenge is also neat. It flings whale oil tanks at you and forces you to shoot them with your pistol trying to hit as many as you can. Each round brings more and more tanks, some slowing down time or restoring health to keep you going for that high score. The only problem is the challenge doesn't mesh with the main game which gives it a very trivial feel to it. What does this have to do with Dunwall? Nothing. They are simply mini-games to keep to amused until you get tired of it.
The remaining missions are not bad...they just don't feel right. One is a fairly difficult race against a train in a Void obstacle course. The faster the better. Another has the basic race to the way point mission in another broken apart Void area. There is a mission where you must kill a certain number of enemies during a bend time sequence, this is a puzzle type but for the most part you a forced to just kill as randomly and effectively as you can in the 10 to 20 seconds you are given. Then there is the Kill Chain challenge where you must chain as many kill together as you can. Kill one enemy and kill another within a certain amount of seconds to perform a chain. The Action type missions are more or less a horde mode ripoff whee you must kill wave after wave of enemies. One of them has you using your crossbow primarily and have slightly different rules.
On some challenges, if you score a 2 out of 3 stars or higher, you unlock an Expert challenge for it, which is just a harder version. There is a hidden Emily doll hidden in every level, which may or may not give a score bonus and also counts towards the DLC's trophies/achievements.
Overall the DLC is mostly disappointing as it really has nothing to do with the main game, it is just a set of mini-games/missions that are meant to be fun distractions and to give more time with the game. Is that a bad thing? Of course not, the DLC most certainly is fun and can continue to be for some players who like to compete on leaderboards to show their skills, but for most of us, it is something we will spend a hour or two with and then forget about. So is the DLC worth the money? Maybe. It depends on what kind of player you are. Do you like leaderboard competition and does the idea of mini challenge missions set in the world of Dishonored seem appealing? Then you may want to spend the small $5 to download it. You won't be missing anything if you skip over the DLC though. If you are more interested in the story of the game I would wait until Spring 2013 when the next DLC, which involves Daud and his gang, comes out. The DLC is not bad, but it's not great either. It is a fairly average release that doesn't do much to distinguish itself as a must buy for fans of the game.
OVERALL: 3/5
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