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Hitman: Absolution

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God. I really want this game to be good, but there's just nothing I've heard of it that would justify expecting that. IOI have a history of filling Hitman games with weird examples of strong racism and sexism, and it seems like they've just gotten worse in that regard.

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Only just watched this trailer. Profoundly confused.

Was also vaguely surprised by how graphic they were willing to be with a man brutally killing women using his fists and wire (watched the European version of the trailer, though no idea if there are any real differences). Although the hypocrisy of basically making gunshot wounds invisible while zooming in fetishistically on the damage inflicted by punches and headbutts is still somewhat baffling.

I guess I've been watching too much non-premium TV recently, in which no one hits women and fights between men are accompanied by sounds only vaguely more realistic than a 60s Batman "ka-pow".

But yeah the trailer was dumb. I have no idea what it's meant to be telling me.

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There's a strangely non-awful Kotaku article about this today:

This, I think to myself, is what those girls, who love video games in the purest way possible, have to look forward to.

[…]

And I hope they get angry.

I've been restraining from saying anything about it on Twitter. As Mike Rose said earlier:

I bet IO's marketing people are sat watching Twitter and saying "Oops, we didn't mean for all this free publicity to happen :("

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brkl, I enjoyed the E3 2011 gameplay trailer that's set in a library. If only for the immersion factor. It seems to play not dissimilarly from DX:HR or Splinter Cell and, not having personally played any of the older Hitmans, I can get behind that.

This trailer though... is really not good.

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It seems to play not dissimilarly from DX:HR or Splinter Cell and, not having personally played any of the older Hitmans, I can get behind that.

I have, so I can't!

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I watched the trailer and said "what," in varying pitches and at various volumes, as layer upon layer of WTF-ery unfolded.

So, er, this is a series of cinematics about a man who kills sexy empowered nuns and steals their guns. I see no sign that the game is something I'd want to sit down and immerse myself in or identify with as a PC.

Then this happened:

[media=]

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Poor, even insulting marketing won't sink a game for me. This cinematic trailer did nothing for me, but I don't think I have it in me to feel real "outrage," even if I can certainly get behind anyone who's decrying the stupidity of the content and its possible implied themes. I can't defend being apathetic, but when I look inward, that's about all I feel about bad marketing at this point.

Hope that the game itself turns out the be something that at least lives up to the earlier gameplay trailer, if not past games in the series.

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Quentin Tarantino Presents:

Hitman Absolution: Kill Bill Edition

Now with 200% more sexy nuns.

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Beyond what the game is, this trailer brings the glorification of violence to new levels of both WTF and disgustingness. It's not just style over content, it's also a really bad judgement of style. As a human, I want no part of this. I'm not averse to violence, but there has to be something there beyond shocking imagery of latex-clad nuns (who, let's be honest, would never dress like that if they were real assassins) getting gunned down. Wow, even the black nun kicks it! Look how non-racial this video is!

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Quentin Tarantino Presents:

Hitman Absolution: Kill Bill Edition

Now with 200% more sexy nuns.

It bugs me that people (you and the RPS-chum - yeah, people) throw Tarantino in with this bullshit. I do see the similarities, but the part that is bad about this Hitman-trailer, the sexism and male-centric-gendered power-fantasy-claptrap, is what Tarantino totally does not do. He would have a woman kill those nuns and we'd probably know every nun by name and breakfast.

Aaaanyway, what renwood said.

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Someone should mock up a male monk edition of the scene where they all stand in front of the motel in a row, being secure with their sexuality.

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It bugs me that people (you and the RPS-chum - yeah, people) throw Tarantino in with this bullshit. I do see the similarities, but the part that is bad about this Hitman-trailer, the sexism and male-centric-gendered power-fantasy-claptrap, is what Tarantino totally does not do. He would have a woman kill those nuns and we'd probably know every nun by name and breakfast.

Aaaanyway, what renwood said.

Yeah, it's less akin to Tarantino so much as it is the shitty three-degrees-removed version of what a game developer shallowly thinks is cool about Tarantino. Alternatively, it is akin to what Zack Snyder legitimately thinks is cool about Zack Snyder.

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Yeah, it's less akin to Tarantino so much as it is the shitty three-degrees-removed version of what a game developer shallowly thinks is cool about Tarantino. Alternatively, it is akin to what Zack Snyder legitimately thinks is cool about Zack Snyder.

Not enough slow-mo to justify that snark, Chris.

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Here's an excellent response to the trailer:

http://critdamage.bl...-Video game.html

Thanks for the link, Nachimir. Sometimes I just brush stuff like this and the anger it entails off - it's so ubiquitous, getting angry about it seems pointless. That apathy is a problem.

I retract my 'what renwood said'-comment. I'm angry now. Get angry!

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Huh. I don't think I'll be able to play this game, regardless of how good the end product might be. This is just too much.

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Here's an excellent response to the trailer:

http://critdamage.bl...-Video game.html

I saw people say that the problem with the trailer wasn't "its sexuality" but moreso that it didn't truthfully represent the game's gameplay, as though depicting Agent 47 as gung-ho was more ghastly and shocking than depicting hypersexualised violence against women.

Can I be very concerned about both those things?

