It’s been over six years since Agent 47 showed his face and
any fan of Hitman will have being anticipating it for a long time. So what’s he
up to in this new game? Well it turns out that his old friend Dianna from the agency
has exposed the agency to the world and brought it to its knees. Now the agency
has rebuilt itself and they have put a contract on her head and guess what, the
contract is yours.
Pretty much straight away you find out why Dianna did what
she did and you find yourself continuing with her work by trying to protect a
teenage girl whilst going rogue from the agency. The rest of the game is
focused around the wellbeing of this girl and avoiding being killed by the
agency that you’ve just betrayed.
To be quite blunt the storyline for Hitman: Absolution is
average at best. They’ve finally given the agency a face and to be honest it’s
quite a rubbish one. The main characters in the agency seem to be lacking the intelligence
of a premiership footballer. As well as this Agent 47 seems to be seeking information
from some unlikely characters, which leads you to ask why can a mad man in a
bus surrounded by pigeons get Intel before the agency? Also, some of the
assassins that come after agent 47, well let’s just say that their appearance sometimes
seems less than subtle for people that want to go unnoticed.
However, the characters have great AI. For instance 47 has a
huge range of fake identities that he can take on during a mission. But if
someone in the same clothes sees you they will start to become suspicious of
you as you are not someone that they recognise. This works really well in an environment
such a garage where 47 is dressed as a mechanic. But when he’s dressed as a
police officer in a city with 300 other officers on duty, it seems a little farfetched
to think that they all know each other’s faces. But it’s a small issue with
something that overall works very well.
There is also a large range of difficulty options to choose
from that you can switch between during the campaign, meaning that if you’re
finding it too hard or too easy at any point then you can just adjust it to
suit your abilities. And don’t think that just because you’ve learnt a map on
easy that you’ll smash it on expert because you won’t. The chances are they’ll
be more enemies in your path and their reactions will definitely be sharper. This
gives the game a great deal of replay-ability. The good news about the increase
in NPCs is that if you are seen you still have time to take out the people who
have seen you before they raise the alarm, unlike previous Hitman games where
the alarm is instantly raised as soon as you’re seen.
The controls for Hitman: Absolution are also very smooth.
They allow you to take and change cover very easily. There’s a large range of
weapons to choose from and 47’s use of them can be very realistic. Especially
when it comes to the sniper rifle where you can gently squeeze the trigger to
steady your aim before taking a shot, instead of just clicking a button to hold
47’s breath.
However, many hardcore fans of the Hitman games will be disappointed
to find that you can no longer select your equipment before going on a mission
and that your behaviour in one mission won’t affect how people react towards
you in future ones. In a sense this is a major regression for the Hitman series.
The Graphics for
Hitman: Absolution are extremely good and have obviously pushed the game’s
engine to its limits. Unfortunately there is the odd occasion where you may
find yourself in a huge shootout with two dozen enemies. When this happens and
you survive for a little while, you’ll probably find that the NPCs sometimes
jump from one end of a room to another and could result in 47 being cheated out
of life.
THE VERDICT
Hitman: Absolution Has its good points and its bad. The
story is pretty poor and the choices you have before entering a mission have
pretty much vanished. However, you now have loads more weapons to choose from
in game and disguises have greatly improved. The graphics are epic and the AI
is pretty good as well. Long term fans of the series will most likely be a
little unhappy with how the game has turned out though. But overall it is a really
fun game to play if you have never played a Hitman game before. And even if you
are familiar with the series, you will probably just be happy to be re-equated with
your old friend Agent 47.
LHSRAting for Hitman: Absolution – 8/10 (Xbox 360)
-Ayden
