So I just finished Hitman: Absolution. My thoughts:
Hitman: Absolution is very much a mixed bag. The game features a lengthy campaign, revolving around an absolutely incoherent, nonsensical, dumb and absolutely unnecessary story. During cutscenes you meet a variety of characters, none of whom you'll care about, but no matter, it's not like Blood Money's story was worth anything, and cutscenes can be skipped. What is good about the campaign is that beyond the simple rating system of previous games (up to Silent Assassin), Absolution now features an elaborate scoring system with specific challenges for each level to complete to increase your score. This encourages replay and exploration, and is a very welcome addition, certainly one of the game's best features. Another welcome addition is Contracts mode, which lets players create their own challenges for other players based in the campaign's levels. Happily, there is a lot of variation in settings between the game's missions, with levels ranging from redneck bars to Chicago hotels to the middle of the desert. Levels also look pretty good, as we might expect from the first Hitman designed from the ground up for current-gen.
That's where most of my positive feedback on the game ends however. The problem the game suffers from - and this has a major negative impact on almost the entire game - is the fact that a core mechanic is fundamentally broken. The disguise system as it is in Absolution does not work. Others wearing the same outfit as you will always see through it unless you use your instinct ability, which runs out quickly enough that you'll spend most of the game crouched and sneaking around. It also doesn't make sense, do all street vendors in Chinatown know each other for instance? So does the sneaking around work? No. It's a repetitive process that hangs mainly on constant trial and error and effectively gaming the system by switching between covers so no one sees you long enough to be suspicious (and switching back immediately because their suspicion resets). Particularly on the higher difficulty I played on, the game can get incredibly frustrating at times, even more so when it's not being generous with the checkpoints. What's also curious is that this focus on sneaking has translated into the core aim of the game, that is, on most levels you are not trying to assassinate anybody, even though one might expect this of a Hitman. No, most levels are simply about getting from A to B.
Another real shame is that the levels in the game tend to be relatively small, and surprisingly linear, which makes the game even more of a trial and error thing where you just have to figure out a single pattern (and often game the system somewhat), rather than trying different solutions. Is the entire campaign bad then? No, a few levels of the game do get it right, and they are truly great fun. A few of the levels put you in a large sandbox, with targets to kill, with many different crazy solutions to find and so on. There are even one or two fun levels where you don't kill someone, but they did clearly put in the effort to give the player some more options and cool things to try. These levels are all very fun and rewarding to play, particularly when a friend has got a good score. Even the odd run-in with the disguise system doesn't ruin those.
Overall, I think that IO Interactive had a few decent ideas for this game, and I certainly don't mind them trying new things. However, most of the things they did improve are completely overshadowed by the severe problems caused by the non-functional disguise system, a problem that causes you to be annoyed by things that otherwise wouldn't bug you (like having to use checkpoint saving rather than saving anywhere). At many points you feel like the game rewards perfect execution and gaming the system rather than thinking of creative solutions to a puzzle, whereas you do get the impression that the designers wanted the game to reward the latter. There is also a significant amount of content that is so linear and unrewarding in terms of gameplay that there is really very little reason to have it in the game to begin with. Had they axed about half the campaign, put in a few more of the wide open levels and adopted a more reasonable disguise system, then Hitman: Absolution could have been a great game. As it stands however, it isn't.
4.5/10
