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Square Enix Montreal's next-gen Hitman title confirmed cancelled (IO still on Hitman)
- Thread starter Sn4ke_911
- Start date
FrontalMonk
Banned
yeah...purist difficulty was a straight up kick in the nuts to series faithful, and it had its fair share of broken bits, but it still was really fun to play. It wasn't a bad game, but it was a bad hitman game. Honestly, if they had retooled the disguise system to make it closer to blood money (not stupidly easy like BM maybe, but maybe closer to contracts?) then changed up the level design a bit to accomodate, it would have been a *much* better game.
which reminds me, were there any mods for absolution? a solid mod to rejigger the disguise system would make me jump right back in.
TheSinkingKnight
Member
It means that SE Montreals game was canned that they were working on and IO is still on the job for their own.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
Ahh ok. Thank you.
I don't know about your definition of a bad game. For me a game is a bad game, when the mechanics are broken. And for Absolution, some mechanics are definitely broken for the higher difficulties - not just the highest one. And the disguise mechanic is broken on every difficulty.
47 gets a police disguise -> every policeman on the whole level detects him almost instantly, which implies that every policeman knows the face of every other policeman and is able to detect a "new" face in an instant
47 gets a SWAT disguise, that even covers the whole head -> every SWAT member on the whole level detects him almost instanly
It just gets even worse for the higher difficulties. Because on those, any policeman from 100m away can detect you - which again doesn't make any sense.
And even if we accept that as "making sense" - why is everything else too much for the AI? I grab a Special Op member right after him talking with a buddy - over a table - and the other member even looks back and doesn't think it's suspicious that his buddy just disappeared within a second?
And almost all levels are almost as linear as a Call Of Duty campaign. And that's always a bad thing for a so called "stealth" game.
btw. I have no idea how anyone was able to get through the train station part on higher difficulties without using instinct. see:
TheSinkingKnight
Member
Which one did you try? The original one?
The marketers on the forums for this game were pretty good tho, better than the ones for Tomb Raider 2013 at any rate. I think one of the smartest things they did was take actual community members and fly them out, make them feel super special, & let them play 30 minutes of the game. Paid marketers were there as well, but it is hard to beat the genuine enthusiasm of fans who have been made to feel special by a big corporation.
Hitman always felt like a weird second string franchise I was surprised was still kicking around. I get the appeal and all, but like most anything stealth these days like the most recent Splinter Cells, the whole notion of "stealth" mechanics in the industry are much different than before.
Good, there was no point of two alternating developers for Hitman.
I just hope IO come to their senses and break out the old Blood Money design documents to study for the new game. Agent 47 shouldn't be running from cops, he should be hunting, that's all players want. Custom loadouts, no magic pockets, all sandboxes, lots of ways to kill, and maybe even ways to use NPC's (bribery, etc). Please IO, listen to the fans and go all out, don't put priority on the story over gameplay.
I just hope IO come to their senses and break out the old Blood Money design documents to study for the new game. Agent 47 shouldn't be running from cops, he should be hunting, that's all players want. Custom loadouts, no magic pockets, all sandboxes, lots of ways to kill, and maybe even ways to use NPC's (bribery, etc). Please IO, listen to the fans and go all out, don't put priority on the story over gameplay.
Most of the bad stuff in Absolution (like the stupid checkpoint system and tiny maps) where due to the memory limits on the last-gen consoles.
IO has admitted it and you should really get the app that gives you a "behind the scenes" story about the game.
Can post the pictures otherwise if you guys want to.
IO has admitted it and you should really get the app that gives you a "behind the scenes" story about the game.
Can post the pictures otherwise if you guys want to.
Moff
Member
most stealth games, and certainly most hitman games are full of situations like that.
apart from that, I think the new disguise system was a welcome change, the mechanic that all guys with the same costume recognise you faster than others makes generally sense, but yes, of course there are many situations where they dont make sense at all, as you pointed out. but again, past hitman games had countless situations, too where diguises didnt make sense. in blood money they were brokenly overpowered and it didnt make sense at all either ind many situations, nobody complained there.
the problem is not that its "unrealistic", hitman never was realistic and doesnt need to be, the problem is that the mechanic changed, it became harder and less forgiving, and many people didnt like that, I did.
still, absolution is not the best hitman game, it doesnt come close to the series best (contracts and blood money) and has many flaws, mostly the too small and too linear level design. but its still a hitman game, and not a terrible one.
what most people seem to forget, there are more hitman games than blood money, and most of them felt very different. the disguise system always changed a lot, and hitman 2 for instance was very linear and story oriented, too, and its actually the fan favourite and the one that sold the most, behind absolution.
as a fan of blood money, I dont like it either that IO took a step back towards hitman 2 with the linearity and story focus, but I cant really blame them either when you look at sales and polls in their forum (where hitman 2 was always number 1).
