It has been many years since we last saw the legendary Agent 47 in Blood Money. After many kills and a betrayal later, we see 47 take on the most personal assignment in his life. He is to kill his former handler Dianna...
Things quickly go awry when personal feelings get involved and cause him to go rogue. Hitman Absolution in a way is the true next gen Hitman when compared to Blood Money. It simply looks stunning, plays more fluidly and the writing is still wacky and yet so engrossing. Oh, and you can kill your target in the most ridiculously violent ways that you can think of. Want to eliminate your target by electrocuting him in his puddle of piss? No problem bro! Set his head on fire with hair loss cream? Why not!
There are many ways to kill in Hitman, how you choose to do so in entirely up to you.
The single player features twenty missions that are broken down into separate parts. Through each one, the environment tells a story filled with its very own characters that go about their lives with great detail. Some of them are funny, others can be so interesting that you just sit around and listen until it ends. There is one part where you can watch an entire court case and learn about these characters. The writing and voice acting is so well done that it makes playing each chapter on its own worth it!
They do connect into an overall bigger plot that does good to sell off the humanization of 47 and why he is doing all of this in the game. At some points, you will feel literally every single portion of emotion for the fate of a good character. Remember the one from that first demo with the cops? That is there.
I do not want to give away any details about the main story, because it is worth very much to see through to the very end. It is very interesting how the development team put so much effort into making every new level something unique and rich. One minute you are in a hotel that is flooded with police, the next you are sneaking in a corn field trying to stealth kill a bunch of nuns.
It all is helped by an astounding attention to detail! Tools and objects liter the streets and a massive amount of on screen crowds bring a feeling of life that makes you believe that you ARE in it! Even for a console, the the world looks absolutely stunning, save for some textures that feel to be washed out and blurry. That means that if you choose to play this on the PC--then your level of quality will increase big time! Still, the game has to be one of the best looking and detailed this late in the generation.
May favorite has to be the town of Hope, South Dakota. You get a feeling of the classic 50s art decor--or maybe that is just me loving small towns that are stuck in the past. Its the small things like the cracks from the bricks on buildings, or how the light beams through the brush--things like that are just marvelous to looks at.
Yeah, having a good story and beautiful environments are nice. But what is the use if your gameplay is not good?.. Well, thankfully it is good! I have not been a fan of the Hitman games before, I never got that chance to play through Blood Money to the end, it just never held my interest and felt like it was mashed together to make it super hard.
Thankfully, this game has changed my outlook nearly 100%. It takes time to really grasp what it wants you to do, but thankfully it supports all kinds of playstyles. If you want to run through a mission with a high body count, you can do it. If you want to only kill your target and nobody else, you can do it. Want to blend both of them? You can do it.
Hitman is a thinking persons game and it requires that you have patience. Things happen at a slow pace and sometimes it takes proper timing for you to be that silent assassin that you dream of being. This is NOT a game for impatient people who go from setpeice to setpeice for that intense rush. It does have those, but it uses them sparingly to make the moment more effective.
New to the series is a system called Instinct. With this, you are able to see enemies in your area as well as your target. It is kind of like eagle vision from the Assassins Creed games so the idea is not brand new in any way. You can even execute a chain kill like in Splinter Cell Conviction, just hold down your Instinct button and press square or X; then you place where you want 47 to shoot and let him fly! It presents a more cinematic feeling to your kills and it becomes ultra satisfying to empty an entire room with the skill.
Playing stealthy can be a challenge. Hiding bodies is a must in crowded places, and using disguises will help you get into some places that your former disguise will not allow. Keep in mind however, what ever disguise that you wear will be noticed by people of the same outfit. For example; wearing a cop uniform in a police station will raise suspicion and make your sneaking more difficult. It can be tricky at times when you just want to get by unseen. Other times is makes you go "why?" At one point, your are in Chinatown and there are TONS of street vendors, you take one of there uniforms and suddenly they notice you... Like how in the world do they know EVERY SINGLE PERSON who works that area?!
Or even in an weapons factory with the security guards. It may be a little thing, but having to shield yourself constantly can get repetitive quickly. I mean, you have to use instinct to hide your face from others--seriously? Just moving your hand up to guard your face drains instinct?
However silly that may be, Hitman plays like a solid cross between stealth and third person shooting. It gives you the freedom to tackle your objectives how you want to, and it is worth it to go back and do it again in a different way.
Am I missing anything? Ah yes, Contracts. Contracts is like a forge mode that allows you to create your very own assassination assignments on any level in the main story. You simply walk the grounds and look for an interesting target. Once you find one, you kill that target in the way that you want your friends to. Some can be as simple as a gun kill, or creative with the poisoning of a pizza. You can set what disguises to wear as bonuses and how you want them to exit... Keep in mind that YOU have to be able to complete the hit to prove that it is possible. So every single one that you play is possible to complete because the creator has done it once before.
It is a shame that there are not as many options to tinker with to kill the target. I would have liked to have seen a set up where his friends kill him. Oh well, it works with what it had and does it well.
Hitman Absolution overall is a great game that has its faults. Visuals appear to be washed out on the consoles, but yet have a fantastic attention to detail and great lighting effects. The amount of atmosphere in each unique level is worth of praise in my book... The story has a great emotional attachment and does not over exaggerate to the point of ridiculousness. Contracts is a nice addition to challenge your friends to a nice match of who can kill better, but it feels like it needed more.
FINAL VERDICT: Hitman Absolution gets a B+.
NOTE: This review was conducted with the Playstation 3 version of the game. If there are errors in this review, then it will be updated to reflect the changes.
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