Hitman: Absolution Review

Posted By Johnny Maloney about 6 months ago

Hitman: Absolution Review

I am a ghost. I move through the shadows unseen. I am the invisible hand of mortality that reaches through the ephemera and cuts the cloth of life short. I am a legend. I am a living myth. Backstabbers, double crossers, traitors, liars, opportunists, both kind and wicked fear my cold and calculating retribution. I take the lives of all, unmoved by fear of the powerful nor the pleas of the undeserving. I am the Hitman, and I am… I dunno, some kind of immaterial, invisible wind that kills people. Like a really deadly belch – fear the belch.

The Hitman games were always frustrating to me. Not because they were particularly difficult, or unfair, or because they made for horrible dance partners (seriously, Blood Money could never tell the difference between a waltz and a foxtrot to save its life), but because they always reached far beyond what they appeared to be technically capable of. Yes, infiltration, disguise, and laser like precision when it comes to contract killing sounds like a fantastic idea for a game, but when your crack shot AI is gifted with the preternatural instincts of being able to tell that you’re an interloper from two hundred yards through a balaclava on your face, the odds of getting away with it shrink significantly.

Up next on the wrasslin’ channel, watch one man go toe to toe with a bear THAT’s ALREADY DEAD!

In the end too, that’s what we all want out of any kind of assassin game; we want to get away with it. Now either that means we want to slip in and out without anybody ever noticing we were there, or we want to wreak terrible havoc upon anybody that might have the stones to step to the front of the killing line and take a number. I am happy to report that this is indeed what Hitman: Absolution offers us, as little or as much bloodshed as we see fit to dole out, and get away with it we do.

The game itself is fairly self explanatory: a third person shooter with stealth mechanics that rotates heavily around the taking of life. Each level presented fits you with an objective (which is often killing someone, but takes other cues as well, such as infiltrating compounds or finding characters) and you are left to your own designs to fulfill it. Mitigating your usual arsenal of guns, found weapons (vases, golf clubs, irons, screwdrivers, wrenches, and even knives! But who kills anybody with knives anymore?) and garrotte, titular character, Agent 47 is armed with “instinct mode.” Instinct is a detective-vision like visual adjustment that highlights NPCs, items of interest, patrol routes, and potential circuitous ways through the level.

‘Yes, I’m a cop. Officer Stabbystabby! It’s a Norweigan name!’

More importantly, instinct also serves to aid in your infiltration of areas. When 47 gets into a disguise, only other people belonging to that group notice that anything fishy is going on. Cops recognize other cops, bodyguards recognize other bodyguards, and if you get too close, they’ll chase you down until they realize that you are not who you appear to be. This suspicion can be warded off by expending instinct in order to blend in until you can get out of sight of the interested party. It also serves as a meter for a mark and execute slow motion style of killing mode, which depletes it pretty rapidly.

Once those explosives go off, I think it’ll be more Green Mountain INCONVENIENCE Store.

Funny thing though, instinct only recharges as you complete objectives, kill or subdue enemies, or do otherwise hitman-y stuff. You might think that wandering through the level with your guns a-blazin’ would be the order of the day. You might be wrong about that though. Hitman: Absolution encourages players to move through the environments it has provided leaving as little evidence as possible. Unnecessary fatalities or being spotted reduces a point total for the level, which serves as a basis for refining 47′s skills. It doesn’t treat you unfairly, either, with the penalties for subduing a guard matching the reward for carefully cleaning up and hiding the body. Kill him unnecessarily though, and you’re in the red. Do it with a head shot, and gain a small point bonus to cushion the loss. This can make the decision whether or not to subdue or kill a target of opportunity a real risk/reward dilemma when taking the awarded instinct into account. It also encourages players to make riskier assassinations in order to gain the extra points associated with a “signature” garrotting or environmental kill.

Hitman: Absolution Review

By Johnny Maloney

You remember that scene in The Professional/Leon where Gary Oldman is all "Bring me Everyone," and buddy's like "what?" and he's all "EVVVVVVERYYYYYOOOOOOONE!" Yeah, he's going to need more guys. Johnny reviews Hitman: Absolution.

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