Hitman: Absolution

Just want to mention, this is my first and only experience with a Hitman Game, so I have no idea of the past lore/story. For what I played, I absolutely enjoyed my time with the game. The main thing that hooked me is the multiple ways you can complete the mission, and maybe finding ways to complete multiple objectives in one run. I am not the best "Hitman" in any respects, and sometimes I do "restart checkpoint" after completing a "challenge" to move to the next one but I had fun. My main gripe is the lack of adjustment of Field of View for these types of games. I have astigmatism and I do have trouble with it. Luckily, my glasses can provide some help to allow me to play up to an hour before I have to stop (unless I want headaches to set til the next day). Though I did enjoy the puzzle mechanic of how to "solve" a challenge, there are some that are simplified and there were lots of times where the "hitbox" of the game seems to glitch for me. (Instead of the trigger enabling a silent kill, the button prompt changes at the exact moment I press it to a punch and now I'm spotted and have alterted everyone.) So I wouldn't say it was all smooth sailing and there were bumps, but I still enjoyed it for what I experienced. Would I play another Hitman game of the original series after this? Probably not given this was the latest of the original series. So, my recommendation is. If this is on sale, give it a shot. I say there is fun to be had, as long as you are into the stealth genre or single player third person shooter. 4 out of 5. There is definitely replay value in it, but I'm not a completionist so I didn't finish all the challenges.

Thought I'd write a review, for two reasons. First reason being I have read that this game differs quite a bit from the games in the Hitman series and many fans were displeased with that. I have never played any of the Hitman games so I have no frame of reference. I can only say that so far, I am enjoying this game a lot! Gameplay, graphics, etc. Even the tutorial is not annoying :) Second reason is that this game runs smooth! To me, that is a big deal. With many games I either have frame stutters or crashes or both, not this one. Or I need to mess a lot with settings or configuration files before it does what I want it to do, which is something I don't mind (the satisfaction of successful tinkering) unless it is to no avail. Not this one. I can appreciate a PC game that just plays properly (in my case, and so far), in my experience that is somewhat of a rarity. My hardware is an old overclocked Phenom X6 1090T, a RX 580 8GB, 16gb DDR3, 360 controller. A more recent game that also runs great on my old beater is Prey (2017). I can appreciate that!

Certainly the most ”cinematic” of the Hitman games that I've played. Felt like I was star player in a really cheesy, high-budget action flick. Also the most divergent game of the series. Gone is 47's magic map – it was replaced with Spidey-senses. No more loadout screen – 47 has to be happy with the hand he's dealt. No more dialog choices – 47 was never a big talker anyway. Levels are more attractive than ever... as well as shorter and more compact. These are neither pros nor cons. A con would be the Quick Time Events injected into melee combat. I don't generally mind QTEs, but the prompts when playing with a keyboard seemed too hard to read for me, and ended up making close quarters rather frustrating. Thankfully, that can be avoided. Also felt like too many keys were used in general. A pro would be 47's new tag-and-bag skill... Point Shooting? Whatever it's called, the first time that I did it was certainly a highlight of my Hitman career. Slo-mo sniping is also pretty fun, and there are a couple levels that cater to that approach. Overall, I enjoyed the game. Maybe not my favorite (at least, Blood Money's ending was my favorite) but certainly not the worst (Contracts goes there).

I try to be open to games that do something very different from the genre, or even earlier entries in the franchise. My issues with this are not that it is unlike the first four. I 100 % respect the notion that maybe it was time to change things up. Certainly they had perfected it by this point. I do think that these changes were for the worse. There's less freedom the bread and butter of the series. On multiple occasions I found myself stumbling backwards into the ideal solution to certain missions whilst just doing basic recon, long before I was really starting to plan; or even just messing around, experimenting, doing something completely ridiculous. This never happened before this one. Certain of the changes just make things way too easy. I do appreciate some of the additions; it had gotten quite ridiculous by this point that every time the game wanted you to be able to hide in a certain area, there would be a closet that was man-sized. In this one there are variations on this, including, hilariously, a ball pit. Now you can hide in plain sight, by for example getting to a specific spot and pretending to mop. I would have loved if you were allowed to move at least slightly while doing this… I mean, how clean does that one spot need to be? But it does add another option. The plot arguably goes too sci-fi; one character is literally the size of the Hulk! I do think that the inclusion of a young woman that 47 is protecting was implemented significantly better than, for example, the 2007 movie adaptation that it was clearly inspired by. I mean obviously when something like that is released it brings in a bunch of new customers and you want to reassure them that this is not too different from what they just watched. There are more really cool settings, though personally I don't really like the choice to draw some of them out into multiple levels in a row. No, I wasn't fond of it in the earlier entries, either. I think a lot of the best levels of the stand alone ones.

Hitman: Absolution is the game that came out before Osamostaljenja studio IO Interactive, and without an episode format. In the game as Agent 47 you have a lot of options for making a mission with dynamic AI characters and different mechanics that make each mission different from the previous ones.