Hitman: Absolution review (GameDwellers.com)

This is my review of Hitman: Absolution as seen on GameDwellers.com. To read the review there along with other great articles, click HERE.

Six years after Blood Money’s release, Agent 47 finally makes his return in Hitman: Absolution. It was an interesting road to release as there was quite a bit of skepticism towards the changes IO Interactive had made to the Hitman formula. Screenshots and gameplay videos made longtime fans nervous as this new game seemed to focus more on action than stalking your target from the shadows. Even so, IO Interactive promised that this story-driven entry would deliver the Hitman game fans have been waiting for. Does Absolution absolve Agent 47 of his sins, or does it condemn him?

The stories in previous Hitman games have always been somewhat confusing since the missions intertwine i.e. the opera mission from Blood Money taking place before Hitman: Contracts. That is not the case with Absolution. In the aftermath of Blood Money, Diana, Agent 47’s handler with the Agency, has gone rogue. Because of this Agent 47 is sent to end her life and makes it all the way to her bathroom before putting a bullet in her stomach. However, as she lays there on the blood-soaked floor 47 listens to her last request and promises to fulfill it: protect a young girl named Victoria who was being experimented on to create the perfect killer. Since 47 understands what the girl must have been going through he takes her under his care. Unfortunately, there is more than one person searching for the girl and 47 must visit numerous locales to protect her from these villainous characters.

It’s not exactly mind-blowing, but the story does add some humanity to this seemingly emotionless killer. It proves that he does value honor and loyalty; and that there are people he does care about (besides the large paycheck wired to his account). It also delivers a more cinematic experience rather than placing 47 in random locations to kill his target. He goes to these different places in this game because the rabbit trail has led him there.

Is the focus on story necessary? Probably not; but it didn’t hurt the game at all. The story is interesting enough that once you start, you’ll want to see how it ends. Granted there are a few unanswered questions that will undoubtedly arise by the end of Absolution, but I won’t spoil those for you as they may be answered in the next installment.

The biggest changes IO Interactive made was to the gameplay. Gone are the large open maps with numerous ways to infiltrate your way closer to the target. Instead, missions are condensed into smaller, slightly claustrophobic sections; several of them having no target to assassinate. Each mission gives 47 a destination or target (sometimes multiple) to reach, but this doesn’t technically result in the game being linear. Instead, players often have multiple ways to reach the level exit or assassinate their target. Veteran Hitman players will miss the freedom from past games but there is a decent amount of variety to warrant multiple playthroughs of certain missions.

I write “certain missions” because the game is best when Agent 47 actually has targets to assassinate. There are a few missions that focus on simply evading the police or armed guards using the cover-based system designed for the game. For the most part, these missions are not enjoyable. They are often comprised of hiding behind chest-high walls avoiding enemies like they’re the plague. They can also be extremely frustrating when trying to complete them without being spotted.

While, on lower difficulties, you could shoot your way through to the exit killing anyone who gets in 47’s way (and due to frustration, there will be many who choose this option), that’s not the way Hitman is supposed to be played especially since it will destroy your overall score for the mission. Sure, the gunplay is the best the series has to date (that’s still not saying much) but 47 is supposed to be a ghost. Those who attempt to play the game this way will be making great use of the restart checkpoint option for a couple reasons.

The disguise system this time around is reminiscent of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, but much harsher. If 47 takes a disguise that others are wearing, they will automatically become suspicious of him when he walks into distance. However, the NPCs in different uniforms have no inkling of suspicion. The problem with this is that NPCs wearing the same outfit become suspicious for no apparent reason. 47 could be walking casually down the street and yet the every person wearing the same clothing knows he’s up to no good. I do understand there are justifiable reasons IO Interactive went down this path. In reality, I know I would be suspicious of someone I didn’t know dressed up in uniform walking into my job. Also, if IO Interactive went the way of Blood Money, the missions would be too easy.

The problem is that there isn’t a balance. Players do have the opportunity to use “instinct” to sneak past the nearby enemies by blending in. Instinct is this yellow meter that allows 47 to blend in, to see where nearby enemies are located, and to point shoot which has 47 marking his targets before quickly taking them out. However, the blending in ability consists of 47 simply ducking his head or covering his face with his hand/hat which I personally feel shouldn’t be governed by some meter. It also costs a considerable amount of instinct to use this ability so decide where and when wisely. You also have a limited amount of time to blend in. On normal difficulty, enemies’ reaction times are tolerable. If you’re playing on hard or higher on the other hand, enemies can spot you in a second or less.

