Hitman: Absolution

Absolution isn't a bad game but it's also not Hitman. It's square enix attempting to make the series more "mass market" but it fails at doing so because Hitman can't be forced or pigeon holed in the way this game was. If this was a standalone title that had no history behind it then I'd give it a 4 but instead it gets a 2 even though I think it's a game that everyone should give a try. I started playing the series with Hitman 2 Silent Assassin and I absolutely fell in love with it. I completed it 100% in it's hardest difficulty and finished every mission with a perfect rating in every way it could be finished. You see I bought the game and literally the next day I was dead on my feet (no puns intended) due to a severe case of pneumonia and bronchitis at the same time which is a combo I don't recommend lol. So I had plenty of time to sink my teeth into the game and while I expected to like it... I never thought it was turn into an essentially life long love of io interactive and the series itself. I always loved stealth games but this series took what I thought of the genre to a new level. Hiding in plain sight was never part of the stealth genre. It was be seen or die. So back to Absolution... I think Blood money didn't make as much money as square wanted (no western style title ever does) so they took advantage of the team developing a new engine for the series as the previous engine was showing it's age as it was about 14 years old. They also looked at call of duty blazing of store shelves and assumed incorrectly that more action was what everyone wanted. They assumed incorrectly as hitman fans generally look at this as the odd one out and it is. It's better than the 1st game but only because it's not clunky, it's modern. Still, give it a chance, just don't judge the series as a whole based on it or the developers. The latest from Io is nothing short of stunning but it's best to see how they got there and this is a step on that journey.

I just beat my first playthrough of the game (expert difficulty). The game gets a lot of hate from veterans of former Hitman titles. I'm one myself, and personally I thought it was great. I started playing Hitman back in the days of Hitman 2 Silent Assassin, later going back to beat Codename 47, and I've been keeping up with the series at my own pace since then, though I haven't played any of the games after Absolution. Absolution is very different from previous titles in that you are forced to complete one section of the map at a time, and the sections are relatively linear. In previous titles you could really plan out how you would complete your missions step by step before starting, and you don't have the freedom to do that very much any more. Now the stealth and the strategy is more at a micro rather than macro level, and that's perfectly fine for me. All it does is make things harder - you don't have a whole map to run and hide through, you can't evade enemies in huge previously cleared sections of map anymore. I enjoyed the story and actually found the game to be pretty hard, which was surprising because stealth games never are for me. I consider difficulty a very good thing, within reason. To be fair though, a good bit of the challenge was probably just in learning the new game mechanics. I confess that I did turn down the difficulty on the section where the main antagonist is going to blow up a roof you're on (I kept dying in less than 20 seconds), and from that I learned that you can actually turn the difficulty up and down without having to start the whole game over, which is always cool. Basically, great game. Doesn't deserve the hate. Different doesn't equal bad.

I really liked Contracts and Blood Money. In comparison, Absolution was a huge step back: - Linear tiny FPS-like levels instead of open world levels, divided into serveral parts between which you cannot go back to. - Saves reduced to checkpoints. - Horrible AI: 1. sometimes gets stuck in an activity, making the level unsolvable 2. gets suspicious when you run instead of walk, even if you're in another room - but ONLY if this room is off-limits to you, which is determined by your *disguise*! 3. doesn't even recognize if you pull their talking partner over a counter 4. utters completely inappropriate comments ("Hey, nice gun!" to an excavation helper that doesn't & mustn't wear a gun) - Frustrating "Restricted Area" system that penalizes you the moment someone sees you entering the possibly illogical area - Instinct and point shooting are illogical concepts - NPCs wearing the same disguise recognize you instantly. Makes sense if they're part of a small guard group, but not when you disguise as a seller on a Chinese market walking among hundreds of people. - Console-like controls map actions with fatal differences to same keys (garotte / close combat!) - Removing evidence is a complete pointless requirement for Silent Assassin status when 1) everyone knows you are there and 2) evidence consists of a notepad that was in the level from the beginning; what kind of evidence is this!? - Visual difference between standing next to a wall vs using it as a cover is almost non-existent and irrelevant, yet it decides whether the AI sees you or not: The cover function usually hides you better than it should. - No weapon selection as in Blood Money, but you still lose all weapons. So if you get the chance to use a sniper rifle, it is usually found in the place where you would want to use it anyway, removing the great burden of actually *thinking* - Ridiculous antagonists which are not on par with the series' previous villains. Proving yourself by "out-shooting a girl"? Err, yeah...

As a stealth action game, this falls more in line with Splinter Cell Conviction or 007 Blood Stone than any other Hitman game. As a Hitman game, outside of maybe 2 or 3 locations, this game falls flat on its face due to its ridiculously awful storyline, the busted disguise mechanics, and long stretches of linear corridors. The main problem with Absolution is that it does neither particularly well. It isn't as stylish or as fun as Sam's murder spree, and the plot isn't as entertaining as Blood Stone. The gunplay and takedowns do about what you'd expect, but it's just so bland. The only thing this game gets 100% right is the graphical style and environment density. The places like Chinatown or the streets of Hope are downright stunning when walking through crowds of people or listening in to NPC dialogue. It's just a shame the rest of the game didn't live up to its presentation. This is by far the worst Hitman game in the series (yes, even worse than Codename 47 with its rough edges) because it betrays almost everything the series did right in the first place. However, taken on its own, you will come away with a pretty stock standard third person stealth ACTION (emphasis on action) game.

First of all, the plot is utter nonsense, this wouldn't be a problem in previous games where the story usually took a backset, but Absolution makes the mistake of putting the story front and center. The story it wants to tell also isn't about assassination, forcing itself to constantly find excuses why Hitman needs to kill someone, by the end of the game it simply gives up, with some targets being blatant diversions that make no sense whatsoever. The maps design is terrible, almost gone are the mansions, compounds and other various open-ended maps that rewarded exploration and deliberate stealth, substituted by artificial corridors so constricted they wouldn't be out of place on a PS1 action shooter. This forces you to take one approach towards completing a stage that its developer pre-planned for you and simply try until you pull it off, its repetitive, grading and worst of all, boring. One would think these changes point towards the game being more of a third-person shooter than a stealth game, problem is, the shooting aspect of the game is poor as well. The AI's reaction time is glacial, it routinely makes absurd decisions, such as taking a light jog to the farthest piece of cover using a route that puts itself straight into your line of fire, the camera was designed with stealth in mind, with a narrow FOV that makes it hard to aim from target to target. The most frustrating aspect of it all is that all these problems could have been avoided, Absolution feels like a game that was made bad on purpose.