Common Knowledge
Member
So I've just started playing Hitman: Absolution today after owning it for about 4 years (I know, I know). It's another game I'm trying to scratch off my backlog list. As someone who's never played a Hitman game before, I am aware this one got a rather mixed reception and is seen as one of the weakest in the series. But I wanted to knock it out of the way before likely buying Hitman 2016 (which I hear is really good).
Anyway, the game right from the start reminded me a lot of Splinter Cell: Conviction, a game I really enjoyed. A lot of the mechanics are similar and there's that choice of stealth or lethal action that's at play. The game's also really good looking for a last-gen game. I enjoyed the tutorial mission and was looking forward to getting into the meat of it.
The next area was the Chinatown area and my goal was to assassinate the "King" in the middle. I explored around a lot and saw multiple possible ways I could probably do it, and I was excited at the prospects of replaying missions just to see different ways to go about them. Anyway, eventually I made use of a vendor disguise to plan out what I was going to do.
And that's where things got kind of iffy. When you're in a certain disguise, people who are of that particular faction will get suspicious of you and eventually confront you and alert guards. Which is a fine mechanic on the surface; it prevents a player from just being able to walk willy-nilly around a level without any consequences as long as the had the correct disguise. I don't mind the premise of this particular mechanic.
But I quickly found that people are a bit too suspicious to really make this an enjoyable and effective check on the power of a disguise. I'm walking around the huge crowds in Chinatown and other vendors will easily notice me with yellow arrows everywhere, forcing me to continuously move around to different hiding spots or activating my "insight" to blend in more. Suddenly, the game got much harder after I decided to disguise myself in something. On top of being frustrating, it also kind of ruins the immersion with this. Why the hell do vendors who are dealing with massive crowds wanting to buy stuff give a crap about a random guy walking in the distance who may or may not be someone they know? And how close-knit are all of them anyway that they are able to pinpoint instantly among a crowd that someone is pretending to be one of them? Maybe with the cops I could see that level of perception, but random street vendors?
Anyway, I completed the Chinatown level and moved on the next, hoping that I'll just get used to and become more skillful with the disguise mechanics and my gripes will just pass away. Unfortunately, I can't say that that happened. The next level was in a hotel and it further cemented my frustrations. There's multiple different types of workers you can disguise yourself as and whenever you do, similar people will be on your ass in seconds if you slip up in anyway. And it made me realize the counter-intuitiveness of the way to most effectively sneak by: you want to disguise yourself as someone completely different from the people that you want to actually be disguised from. It's....weird.
But enough of disguises. I tried to put that aside and just start playing the game like Splinter Cell and crouch, hide, and sneak my way through everything. And I came to enjoy some parts of the game with this. It functions well enough as a stealth/action mix to be a decently enjoyable experience. With that said, though, there are still some other issues with the game that is keeping me from being able to call it "great", and sometimes even "good".
The level design ends up leaving much to be desired. Usually with these types of games I'm expecting multiple routes and little hidden paths to exploit to bypass stuff and feel like a true assassin. And while there are indeed some of these, it's on a whole pretty bare-bones feeling and there's only one general path that you can take through all the levels, with the only choices you have typically amounting to "do you use the window and sneak along the ledge for a bit?" or "do I crawl through this vent here to the next room or use the door?" It functions well as a way to get yourself out of a pinch, but there's really no creativity involved in planning out your route through a level and making your way through as nothing more than a shadow. Perhaps I'm heavily spoiled by the Dishonored games in this regard, but doesn't even par with Splinter Cell: Conviction.
I'm about halfway through the game now and I'll probably push my way through the rest of it, but I can't say I'm too big of fan of it thus far. Share your thoughts on the game below.
Anyway, the game right from the start reminded me a lot of Splinter Cell: Conviction, a game I really enjoyed. A lot of the mechanics are similar and there's that choice of stealth or lethal action that's at play. The game's also really good looking for a last-gen game. I enjoyed the tutorial mission and was looking forward to getting into the meat of it.
The next area was the Chinatown area and my goal was to assassinate the "King" in the middle. I explored around a lot and saw multiple possible ways I could probably do it, and I was excited at the prospects of replaying missions just to see different ways to go about them. Anyway, eventually I made use of a vendor disguise to plan out what I was going to do.
And that's where things got kind of iffy. When you're in a certain disguise, people who are of that particular faction will get suspicious of you and eventually confront you and alert guards. Which is a fine mechanic on the surface; it prevents a player from just being able to walk willy-nilly around a level without any consequences as long as the had the correct disguise. I don't mind the premise of this particular mechanic.
But I quickly found that people are a bit too suspicious to really make this an enjoyable and effective check on the power of a disguise. I'm walking around the huge crowds in Chinatown and other vendors will easily notice me with yellow arrows everywhere, forcing me to continuously move around to different hiding spots or activating my "insight" to blend in more. Suddenly, the game got much harder after I decided to disguise myself in something. On top of being frustrating, it also kind of ruins the immersion with this. Why the hell do vendors who are dealing with massive crowds wanting to buy stuff give a crap about a random guy walking in the distance who may or may not be someone they know? And how close-knit are all of them anyway that they are able to pinpoint instantly among a crowd that someone is pretending to be one of them? Maybe with the cops I could see that level of perception, but random street vendors?
Anyway, I completed the Chinatown level and moved on the next, hoping that I'll just get used to and become more skillful with the disguise mechanics and my gripes will just pass away. Unfortunately, I can't say that that happened. The next level was in a hotel and it further cemented my frustrations. There's multiple different types of workers you can disguise yourself as and whenever you do, similar people will be on your ass in seconds if you slip up in anyway. And it made me realize the counter-intuitiveness of the way to most effectively sneak by: you want to disguise yourself as someone completely different from the people that you want to actually be disguised from. It's....weird.
But enough of disguises. I tried to put that aside and just start playing the game like Splinter Cell and crouch, hide, and sneak my way through everything. And I came to enjoy some parts of the game with this. It functions well enough as a stealth/action mix to be a decently enjoyable experience. With that said, though, there are still some other issues with the game that is keeping me from being able to call it "great", and sometimes even "good".
The level design ends up leaving much to be desired. Usually with these types of games I'm expecting multiple routes and little hidden paths to exploit to bypass stuff and feel like a true assassin. And while there are indeed some of these, it's on a whole pretty bare-bones feeling and there's only one general path that you can take through all the levels, with the only choices you have typically amounting to "do you use the window and sneak along the ledge for a bit?" or "do I crawl through this vent here to the next room or use the door?" It functions well as a way to get yourself out of a pinch, but there's really no creativity involved in planning out your route through a level and making your way through as nothing more than a shadow. Perhaps I'm heavily spoiled by the Dishonored games in this regard, but doesn't even par with Splinter Cell: Conviction.
I'm about halfway through the game now and I'll probably push my way through the rest of it, but I can't say I'm too big of fan of it thus far. Share your thoughts on the game below.