What’s even more frustrating about the disguises is the fact that 47 never wears a fallen enemy’s mask. In one mission, I subdued a member of SWAT hoping to wear his mask and avoid any suspicion down the road; but 47 didn’t put it on! He took the helmet and goggles, forcing me to still play hide-and-seek with the patrolling police officers. The funny thing is that the unconscious SWAT member (now undressed) wasn’t wearing a mask which leads me to believe 47 most likely stuffed the mask in his pocket as a souvenir.

This leads me to the next flaw: the AI… to an extent. The AI is fine when patrolling their routes or overwhelming you with their numbers when you’ve been spotted. The problem lies with their ability to detect you when you’re in disguise. Every cop, street vendor, custodian, paramilitary member, agency recruit, and armed security guard apparently knows everyone who works at the same job because, like I stated earlier, the moment you walk by someone in the same disguise they immediately become suspicious of the imposter. They also have eagle vision to justify their suspicion as enemies can spot 47 even when separated by great distances. It doesn’t even matter if you have 47’s back turned to them. If any part of his body can be seen by the AI, you have the chance of being called out as an imposter.

Be wary: if you do get called out in your disguise, you have no choice but to subdue or kill the psychic one who found you because that NPC will follow you wherever you go. I once ran out of their sight of view and hid in a container. As I peeked out to check if the coast was clear, I saw the guard turn the corner, walk right up to the container, and pull his gun out on me. How did he know I hid in that container?!

Thankfully, there are rare disguises that allow players the chance to move around freely which is a nice change of pace from hiding behind countless walls. The thing is, there are missions where the disguise system works and the game comes together beautifully. As I stated earlier, the missions that have you discovering alternative ways to assassinate your target are great and offer numerous disguises to work with. It also works because there are multiple types of NPC’s in the vicinity so you don’t have to hide from every one of them and their eagle vision. When this happens, and it does apart from several missions, Absolution feels like a Hitman game. I really enjoyed going back and experimenting the many different ways I could end the King of Chinatown’s life.

This is why “Contracts” is a great addition to the franchise. Contracts is not a multiplayer mode. Instead, it asks players to create their own contracts for other players to complete and compete for the best score. Players must mark their own targets, complete the objective how they choose, and then publish their contract for others to try and accomplish. Competing players will be asked to complete the contract exactly the way the creator did, all the way down the same outfit and weapon. It offers a great challenge and plenty of reasons to continue playing Hitman: Absolution.

The sound in the game is impressive. The orchestral sounds will make the silent kills that much more exhilarating. The music also changes to fit the atmosphere of the game. Agent 47 will have to make a trip to South Dakota where you will be greeted by tunes complimenting the open land.

I especially enjoy the attention to detail IO Interactive put into the game, such as the muffled screams of a soon-to-be subdued enemy and 47’s calm “shhh” while putting them to sleep. When taking a direct approach to your target or exit, the weapons sound powerful as rounds connect to create a disturbing sound of flesh tearing apart.

The voice acting drives the story as each character introduced has their own unique personality (some you may even know from other games). Even the guards’ scripted conversations are interesting to listen to at times.

Accompanying the sound is the notable look of the game. Aside from some questionable character models, the game looks good. Environments are amazingly detailed and varied throughout the game even if they are smaller than what Hitman fans are used too. The lighting in some of the missions can be a bit much, but it’s nothing game-breaking.

Now, the big question: Is Hitman: Absolution a real Hitman game? Yes. The game, although much different from its predecessors, is still a game that belongs in the Hitman franchise. Is it as good as Blood Money? No; not at all. However, it is still a decent game with great production values despite its two frustrating flaws. When it works, and in most missions it does, the game truly shows what IO Interactive is made of and that they can still develop a great Hitman game. The only real problems are that a balance is needed with this new disguise system and the psychic AI which IO Interactive is rumored to be looking into it. And if they do decide to patch those two flaws, I promise to update this review according to the patch.

If you’re a Hitman fan and have been eagerly awaiting this title in the series, it is worth the buy. If you’re new to Hitman property, I’d suggest renting it before going all in. Either way, this a new title that all must at least try out because the original assassin has finally made his return.

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[PROTOTYPE] Review (Xbox 360)

See, I told ya I would post on either Tuesday or Wednesday! Read it, enjoy it, love it, hate it, admire it, despise it, commend it, degrade it, copy it, paste it, send it, spread the word about it, and/or whatever else you can come up with. Well now for the review and thanks for reading!

[PROTOTYPE] Review

Imagine waking up in morgue with two scientists about to cut you open and you have no idea who you are or why you’re there. Well, that’s only the beginning in this third-person, open world, action-adventure game, entitled [PROTOTYPE]. Now this game was developed by Radical Entertainment whose previous games consist of Scarface: The World is Yours and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction; both fun open world games based on their movie and comic counterparts. As a matter of fact most of Radical’s games are open world so you’d hope that they know what they were doing by now to make a good, stand out sandbox game considering the fact these types of games are a dime a dozen today.