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I've been reading a few things lately about gaming's rape culture and it's a strange thing because I am almost completely disconnected from it. I rarely play multiplayer games, and when I do it's 100% of the time with friends and people I know online. So I never encounter even so much as trashtalking (which I think it silly at best, pathetic at worst), let alone 'rape culture'. I'm happy for it, because it's the sort of thing I have little defense against. It upsets me too much in real life, so having weird insults thrown at me would be horrible.

In this regard, I don't really know what to do with it. I want to somehow better the situation, but since I have no hands-on knowledge of the whole scene, just second-hand reports about stuff like that Streetfighter program, I feel unequipped to deal with it. I'll just link this on my twitter.

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Goddammit IO. I wanted more Hitman :( Why hasn't any indie picked up this type of gameplay yet? At least one that I would have heard good buzz about.

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Thanks again for that link to Brendan Keogh's article, to had seen it on twitter but hadn't got around to it.

I think he makes a lot of very valid points, in particular he highlights that it is not any of the elements on their own that are necessarily problematic. It's when you put them all in one place, and aim them at a certain audience that it starts toget messy.

This is worth repeating. These are not sexually-empowered women killers. These are women forced to dress a certain way and to do certain things by a man in order for other men to watch as another man brutally kills them. They are meant for no other purpose.

My instincts as to where the blame should be laid for this tells me that perhaps we should be looking fire up the corporate ladder than IO. To me Square Enix feel like a far more natural fit as culprits.

The most frustrating part of this is of course that in many ways this advert has been more successful than they could have ever hoped. They are going into E3 as the most talked about game, that what people say about them is universally good doesn't really matter.

So just remember folks every time this is mentioned on twitter a Square Enix marketer gets his wings.

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Great link, Nachimir. Glad to see a lot of critical thought being brought to bear here. Judging from the print ads the author posted from blood money:

http://www.sanjeev.net/printads/h/hitman-blood-money-2796.jpg

http://sleazette.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/shocking.jpg

http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen1.jpg

http://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/images/hitmanbloodmoney_print_01/screen3.jpg

this is part of an ongoing marketing strategy from I assume, eidos/squenix? Thanks to twitter saturation and more public awareness of the medium, this kind of shit isn't flying anymore and that's heartening to know. I really do hope the people behind this are paying attention, but it may be enough that video game consumers are now taking in a discussion that has been long overdue.

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Yeah, it's less akin to Tarantino so much as it is the shitty three-degrees-removed version of what a game developer shallowly thinks is cool about Tarantino.

I think that shallowness is the source of my apathy. This trailer contained no thoughtfulness; it was not produced by someone with a vision. It was created by people in a machine, looking to make a calculated marketing device, using basic, surface ideas of what would be "cool," inserting their brand in the form of 47 into an otherwise disconnected marketing vision.

I can be offended to the point of anger by intelligent, thoughtful arguments crafted by people diametrically opposed to my views and principles, because I know that they actually mean what they've said, have thought about what they said, and still landed somewhere deeply hateful or disgusting. In the case of a person who is spouting thoughtless ignorance, I feel pity, not anger. And, in the case of an advertisement, created in committee by people chasing potential sales and courting controvery, not to make any point, but only to spur interest in the brand, I feel... nothing, really. It feels wrong that they should be allowed to affect my sensibilities in any way at all, given how little thought was put into what was produced.

I agree with disgust at the themes people are reading into this. I just think it gives too much credit to believe anyone responsible for this was actually aware of those themes during conception or creation.

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I think that they weren't aware of those themes is quite a big part of the problem. Regardless of whether they're trying to antagonise, or just catering to an audience, they're creating a harmful piece of culture and reinforcing some of the most harmful bits of culture as a whole.

I'm not sure if it has a name elsewhere, but in the UK lad culture is an echo chamber, perpetually reinforcing the viewpoint that, in any context, misogyny and rape jokes are "just a laugh". At the core, it's a nihilistic viewpoint that drives people apart and into shallow, selfish lives. Shit like this Hitman trailer feeds it.

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I think that shallowness is the source of my apathy. This trailer contained no thoughtfulness; it was not produced by someone with a vision. It was created by people in a machine, looking to make a calculated marketing device, using basic, surface ideas of what would be "cool," inserting their brand in the form of 47 into an otherwise disconnected marketing vision.

I can be offended to the point of anger by intelligent, thoughtful arguments crafted by people diametrically opposed to my views and principles, because I know that they actually mean what they've said, have thought about what they said, and still landed somewhere deeply hateful or disgusting. In the case of a person who is spouting thoughtless ignorance, I feel pity, not anger. And, in the case of an advertisement, created in committee by people chasing potential sales and courting controvery, not to make any point, but only to spur interest in the brand, I feel... nothing, really. It feels wrong that they should be allowed to affect my sensibilities in any way at all, given how little thought was put into what was produced.

I agree with disgust at the themes people are reading into this. I just think it gives too much credit to believe anyone responsible for this was actually aware of those themes during conception or creation.

I don't see how that's giving anyone any credit. I also think people are too quick to assume it's always calculating marketers. I'm sure that's part of it, but it's not as if the creative side of the AAA game industry at large has a broad record of nuanced, thoughtful fiction.

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