Hitman: Absolution

[Triforce of Liberty]

Expert. You have to move patiently and sneak from cover to cover a lot, and pay attention to the enemy's LOS. You usually have two or three seconds to move away before they become suspicious , but sometimes it doesn't work and you have to lead them to a nice, quiet area to "chat."

[Triforce of Liberty]

You also have to activate instinct BEFORE they become suspicious. Otherwise, it will be as useful as a wet balloon.

[coaxmetal]

I've been playing this game, I think its pretty good. But, like a classic fan of older games in a series, I just don't think it lives up to the last iteration. I just got to part 2, and it seems like they shrunk and simplified the levels. The playstyle is fundamentally the same, but there just aren't as many options, you can't mess around as much.

Each level in Blood money was like a big playground, with lots of things to do. Most of them were constructed and had only one purpose, but they were fun and you could do them in any order. Absolution, at least the story mode, is like a series of tiny playgrounds with only one feature in each. This one has the slide. You have to go down the slide. Now the monkey bars. You have to do the monkey bars. You can't go back to the slide.

[Brannigan]

I have to admit the mental image of 47 swinging on the monkey bars while kids look really weird at him is pretty amusing

[coaxmetal]

its also just really awkward because hes tall enough to do it without hanging to he has to bend his knees in order to do it properly

[toblix]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/04/hijinks-square-say-threaten-hits-on-your-friends

I just realised I'm going to be long dead by the time this sort of thing is no longer typical video game marketing.

[Brannigan]

I can finally kill toblix for having small breasts, thank god

[toblix]

The thought alone makes me spit Mtn Dew all over my bronitor.

[Thrik]

Hahaha, wow this is absolutely splendid. Seems to have been down now though, although the button for it is still on the Hitman home page.

Holy shit. How does this even make it through the channels?

[vimes]

In the male friend version of that, 'her small tits' gives way to 'his small penis'. They probably believe that's equal opportunity.

FAN-fucking-TASTIC.

[castorp]

In the male friend version of that, 'her small tits' gives way to 'his small penis'. They probably believe that's equal opportunity.

FAN-fucking-TASTIC.

Ah, so there is a male version. I was wondering. No, I mean, expecting. Stupid stuff!

[brkl]

Thank god for this tool. I'm so tired of manually typing out my Facebook death threats.

[Thrik]

Yeah, it is somewhat relieving to know there are male equivalents. For a while there it was looking like their marketing department has somehow attracted all the misogynistic fucks of the games industry, considering the whole 'sexy nun' thing that kicked off before.

[youmeyou]

Is there a worst marketing team of the year award? Because I think these guys don't have much competition at their insane nadir of awfulness.

[melmer]

Hitmans getting the hd treatment

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2012/12/hitman-trilogy-hd-coming-in-january.html?m=1

[TychoCelchuuu]

They are literally remastering a remastering at this point (Hitman: Contracts is a remastered version of Hitman: Codename 47). I think that's pretty cool but it's also kind of funny.

[Thrik]

So, any of these oldies likely to hold up particularly well graphically?

[youmeyou]

I'm playing Blood Money right now at 1920x1200, and it looks decent. It definitely looks dated, but it's playable.

[TychoCelchuuu]

The original Hitman's graphics are basic to the point of surreality in some areas which makes replaying it a distinct experience that you may or may not enjoy.

[brkl]

If someone sees me playing this on Steam, it's because my little brother bought it for me as a Christmas present. I did not pay for nun assassins, nor did I ask for the game to be gifted to me

[Brannigan]

SCANDALOUS

[thainatos]

They are literally remastering a remastering at this point (Hitman: Contracts is a remastered version of Hitman: Codename 47). I think that's pretty cool but it's also kind of funny.

To be fair, Contracts only featured the best 4 levels from Codename 47, and added a few of it's own decent missions. That meat factory mission was as great an opening as video games get.

[Roderick]

In the spirit of slaughtering nuns I tried once again to boot up Hitman: Blood Money, but once again it demands that I play it (on Xbox 360) with a 60 hz tv. That should be no problem, but when I look around it's a common problem. I should try the standard cable instead of the HDMI one. Why is Hitman such a pain in the ass? No other game has these weird specs.

[Roderick]

Hey, whaddaya know, I hooked up the AV cable and this time Blood Money deigned my setup worthy enough to boot. In SD. It looks horrendous, like I put in an original Xbox title.

This is, in effect, a previous gen game. It has a familiar sense of stiltedness about it. It's only six years old, but in those six years we got Assassin's Creed and it's amazing to see the progression in terms of animation and just expected functionality within a game. Blood Money has that annoying quality where it uses a different button for each weapon, like you're wrestling with three control schemes at once. I was able to activate weapons with X, but also the right shoulder button, and by clicking the right analogue stick. This really shouldn't happen.

And then the difficulty is punishing, but not because it's hard per se. It's just obfuscatory. Hard to read. The game expects you (at least in the tutorial mission - which I had to restart six times on normal mode) to do all these things that you don't know how to do or do at all until it's too late. I had to strangle a guy but I shoved him. I had to push a dude but I syringed him. I knocked down someone that was supposed to be my human shield. This feels like a game from a time before prompts and QTE's and parkours. Hard to get into. I don't know yet if I'll persist, though I'll at least take in the next few stages. I still hear Rab's glowing recommendation in my ears, so he'd be disappointed if I quit too soon.

[youmeyou]

I'm with you on the interface, Rodi, but if anything those were the least of my problems with Blood Money: http://www.idlethumb...160#entry215520

It might also be less of an issue on the PC. Since there are more buttons to go around.

It's a learn by failing sort of system, not totally dissimilar to how Dark Souls does it (which is probably why I have trouble enjoying either game).

I'm 2 hours into Absolution and while it's beautiful and tutorializes the player way better than previous titles it seems to have gone too far in the direction of guided, story-heavy stealth game and feels very conflicted. The train station escape scene (that we saw in the early demos) is really quite exhilarating though. So it has its brilliant nuggets inside what is probably an overall mediocre package.