Hitman: Absolution

[Hiphat]

So after the scathing review given by Adam Smith I thought I would leave off until it was on the cheap. And cheap it is, not many people have said anything about it really, its just well... their. Anyway I have finished the campaign but haven't touched the contracts part of the game.

The storyline to the campaign is utter bollocks. A chimp could write a better plot. A whole warehouse of chimps. I think the reason they did it was to involve some kind of emotion in a Hitman game. Why oh why? Hes 47, a mass murdering killing machine, bred to have no emotions. To force that emotion in a game and to someone like 47, its got to be one hell of a plot, i'm talking about game of year stuff here. Alas it wasn't to be, almost teenage plot writing at times. Highly embarrassing stuff. Sticking to Blood money type of missions would of been a whole lot better. Oh and special mention most go the characters in the game who are so boring and stereotypical I cringed when a new Mexican or when "The Saints" reared its ugly head. Infact when I killed the lass 'boss' he was just a nameless face to me, like a real hitman bro... or maybe that was the whole point?...fuck it, I don't know. Its a story right, you need interesting people.

Some of the levels are downright shit, evading cops springs to mind. This is a murder simulator not fucking Pacman. It does get better eventually but they are quite small. It does that dishonored trick of doors that lead to loading screens but in a poor way. And smaller levels. The killing itself is very good, very satisfying. Breaking a neck and then stashing the baggage will probably never get old. There are quite a lot of guns in the game but I never use them, only his Ballers. You can use lots of items that are dotted around the levels and they have some good animations to them when you perform the dirty deeds.

Another moan is with the points system. I hate it with a fiery passion and there is no option to disable it. I don't care if I get minus points for killing a "non target" or if they see through your disguise (believe me they will, even through a snow storm and they have no eyes, they will see you) but its up their, mocking you because other people have done better and your just shit. I see why they have done it, so you don't go in guns blazing but a option to disable it would of been a lot better.

There is something there, hell is kept on pulling me back in but I don't know, its just a all round average game. Would I play is again? probably, in about year and definitely not the story mode. Anyone else play this? Thoughts?

[universe]

I really liked it. Not as much as Far Cry 3, but it was very nice.

[Gwilym]

YOU AIN'T HITMAN; YOUR STORY'S A JOKE
YOU SHOULD PACKAGE IT WITH A LAST SMOKE AND SIX FEET OF ROPE

To be fair, the series has always been pretty awful with stereotyping; the tutorial level for Hitman Blood Money is so hilariously awful I'm surprised it's not more widely known and mocked for its bullshit. I think the best part was the music the black people* are listening to, which literally consists of a crunchy beat and a guy saying "Yo! Hold up! Aight, check! Ch-ch-ch-check! Motherfucker. Motherfucker. Yo, hold up!" I mean, that's openly and vitriolically hateful.

The Saints may have been horrifyingly embarrassing, but I think they were also a bit inevitable. It bugs me when people do that hand-wavey reading of Blood Money where everything's hypersexualised and crude because THAT'S HOW 47 SEES THE WORLD, when it's so very clear that it's actually because IO are just kind of dicks.

*the only black people in the entire franchise, as far as I recall

[baboonanza]

Yeah, I'm currently playing Blood Money for the first time and while it's a lot of fun I have wondered why people were complaining about the bad taste in Absolution when it's predecessor is so tateseless itself. Absolution is simply imitating Blood Money.

[Drake Sigar]

To be fair, the series has always been pretty awful with stereotyping; the tutorial level for Hitman Blood Money is so hilariously awful I'm surprised it's not more widely known and mocked for its bullshit. I think the best part was the music the black people* are listening to, which literally consists of a crunchy beat and a guy saying "Yo! Hold up! Aight, check! Ch-ch-ch-check! Motherfucker. Motherfucker. Yo, hold up!" I mean, that's openly and vitriolically hateful.

Not to mention there seems to be one model for each gender. Every woman has double Ds with an hourglass figure, and every man (including 47) is a roided up pro wrestler with a neck as thick as a rhino. I didn't remember any of that crap from when I'd played it upon release, but when I played recently it was really noticeable and did bother me.

[Gwilym]

It bothered me at the time, but somehow I had no problem seeing past it. These days I'm certainly less patient. I suppose at the time it was the only game in town, so to speak. Most of the industry was doing this sort of thing; Blood Money just distilled it. I also know there were a few years in the mid-00s where political incorrectness was genuinely hip, so I'm sure that's part of it too.

Now that the industry as a whole has dialed back the general cringe factor (somewhat), if a game makes me wince every time a character does anything other than be shot by me, it's likely to make me want to stop playing it, simply because there are plenty of alternatives that won't do that. Back in the day I'd just grin and bear it, knowing it was roughly par for the course, in the hope that eventually I'd be able to shoot them. I think in this sense Absolution is a game out of time (though it also has shitloads of 2012 trappings, so perhaps this isn't the best argument).

I'm kind of surprised nobody from IO actually said "but you loved it the last time we did this!" during the various bad taste controversies. I honestly think it's kind of a fair defense when you think of how badly Kane & Lynch 2's unique, unapologetic and near-flawlessly executed aesthetic blew up in their face. They tried to do their own thing, they got booed. Now they've tried to do what they knew the audience liked, and they got booed.

edit: it may seem odd that I've shifted from calling IO dicks to calling IO victims of the times to calling IO visionary artists, but I do actually believe all three. K&L2 absolutely embraced the creators' dickishness, being possibly the first game made entirely out of middle fingers, which is a stunning artistic vision if ever I heard one

[DaftPunk]

Oh my,who cares how black people are potraited,we care for good gameplay which was present in all previous hitmans (Expect first one..) and which lacks in new hitman.

