Hitman: Absolution

[Insanecyclone]

[Correction]

Seeing a lot of framerate issues in that review, hope my PC is up to it.

[6souls]

[Siralin]

Anyone with first hand experience or are you all on the fence like I am? Seriously can't decide if I want to risk it after reading some good & some bad reviews. Seems like they got it right at some points, but totally raped it with casual shit in others. I'm scared for my hitman series.

[Brill Weave]

On the fence. I see one video and I want it. Then I see another one that makes me want to avoid it.

[Kyo]

Bought it yesterday, havent opened it, I know that isnt much help but I got my copy for pretty much free so that makes it easier. I do plan on playing it at some point today.

[Siralin]

Keep us informed Kyooooo.

[Doombear]

Frustrating would be a good word for me. I started the game on hard (with two difficulties above that) and just got pissed constantly. Dropped down to Normal after three missions and it wasn't much better. And I generally love stealth games, but the poorly designed instinct system just breaks on higher difficulties. Namely because you no longer see it recharge.

Disguises seem so ineffective. I understand their limitations. Even still, each area so far is just flooded with a few "types" of npcs. So avoiding whichever type of npc you happen to be disguised as is near impossible meaning you have to burn Instinct. Argh. For the disguise system to be usable you NEED Instinct. You have to use it or you will be spotted in no time. In the harder difficulties you get MORE enemies that spot you faster, and the Instinct no longer recharges. The game just isn't created in a way where the higher difficulties are creating more challenge like they should be. They are just more broken.

So yeah Normal or Easy is all I will likely play on because I would at least like a fair challenge and I want to see the story through. Sad really, because I did have high hopes for this after hearing a few glowing reviews after E3.

I am finding it a bit annoying as far as each level's challenges too, especially because you are docked points if you kill any 'non-target' NPC. Ok fine, so I will just knock them out, instead of killing them. Docked points for that too. I do not understand this whole idea. Sure, stealth is the name of the game. So if you want me to cruise around each level without killing OR knocking out people, then make the disguise system better. Make instinct better. Not to mention you clearly have to do multiple playthroughs of each mission because it is impossible to get everything in one, or even two, playthroughs due to what I mentioned above.

It is from Gamefly, so whatever. I am just not sure how far I will get before it goes back. Going to give it a few more chances and perhaps go back to a few early levels and try things differently.

[Avarice]

I'm enjoying it for the most part so far, but the loading times are quickly beginning to kill it for me; they're atrocious.

[Odesseiron]

I'm having a blast so far. Playing on PC, not having any frame rate issues. Wasn't a half assed port either. It's optimized very well. Pretty much completed all missions so far with a pretty high score. I'm not having an issue with instinct yet. Playing on normal. It seems to be a little less open as far as ways you can take out enemies at first, but you can get pretty creative. The levels are fairly big and tons of detail went into the design. I still prefer Blood Money so far, but this one is up there. Length of the game is pretty damn long as well. I think I'm only halfway through it with 7 hours on it (1.5 of those are probably due to reloads). The game also requires a bit of patience as like most other Hitman games. You can be direct about it, but your score is gonna suck. Be patient, blend in for information, learn patterns and get the most efficient kill.

[Kyo]

Only three missions in but liking it alot so far, there were a few cases where I took down enemies silently and it said I had been seen which didnt make much sense and then on a certain sniping part I was up in a building where no one could see me and it said I had been seen.

[Odesseiron]

Only three missions in but liking it alot so far, there were a few cases where I took down enemies silently and it said I had been seen which didnt make much sense and then on a certain sniping part I was up in a building where no one could see me and it said I had been seen.

Yeah, I've encountered that a few times. I'm hoping it will get patched. Later in the game I'm on a balcony where it's me, and nobody else is looking my way, I pop out, snipe and immediately head back to cover, suddenly every enemy knows my position. Small thing, not game breaking by any means, just annoying. I'm still going on my first playthrough by the way, the game is amazingly long without feeling like it.

[Oreth]

As a huge fan of this series im pretty disappointed so far to be honest! You seem to be tied to choosing between two sets of disguises that dont have much value. Either as a public disguise where everyone that is a generic NPC knows your in disguise within 2 seconds or as a guard and they know your in disguise within 2 seconds.

Story is jumping all over the place between levels as well and not very well meshed together or fleshed out.

Ill finish it off either way and enjoy playing as 47 again but overall probably a 5.5/10

[Qalbert]

[djzombie]

I'm about 3 missions in myself, having lots of fun with the game so far. The graphics are awesome on pc if you've got the hardware to run it. I'm closed to maxed out settings, only had to turn off ambient occlusion, msaa, and fxaa to get decent framerates and shit still looks awesome.

The only thing I don't like about the game is that the ability to play the game and attain the highest rating possible doesn't seem even close to possible without the use of your instinct. There are some spots where it doesn't seem like its possible to completely avoid being spotted so unless you use your instinct then you're forced to incapacitate or kill those people. So i've settled for incapacitating problems and hiding the bodies, it evens out the score so long as you don't kill those people, but you still dont get the highest rating even by incapacitating and hiding the body.

I guess thats really just a minor issue, but they did say using instinct would be optional, and it doesn't seem very optional if you want to play like a professional hitman.

Small gripe, aside from that see through walls bullshit that it seems like im forced to use the game is fantastic.

[lilfoo]

I just beat the game on professional and jesus..... I absolutely love what they did with the series in some ways. The large levels, large crowds, and the new disguise system (only guards). I hate the new system for civ disguises, blood money got too easy even on the hardest difficulty once you got the guard disguise for the area. My thoughts would be to have the current system for guard disguises and drop it for civ disguises. I still have a lot of achievements and signature kills to work for but i will enjoy that on a lower difficulty and not fly by the seat of my pants and end in firefights like it happened on professional :/

[6souls]

[6souls]

Spoiler: show

[Meresgi]

About 1/2 way through the game, I need to play Blood Money again because it's been so damn long so cant really say how it compares to that. I will say it's refreshing as fuck to play an assassination game where you can actually plan out your assassinations. I remember when Assassin's Creed hit I was so excited to be doing the same thing as Hitman but back in old days with swords and shit...instead I got a game where you don't really plan any assassinations and more often have to chase your target on a rail system before they let you kill him *sigh*

Anyways, game is fun as hell, and the replay value is pretty high since I want to go back and do all the quirky kills and achievements. It's honestly fun just spending an hour restarting a level and figuring out the exact way you want to deal with the targets.