REVIEW: Dishonored Rat Assassin

Title: Dishonored: Rat Assassin
Platform: iPad / iPhone (reviewed on iPad 2)
Developer: Bethesda
Publisher: Bethesda
TL;DR: Move over New York, Dunwall’s got the big bad rats in this one.
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In a morbidly comical twist of irony, I was suddenly reminded of Bethesda’s whole “Scroll” trademark battle sometime last year. Turning on Dishonored: Rat Assassin, and I started laughing. This game is, in a nutshell, a re-skinning of Fruit Ninja, except with rats. Plague Rats. Those fascinatingly cute, writhing, beastly rats, all waiting to kill you.

I’m seriously not even…I’m not even kidding.

Just think, for a moment, on Fruit Ninja. What are you? A ninja. What are you doing? Slicing fruit. In Rat Assassin, you are an assassin. What are you doing? Slicing rats. The rats bounce up into your screen not unlike the fruit in Halfbrick’s instantaneous hit, and you even have grenades floating around. They look like the kinds of grenades your foes will give a toss at in the game. Of course, Rat Assassin‘s aim is to get you slightly acquainted with the world of Dishonored. It’s not like Arkane’s aggressive marketing campaign hasn’t already caught your attention.

So here you are, slicing away at your rats. They make their adorable squeaking sounds before being splattered all over the background. They fly across your screen in a Superman pose as you cut them in half. Extra points are awarded if you “dice” them, meaning you slice them in half then cut off their heads and tails. You can even unlock new backgrounds (a map of Dunwall, shipyard crates, a battered and scratched piece of metal), new blades (a red blade, the electric blade), and charms.

There are also three different modes for Rat Assassin: Timed, Assassination, and Challenge. Timed is much like Zen Mode — you’re left with nothing but 90 seconds on the clock and as many rats as you can slice and dice. Missing one as it falls away won’t count against your HP meter. Assassination is much like Arcade — you’re tossed bombs here along with rats, and your unlocked inventory will also only show up here, except for your trusty blade. Your blade will be used in all games, but health vials, magic vials, and charms you unlock won’t be in play unless you’re in Assassination mode.

Challenge mode, however, is a little different — rats are tossed in front of you, in formation with bombs, and you must either surpass a point mark or a rat count mark in order to move on to the next puzzle. They start out very simply, but will eventually evolve into something more complicated that requires precise slicing.

Perhaps the one difference is the appearance of an HP bar and an MP bar. These bars are displayed, red and blue respectively, in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. One bomb doesn’t instantaneously kill you — it will take at least three bombs. Throughout your game, you will also get the opportunity to break open health and magic vials that float across your screen, replenishing your drained health and mana. But what is the mana for? For slowing down time, that one ability that keeps getting showcased in every single “how to kill” Dishonored video. Hitting the hourglass symbol by your mana meter allows you to slow time, and in doing so, you have greater control over not hitting those grenades, which will come fast and furious the longer you last in a game of Assassination.

There really isn’t much more to say about Dishonored: Rat Assassin. It sure is kind of morbidly funny, if not absolutely adorable and horrifying to slice furry little rats in half as they float across your screen in comical poses, but this is simply Fruit Ninja at its heart. If you really enjoyed making a fruit smoothy out of all the delicious little morsels, then you might enjoy carving some rats in half. If you can’t really stomach cutting the little critters in half or if you have something against animal violence, then don’t bother.

Squeak squeak squeak.

• It’s fun, cute, silly, and horrifying all at once. What more can you possibly ask for?
• Slowing down time at will isn’t a pain in the ass like waiting for a freezy banana to come across.

Squeak squeak splort.

It’s Fruit Ninja. Again.

Dishonored: Rat Assassin is currently available for iPhone and iPad for free on the App Store.

Family Focus
Uhm…you do realize this is a game about cutting rats in half with blood flying everywhere, right?