Well, that’s what they attempted to do with Alex Mercer, the newest ill-tempered, testosterone overflowing protagonist in video games today. Alex is a shapeshifter that can transform himself into anything excluding cars, tanks, helicopters, buildings, land posts, coffee cakes- Okay, well he can’t transform into anything but he can manipulate parts of his body into blades and gooey wrecking balls. He can also become anybody in the city a.k.a. the nine different models of people sprinkled throughout Manhattan.

The game begins with a pretty cool cinematic of Alex telling us all how crazy and antiheroic he is i.e. I kill people and blow things up. After the cinematic, you can finally push buttons. You are thrown right into the fight with the objective of kill the soldiers that are pumping you full of lead. Your health is displayed in small bar on the top left corner of the screen which will go down frequently with the lead poisoning you’ll be receiving. You find out you have a huge array of powers such as claws to slice and dice, hammerfists to ground and pound, a huge blade carve bodies up, and a whip-like tentacle to probe up people’s behinds. Cool, yes but it’s too bad you don’t know how to use it. But even so, completely disemboweling the unlucky souls that get in your way brings joyful tears to the eyes. You proceed down the street in a linear fashion demolishing everything insight, somewhat understanding your powers by now, until you reach the end to consume the commanding officer.

Then, like snatching a lollipop from a baby, it’s all taken from you. You lose your powers and are forced to try to regain them by playing Alex’s narrative of what happened eighteen days earlier and achieving experience points. I’ve never really liked this sort of gameplay. First you’re teased with an arsenal of powers or weapons for the first minutes of gameplay, then being stripped like an exotic dancer. However, they tried the opposite in Superman Returns and that game turned out horribly so I guess everyone will have to live with it for now. You go through the game completing missions and dismembering anything and everything to attain experience points (EP). With these you can upgrade Alex anyway you like whether it be making him run faster, jump higher, become stronger or buying better shapeshifting moves and attacks. Other upgrades such as weapon use and vehicular ability come with the consumption of certain military individuals.

So, after Alex wakes up with a convenient case of amnesia you have to fight your way regaining your memories and wrecking major havoc in the city seeking out your revenge. Because what else could you do with almost limitless power? Why save the world or destroy it? Why not rob a bank and then runaway to Tahiti and sip on coronas for the rest of your life? Because being able to scale buildings and shapeshift makes me pissed and want to kill the person that gave that ability to me. So you go on with the normal, revenge motivated story. A military group called Blacklight arrives to wipe out Alex and the virus unleashed in the city. As time goes on, people become zombies and you get to mow through them as well as the military and pedestrians. The bigger and uglier freaks of nature (or should I say science) evolve and you have to deal with them as well before you can unleash your wrath on the unlucky soul that made you supreme. The story does have its ups with some twists but it’s nothing that’s going to set a record in the good ol’ Guiness book. The cool thing about the story though is how you learn about what happened to Alex. Forget the boring and lame cutscenes; killing people up and eating their memories are what this game is about.

Well, to gain back your memories you have to consume people. And by consume I mean having your body turn the soldier into mold and inject into your body. Suddenly bursts of memories jump into your screen via Alex’s head and you learn a little bit about the back story. This is how most of the story is told. These little scenes of memory happen with the consumption of certain individuals that link to your past. The more you find, the more you know and the more Alex’s Web of Intrigue is completed. This is a pretty cool way to balance the monotonous amnesia factor that occurs in so many games today. Also, the different consume kills you can perform are awesome. One of my favorite aspects in this game is the people scattered throughout the city that unlock a key to your history. They can show up anywhere at anytime whether you’re in a mission or just hanging around with some infected. You also regain health by consuming any living thing around you which you will be doing… a lot.

With enough experience points you can achieve the skill Stealth Consume which allows you to silently and secretly consume anyone. The game doesn’t let you stealth kill someone unless no one is watching you. And by no one I mean only the military. The funny thing with this is that whenever you stealth consume almost the entire population of Manhattan can see you but walk by like it’s the normal thing to do on the weekend. If you’re being watched you can tell by the little ball on the bottom left of the screen. It’s closed when they can’t see you, yellow when they can but don’t know you’re in disguise and red is when you have a bulls eye stapled to your forehead.

Now when you’re caught with your head in between your legs you can either run or fight. If you decide to run you can sprint which puts you into parkour mode. If you don’t know what that means it’s only a fancy little word for saying he jumps over things for you. That’s right, if you hold the joystick forward and hold the sprint button Alex will dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge his way to the other side of Manhattan without the player having to press any other button. If there’s a building in front of him have no fear, he’ll just run up the side of it with style which I admit is pretty cool when it works. There are sometimes when the animation and design have some trouble running smoothly. For example, when you run into a fire escape, Alex looks like he’s having a seizure. Other times, like when I was trying to climb up a building, he couldn’t understand the concept of running straight up and started dancing in the corner I was in.