I didnt play splinter cell conviction, but I still dont see absolution as a usual stealth game, I played it exactly like very hitman game before. which means 1. exploration 2. find a plan 3. execute that plan flawlessly. all of this with countless trial & error.
as I said I didnt play splinter cell conviction, but I cant imagine it plays like this, otherwise I may have to pick it up.
absolution is a good game, and a true hitman game, but sadly only a decent one. its simply nowhere near blood money. but thats not a reason to kill tha franchise, I think it could have been easily saved. absolution has also brought many improvments to the franchise that I need to see in future installments.
qualitydisc
Member
I wonder if this is "Hitman Go" which SE trademarked back in September
http://www.siliconera.com/2013/09/1...tman-go-trademarks-registered-by-square-enix/
http://www.siliconera.com/2013/09/1...tman-go-trademarks-registered-by-square-enix/
Miles Quaritch
Member
If they had any sense, they'd rework Sniper Challenge a little and release it across smartphones, consoles and handhelds.
after all, it was the only good thing to come out of absolution.
after all, it was the only good thing to come out of absolution.
Lord of Castamere
Member
Blood money is so much better than Absolution.
I still really want a next gen Hitman though.
Hopefully it doesn't take 3 more years /:
I still really want a next gen Hitman though.
Hopefully it doesn't take 3 more years /:
Miles Quaritch
Member
Don't worry, IO are hard at work on a sequel to absolution...
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The game was built for instinct. Anything said about instinct being an optional feature to aid players, and that removing instinct returned Hitman to form, was a lie. The disguise system fundamentally does not operate like Hitman, and requires instinct for proper use.
Lord of Castamere
Member
Absolution could have been a lot worse...
I don't even think I would put it in a top 10 worst sequels list honestly, but that's just me.
yep. I've seen some gameplay/reviews for the others as well
Yep, couldn't agree more. The game was pretty much broken when playing without it on the higher difficulties. In the end, I'd be depressed if Absolution was to be the last full-fledged Hitman release. Not the way I envisioned the series going out.
Interfectum
Member
I'm not going to cheer for a Hitman game getting cancelled. As many problems as Hitman: Absolution had it was better than nothing. And I still sunk ~40 hours into the game. I really do wish they'd take the series back to where Blood Money was going though.
Moff
Member
are you playing withhout instinct just for a self-challenge or what exactly are you talking about with "instinct"? that move where you move your hand in front of your face and are able to walk by people who wear your own costume? thats called "blending in", not "instinct", instinct is the mode where you see through walls, the map replacement.
and if we are talking about "blending in", thats still possible on the highest difficulty, you just dont have the HUD for it anymore, as purist removes the HUD completely.
and yes its needed, but no, its perfectly playable witthout the HUD, I finished absolution on the hifhgest difficulty just like any other hitman game, and as I said before, I dont think it plays differently at all. the disguise system has simply an added mechanic, but not a changed one.
Someone's been playing Hitman PRO (Hitman 6) and many other games on Steam very recently:
E3 reveal confirmed.
qualitydisc
Member
Has this link to an animator's portfolio been posted yet?
http://www.mikewiesmeier.com/animation-production-experience/square-enix-eidos-montréal/
http://www.mikewiesmeier.com/animation-production-experience/square-enix-eidos-montréal/
Oh yeah and that's a problem, because "blending in" uses instinct meter and instinct meter is invisible. Players have to actually guess how much instinct is left. I would call that bad design.
IO always said that this "feature" was "optional", but it definitely isn't. And it's stupid in all sorts of ways. What's more suspicious, someone who walks like a normal person or someone who walks like a normal person and has his hand over his face? It would make more sense for 47 to have his hand over his face all the time and when using "blend in" he would actually remove his hand for a short time.
The game was clearly designed around those "features". It should have been designed around "purist" mode and afterwards add helpers for lower difficulties. Instead it was designed for instinct + "hand over face" and THEN they removed HUD, changed detection time to some milliseconds and so on for "purist", to trick hitman fans that the game was properly designed for them and like the previous hitman titles.
I'm currently playing Dishonored. That's a game, that was properly designed. My first playthrough was/is using no special powers except blink, no kills and 100% ghost. And it's quite difficult, but actually fun because the game was designed for such playthroughs.
Moff
Member
no its not
if you want to see it, play on expert. expert and purist is exactly the same thing, save for the hud.
if you feel you want to give it a try witthout the hud, like me, play on purist.
its not as impossible you make it sound, if you played the game a lot, like me, you dont need to see it, you'll know. thats who purist mode is for.
I liked dishonored very much, too. but lookt at the topics on GAF and you'll see its mechanics are considered "broken", too. because of how overpowered blink is.