Hitman Absolution Review

I'm not finished with Hitman Absolution, I haven't completed it either. I'm about 5 hours in and I don't see the gameplay changing- so I think I'm more or less qualified to talk about the game. The gameplay not changing isn't a dig at Hitman by the way, I think it's great fun. For the most part the gameplay is solid, there's some funny rag dolls now and again, manoeuvring  in small places can be a hassle & I feel like some aspects of the game aren't explained very well and I don't much care for certain aspects of the story- particularly the parts that focus on Diana- Agent 47's previous handler. Still, it's pretty good.

Now, Hitman is quirky in places- the animation during the cutscenes can look a little silly in places (everyone looks like a wax model in the rain & 47 always looks cartoonishly mad) and since they're pre-rendered you can open the door dressed as a chief, and walk in 47's trademark suit. Despite this the cutscenes are still well executed, but seem to suffer from what appears to be a stylistic choice I'm not particularly fond of- odd muted colours and seemingly impossible light sources. In places the cutscenes remind me of the style Max Payne 3 used- albeit not to such an extreme degree.

I've ran into no game breaking or annoying bugs to speak of, a few amusing ones have popped up though. For example, one of my targets that I had recently shot in the head & hidden in a dumpster expressed his irritation with my close proximity to him, posthumously of course.

 For the most part the controls are solid too, sadly in all their wisdom the dev's decided to include quick time events in places of any real hand-to-hand combat system & to enter precision mode (to aim super hard, opposed to the nearly perfect reticle anyway) you need to hold the trigger "halfway"  then press it all the way to take the shot. I can't tell you how many times I've fired before I'm supposed to because I'm trying to use this feature, after a while I just gave up using it in place of trusting the "unfocused" reticle- the difference between the two is negligible to be honest.

Another feature that I disagree with is the checkpoint system. Certain levels, depending on their length have checkpoints. Little symbols on the floor that you can activate that will allow you to respawn there if you die/choose to restart from checkpoint. The idea of these self activated checkpoints is cool because you don't have to use them- I prefer to do a level in a whole run rather in little segments- however, if you do choose to respawn all the enemies will respawn too. I feel like this is a silly choice, it doesn't checkpoint your progress in terms of what you've done in the level or the bodies you've hidden for example. All it does is respawn you in the same location, with everyone & everything you've done undone. If the enemies didn't respawn, I wouldn't be anymore inclined to use this feature- but it would've been better for it.

Another questionable feature, the "bullet time" kind of thing. Or whatever. It's another feature that is entirely optional, so that's fine- it just feels out of place. It allows you to tag a bunch of enemies as time stops. Then after you've tagged everyone you want, or the timer has ran out you fire. Allowing you take out large groups of enemies with relative ease. This feature feels deeply out of place in a game that is focused mainly on stealth, that being said- when you fail a mission or get detected, it's always the most fun thing in the world to go crazy banana's and kill everyone in a blaze of glory.

I was going to write two parts for this review thing where I write about videogames I sometimes play. It ended up being pretty short though, so I've just tacked it into the end of the first post.

Most of my notepad is just full of story related quirks that I don't really want to talk about for fear of spoiling the plot. So, concerning the plot I will say this- It makes little to no sense & it's not a story that really needed to be told, but I LOVE the places it takes me. Put that on the box.

I get the feeling that whenever I'll talk to my friends about this game, it'll be concerning the stupid shit I've pulled off or the ridiculous ways I've killed people. There is nothing wrong with that whatsoever, I don't feel the game takes itself too seriously & it is just plain fun. Like this one time, I popped out of a strippers cake and just blew away 5 dudes. It was so fucking sweet. After completing this game, the very first thing I did was try to complete all the different challenges, I'm also planning on playing it on the super hardest mode. So, in short (don't you hate it when people put the TLDR's at the bottom of the post?) Story is retarded, gameplay is solid and it is just the most super fun I've had in awhile.

See ya