Dishonored is an exceptional action/stealth hybrid that is as original as it is fun to play. Its intoxicating world is built from the ground up to accommodate a wide range of possible play styles, each of which is excellent in its own right. It also happens to look and sound great. If you're a fan of games that make you feel like you're creating your own experience as you go, it doesn't get any better than Dishonored.

Dishonored is bizarre and stunning at once. Picture a steampunk take on Victorian-era London, and you have a decent idea of what Dunwall looks like. The city's suffering is palpable: corpses litter the street, plague rats scurry around, and the influence of the Lord Regent makes the city itself look oppressive. Propaganda covers the walls, walls of light block off access to certain areas (and disintegrate unfortunates who walk through them), hulking Tallboys strut around with a very Big Brother sense of purpose. Character models aren't lifelike, but Dishonored isn't really going for realism. Despite that, it can certainly get creepy; the Weepers are proof of that.

Dishonored features a terrific voice cast that includes some A-list talent. Susan Sarandon takes a creepy turn as Granny Rags, John Slattery (Mad Men's Roger Sterling) portrays the vigilant Admiral Havelock, Brad Dourif (Deadwood, among many, many more) plays the eccentric inventor Piero Joplin, Chloë Moretz (Kick-Ass) voices the Lady Emily Kaldwin, and Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) voices her caretaker, Callista. And if you hear a familiar voice spouting propaganda at you as you trek through Dunwall, you might be interested to know that the voice belongs to Carrie Fisher.

If you've got a good surround sound setup or pair of headphones, you'll get an aural sense of where everyone is. Corvo may have amazing powers, but he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head. The clever acoustics and spacially-aware sound design makes it easy to move confidently forward without having to constantly watch your back. If you're spotted, a wonderfully cringe-worthy discordant musical cue plays; the worse you make things, the worse the cue sounds. And speaking of music, the fantastic soundtrack by Daniel Licht is definitely identifiable as something from the man behind the soundtrack of Showtime's Dexter.

Dishonored casts you as Corvo Attano, the Lord Protector of Jessamine Kaldwin, Empress of Dunwall. Corvo has been sent abroad to seek aid in dealing with Dunwall's rat plague, which is killing everyone off. The mission goes poorly; the request for aid is denied and a blockade is put into place. If that wasn't bad enough, Corvo returns to the Empress minutes before a group of supernatural assassins arrive to take her life and abduct her daughter, Emily. Corvo is framed for the murder and thrown into Coldridge Prison to await his public execution. Six months later, on the eve of his execution, he is sprung by a group of loyalists who refuse to believe Corvo is guilty. They seek to depose the new Lord Regent, former Spymaster Hiram Burrows, by having Corvo carry out a series of assassinations. But the Outsider, a supernatural entity greatly-feared by virtually everyone in Dunwall, sees great potential in Corvo. He visits him in the night to give him his mark, an inscription on the back of the hand that grants the wielder extraordinary powers.

Dishonored follows in the proud footsteps of games like Deus Ex and Bioshock while very boldly establishing itself as its own beast entirely. You are set free in a series of quasi-open environments (think Batman: Arkham City) to go about your business in the way you want. You can rob people blind to fatten your wallet, or stalk guards from the rooftops, disposing of them in the manner you see fit. Regardless of your play style, you will have choices to make.

Player choice is something that is touted by developers everywhere, but I'm not sure I've seen such a focused game go to such lengths to fulfill that promise. Dishonored is all about options. There are a handful of entirely different but equally appealing styles of play in this game, and that's a huge part of what makes it so replayable. You can play it like an action game, exercising lethal force in Corvo's quest for vindication. You can also choose to leave all the guards alone or neutralize them in a non-lethal fashion. My personal favorite strategy is pickpocketing them, choking them out, then tossing them in a dumpster or teleporting them to the rafters to let them finish their nap. But the violent path is satisfying in its own way.

You can finish Dishonored without killing a single person, and for that, Arkane Studios is to be commended. You might think that playing a game like this in such a fashion would be frustrating and dull, but the play mechanics are specifically designed to give you interesting options. There are specific ways to eliminate your targets without killing them. Not only are they all brilliant, but they lend a substantial amount of depth to the world itself. Furthermore, the choices you make (and the size of the body count left behind) have repercussions on the endgame. This is one of those games you'll want to play over and over, if only to see all the things you can do. And if you want to explore every inch of Dunwall, there's always the BradyGames strat guide.

Dishonored takes us back to the days of games like Thief: games that had you saving the game at the beginning of every room only to experiment with each new situation, reloading once you finished or got caught. If you've got fond memories of those days, I can tell you already that this is the game for you.

Variable difficulty levels aside, Dishonored is smartly designed as far as stealth games go. You'll have to suspend your disbelief at the poor eyesight of most of the guards; they can't look past ten feet or so. However, it's necessary to make a game like this work. You can invest in upgrades that allow Corvo to see through walls and visualize enemy lines of sight.

Corvo's little visit from the Outsider ends up transforming him into the ultimate assassin. His first power (and the one you'll be using most of the time) is Blink, which allows him to teleport to areas within a certain range. Blink is a lot of fun to use, and it's perfect for a stealth game; teleporting right behind an enemy and putting him right where you want him is just as satisfying as quietly sneaking up behind him.

Dishonored is played from the first person, but it gives you the right tools to handle the elements that might not be best suited for the perspective. For example, platforming. Few first-person games get platforming right, and Dishonored counts itself among games like Metroid Prime as one of the illustrious few. Even though you can't see Corvo's feet (or shadow, for that matter), preparing to Blink gives you a visual cue as to whether you're going to drop down out of the air or clamber up to a surface.

Upgrading is standard for this subgenre, but still satisfying. Runes can upgrade Corvo's mystical powers, while Bone Charms can provide passive benefits. Both can be found by consulting the Heart that the Outsider gives to Corvo. These upgrades are always off the beaten path and almost always require that you use your abilities in one way or another. For example, an early Bone Charm lies at the other end of a nearly-closed garage door. Corvo cannot reach it on his own, but if he possesses a rat, he can slip through the opening and retrieve it with no problem. Dishonored is full of fascinating moments like this, and it also opens the door for some jaw-dropping emergent gameplay.

As your Rune collection increases, more powers and upgrades become available. The powers are well-designed and have numerous applications for both stealth and combat. For example, Possession allows Corvo to physically commandeer the bodies of certain animals: this can allow him to reach an otherwise unreachable place or escape from a sticky situation. However, with a few upgrades and a bit of strategy, he can stop time, possess a guard who just fired his pistol, move him into the path of the bullet, and watch the hilarity ensue.

I'm not going to call it just yet, but Dishonored is probably the most consistently awesome game I've played all year. It does so much, and nearly all of it is done extremely well. Between the atmosphere, the story, and the amazingly diverse gameplay mechanics, Dishonored is a grand slam of a new IP, and it deserves to succeed. Buy this game.