[Gwilym]

Oh my,who cares how black people are potraited.

Dear lord. Really? Ok:

1. pretty much every Westerner born in the past half-decade
2. in this particular context, not enough people, but probably more than you think
3. certainly more people than those who care about the portrayal of Serbians in GTA4, which I know bothered you
4. black people

Anyway, you've wandered into the middle of a discussion about stereotyping and portrayal to let us know that we're actually talking about gameplay, so thanks; that's a startling revelation that makes me see the entire thread in a whole new light

[Drake Sigar]

You could say that about anything - sexism, racism, homophobia, who cares how they're portrayed as long as the gameplay's good, right?

I'm not saying Lee Everett being an honest to god non-stereotypical relatable black man is more important than other elements of The Walking Dead like story, but I think it says something about the industry that I noticed and welcomed it.

[DaftPunk]

Dear lord. Really? Ok:

1. pretty much every Westerner born in the past half-decade
2. in this particular context, not enough people, but probably more than you think
3. certainly more people than those who care about the portrayal of Serbians in GTA4, which I know bothered you
4. black people

Anyway, you've wandered into the middle of a discussion about stereotyping and portrayal to let us know that we're actually talking about gameplay, so thanks; that's a startling revelation that makes me see the entire thread in a whole new light

Its not like ordinary black people are presented like this.. These blacks in game are dillers,gangsters,so you don't have to be offended for christ sake.

[Sketch]

I hate how women in the game are presented too.

Still, I thought it was a good enough stealth game, and showed some good levels that did feel fairly Hitman-y but overall was disappointing for a Hitman title.

Blood Money certainly isn't the perfection that some fans like to think it is, but it's the formula they should have refined, rather than what they've gone with.

[Gwilym]

Its not like ordinary black people are presented like this.. These blacks in game are dillers,gangsters,so you don't have to be offended for christ sake.

Thanks for your permission to not be offended, but who cares if I am? Makes no difference. I'm saying a particular thing is shitty; if you think I'm wrong about it, fine, argue that. But arguing I shouldn't have noticed in the first place just seems pointless.

Also, ordinary black people aren't presented like that because they don't exist. The only ones we ever meet are gangsters and killers. Do you not see how that makes the portrayal worse, not better? Also, every bit of their behaviour and dialogue is defined by their unrelenting cartoonish blackness, not their criminality. Honestly, this is like saying Fagin's not a Jewish stereotype because he's a thief, not a Jew.

Anyway yeah, I was hoping someone else would cover the gameplay, since I've talked about pretty much every aspect but that*. If they could do it without aggressively dismissing everything I just said, that'd be ideal, but I'm flexible. I also feel like I missed the opportunity to make a decent "none more black" joke, so someone should try and do that.

*Music! Blood Money has an incredible soundtrack. Like, one of the best, ever. The track 'Apocalypse' is so perfectly Hitman, which is why it freaked the shit out of me when I discovered it's actually an old Megadrive track from the start of the composer's career: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...KzBe_zs#t=124s Madness.

[Tritagonist]

I actually like the Contracts mode somewhat. You get to use all the maps and randomly pick up to three targets, kill them in any way you want, and when you leave the level it becomes a 'contract' that others can attempt to do the way you did. I've seen and played a few featured contracts that were very hard indeed and arguably more fun than the missions created for the main game.

[Curry]

I thought it was terrible compared to Blood Money. I got up to the wrestler and then I just didn't want to play anymore. All the levels are chopped into bits, so it doesn't matter if you mass-murder one section and then walk through a door and become all sneaky again. The story was absolutely terrible. The wrestler grabbing you in a cutscene and forcing you to fail the assassination is a typical example of the stupidity of this game. 47 becomes emotional for no reason. Had to use a trainer to make disguises work. Instinct mode, not being able to choose your equipment, it's all a step backwards. Why?

Bleh, it's a sad game. Imagine if they refined Blood Money into a more subtle game with varied levels where you're just set loose to do find your own way. Instead, we got this. I don't think we'll ever see a good Hitman game again. I thought it was going to be bad when it took a public outcry to get the freaking voice actor for 47 back instead of whoever they chose, and I turned out to be right.

[fiddlesticks]

Stereotypes in Hitman: Blood Money? Why I never.

I actually kind of enjoyed the story in Absolution, mostly because of how unashamedly ridiculous it is. There's not a single element in it that could in any way be considered serious or mature. Our villains are an over-the-top Southern billionaire stereotype, a creepy old man who swears in ever second sentence, a hillbilly sheriff and a group of nuns wielding rocket launchers. It's definitely a game you're inclined to laugh at rather than with, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

My problems with it mostly stem from a gameplay perspective. Blood Money was sometimes clumsy in its execution, but at least it was clumsy because it tried to give us something genuinely unique. Absolution is a lot more refined in many ways, but it also lost what made its predecessor so memorable. It's not a bad game per se, but it's disappointingly mediocre and it's not the Hitman game I've been hoping for.