What you can do though, is when you’re on any vertical surface you can press B for precise movement climbing where Alex clutches to the wall and climbs ala Spider-Man. But compared to sprinting it takes forever! It’s like waiting to use the bathroom while some constipated guy is on the toilet. Yet, even when I attempted to use this as I climbed some pillar-like structure at the top of the building Alex kept swinging to the left or right of the pillar as I got close to the top only to end up falling because he forgot to clutch back on to it again. You can also jump from building to building. This helps when trying to get from one place to another especially since you can charge the jump to go farther. You won’t be leaping any buildings in a single bound but it will get you places. Other techniques one can carry out is the glide or perform an air thrust where Alex thrusts himself forward in the air. The other methods of transportation are vehicles as in tanks and helicopters only. You can hijack them with a small quick-time event that consists of mashing one button and then ride them around town. They are pretty simple to maneuver with one joystick controlling movement and the other your aim.

If you choose to fight which believe me, will be your choice whether you want to or not for most of the game, you can duke it out with a decent combat system. You have two basic attack buttons, one normal and one heavy and both can be charged by holding the button down. You can also pick up cars and people and throw them which also can be charged once you buy the upgrade. First thing you’ll notice as the game progresses is that there are a ton of enemies. There will be times when the one side of your body is being painted with lead while the other side is getting to know rockets and grenades. This gets worse when you have to fight the infected and the military at the same time. You’ll be trying to take out some infected while Blacklight soldiers will blindside you and vice versa. One of the most annoying enemies is the Hunters. They take awhile to kill and will stop at nothing to annoy you by bum rushing your blind side. The coolest thing about combat is the devastator attacks that basically unleash destruction in a large radius around you. These attacks are very useful when surrounded by enemies and very easy to obtain. Moreover, they become stronger and deadlier when upgraded. Another aiding factor is that you can lock on to any target as well and switch through them quickly with the Right Joystick. What I didn’t like about this was that it slowed down time when I locked on. This is supposed to help you be able to focus on a specific target but to me it just put a pause to the action. In addition, when I wanted to blow up a car and tried to lock on to it, I targeted an enemy tank that was down the street. Apparently when the enemy is nearby, you can’t target lock anything except for the enemy. This would be fine if the tank wanted to pop a cap in me but they didn’t even know I was there!

To try and prolong the experience, there are side missions. These consist of time challenges, eradicate a certain number of soldiers or infected, try to land accurately in a designated spot, etc. These are great at first but you’ll realize after time that you’ll be doing the same thing over and over again. The best side missions are the consume missions where you have to either consume a number of military individuals in a certain amount of time, destroy an enemy base or consume a group of scientist guarded by Blacklight soldiers. Even so, these can become wary on a player as they repeat.

The sound in this game is great for the most part. The guns sound decent but some of them, like the assault rifles, sound weak and pointless. Slicing through people’s limbs and torsos sounds great and the background music is there for support. The soundtrack doesn’t have any memorable tunes but it does the game good. The voice acting is all over the place. Alex sounds decent but some characters like his sister, Dana, don’t cut it as well. Furthermore, some of the lines in their dialogue will come off as random and seem awkward.

The graphics are the weakest part in this game. The NPC’s are bland and the landscape is even worse. Everything is box shaped and you would never know that this was Manhattan if you weren’t told. Also, there is an unusual amount of pop-in in the game mostly with the signs, trees, water towers, and even buildings sometimes. It’s clear that marketers hid this in their ad campaign for the game. The pop-in hurts the point behind collectibles the worst. In other open world games you can get to a high point and look across the landscape for collectibles. First of all, you can’t even see a quarter of the city from atop a skyscraper and second, you can’t see a one until you luckily face plant yourself onto it. You’re better off tying a blindfold on yourself and trying to fall onto one while jumping around. What is impressive is the massive amount of people you can see on screen and that the framerate has stayed solid even when there was a three way war going on. In the end, graphics don’t come before gameplay and that’s really what this game is about.

Sure, the mechanics are a little clunky and not entirely smooth but I really enjoyed the game. The visceral feel and the carnage are always a plus in my book. It’s by far not the prettiest game you’ve ever seen but it does its job. This game proves gameplay is much more important that graphics. It provides non-stop, gritty, blood spilling, gut slashing action. If you get this game, there will be things you love about it and things you hate. Replay value is a little shot because there is no multiplayer or any other modes but you will get a good fifteen hours of gameplay with the story and side missions. Overall, this is a fun action-adventure title that I recommend everyone at least rent in order to feel the satisfaction of slaughtering half of Manhattan.