Oh Hit-man, my poor hit-man what have they done to you I loved hit-man 1, was blown away by 2, thought 3 wasn't much of an improvement and Blood Money (4) is still one of my favourite games to date. I was also one of the few defending the 'sexy nun' marketing campaign. The marketing is for idiots but the game will be good, just like with blood money I said.
The hit-man formula evolved and was perfected (for it's time) at blood money. You are put into a small sand box environment i.e. an opera house. You have the run of the entire opera house and use your guns, sneaking, poison, fibre wire, rifle, bomb, disguises and whatever you find on site to find a way to complete the assassination in a very creative and balanced level. There was a simple background story that loosely tied the assassinations in various exotic locations that had it's climax at the final mission.
So what's changed.
well instead of location based levels that a story very loosely hinged together we now have a story driven game. Which has some how resulted in the entire game being in 2 locations of the states only.
The story is awful with these 'kayne and lynch' style crazed over the top characters, that jump up and down and talk about 'limp' genitalia...because apparently this crude rubbish is very artistic and clever. The same studio that brought us the flops of kayne and lynch don't have any other ideas. Their better staff must of left after Blood money. This type of bad guy can be done well, see max payne 1
One of the plot devices of the story is agent 47 being framed for murder....his a Hit-man...??!!?!
The poor excuse for a story also allows for short A to B sub-level missions..where your mission isn't to assassinate anyone but to make it between 2 points avoiding cops/guards. This isn't hit-man this is splinter cell, MGS, and deus ex:hr...and these games do it better and with a story worth following. The A to B missions are linear..having the choice of 2 obvious linear paths just makes it ever so slightly less linear.
So after 2 A to B sub-level missions and loading screens that pretend everything before never happened (sometimes reseting all your guns, items and clothes?!?!)the game finally gets you to your assassination stage. After holding your hand all this time by telling you 'you must use this lift and only this lift to go up' it will continue to do so unless you turn off 'hints' on options. The assassination sub level is 1/3 of the size of previous hit-man games, it is a simpler less creative environment to decipher or explore. A few of these are actually good, but there are only a hand full of these kinds of missions and they are short anyway.
Some of the other sub-missions involved finding fuses for a generator and getting from the entrance of a pub to the bartender by punching people....It's as ridiculous as it sounds. Uncharted can do it because it's an adventure platformer...but Hit-man?
gameplay mechanics; AI has been improved. Some effort that wasn't misguided went here. People respond to you running, react to your outfit, investigate noises -but don't investigate if they see you throw something that made that noise, react to pools of blood, get suspicious of your outfit....all these AI behaviours are accompanied by their own unique dialogue that also feeds into the suspicion system. It is very impressive. The best I have experienced if I ignore everything else about the game.
However they over compensated for their linear, shorter, less complex levels by making it very easy for your disguise to be seen through. People of the same outfits can see through your disguise in less then a second close up or longer if far away. This makes sense and you can use 'instinct' to cover your face for a short time. However instinct runs out&doesn't regenerate unless you do something special.
So you go past guard A with instinct...instinct runs out, then guard b that is in a totally different area will break your disguise. To add insult to this already broken system your disguise can be broken by the back of your head from a distance or different room, in a dimly lit and/or crowded area within 3 seconds?! The AI was advanced enough for total immersion but then they tweaked the rules damaging all their hard work.
As I said earlier it must of been done on purpose to extend&camouflage their short linear game.
Why would they take this approach for the game? My theory- their new glacier graphics engine had priority. The graphics are amazing& detailed and the lighting is the best I have seen on my console. There are also levels with large crowds of people-also very impressive. To keep the graphics this good to appease certain audiences& showing off their 'lots of people mechanic' each level area had to be made smaller, so this sub- level hold your hand journey was adapted.
Another blood money can't be made without either streamlining or hints for the wider audience . I just assumed that's why they had their 'hints' &see through walls system, but then they streamlined the game too.
The next Hit-man will apparently be made by Square Enix Montreal studio. Let's hope they don't take the same direction as IO interactive.
As a hit-man game this gets 4, as a standalone game it gets 6. I settled on 5
The hit-man formula evolved and was perfected (for it's time) at blood money. You are put into a small sand box environment i.e. an opera house. You have the run of the entire opera house and use your guns, sneaking, poison, fibre wire, rifle, bomb, disguises and whatever you find on site to find a way to complete the assassination in a very creative and balanced level. There was a simple background story that loosely tied the assassinations in various exotic locations that had it's climax at the final mission.
So what's changed.
well instead of location based levels that a story very loosely hinged together we now have a story driven game. Which has some how resulted in the entire game being in 2 locations of the states only.
The story is awful with these 'kayne and lynch' style crazed over the top characters, that jump up and down and talk about 'limp' genitalia...because apparently this crude rubbish is very artistic and clever. The same studio that brought us the flops of kayne and lynch don't have any other ideas. Their better staff must of left after Blood money. This type of bad guy can be done well, see max payne 1
One of the plot devices of the story is agent 47 being framed for murder....his a Hit-man...??!!?!
The poor excuse for a story also allows for short A to B sub-level missions..where your mission isn't to assassinate anyone but to make it between 2 points avoiding cops/guards. This isn't hit-man this is splinter cell, MGS, and deus ex:hr...and these games do it better and with a story worth following. The A to B missions are linear..having the choice of 2 obvious linear paths just makes it ever so slightly less linear.
So after 2 A to B sub-level missions and loading screens that pretend everything before never happened (sometimes reseting all your guns, items and clothes?!?!)the game finally gets you to your assassination stage. After holding your hand all this time by telling you 'you must use this lift and only this lift to go up' it will continue to do so unless you turn off 'hints' on options. The assassination sub level is 1/3 of the size of previous hit-man games, it is a simpler less creative environment to decipher or explore. A few of these are actually good, but there are only a hand full of these kinds of missions and they are short anyway.
Some of the other sub-missions involved finding fuses for a generator and getting from the entrance of a pub to the bartender by punching people....It's as ridiculous as it sounds. Uncharted can do it because it's an adventure platformer...but Hit-man?
gameplay mechanics; AI has been improved. Some effort that wasn't misguided went here. People respond to you running, react to your outfit, investigate noises -but don't investigate if they see you throw something that made that noise, react to pools of blood, get suspicious of your outfit....all these AI behaviours are accompanied by their own unique dialogue that also feeds into the suspicion system. It is very impressive. The best I have experienced if I ignore everything else about the game.
However they over compensated for their linear, shorter, less complex levels by making it very easy for your disguise to be seen through. People of the same outfits can see through your disguise in less then a second close up or longer if far away. This makes sense and you can use 'instinct' to cover your face for a short time. However instinct runs out&doesn't regenerate unless you do something special.
So you go past guard A with instinct...instinct runs out, then guard b that is in a totally different area will break your disguise. To add insult to this already broken system your disguise can be broken by the back of your head from a distance or different room, in a dimly lit and/or crowded area within 3 seconds?! The AI was advanced enough for total immersion but then they tweaked the rules damaging all their hard work.
As I said earlier it must of been done on purpose to extend&camouflage their short linear game.
Why would they take this approach for the game? My theory- their new glacier graphics engine had priority. The graphics are amazing& detailed and the lighting is the best I have seen on my console. There are also levels with large crowds of people-also very impressive. To keep the graphics this good to appease certain audiences& showing off their 'lots of people mechanic' each level area had to be made smaller, so this sub- level hold your hand journey was adapted.
Another blood money can't be made without either streamlining or hints for the wider audience . I just assumed that's why they had their 'hints' &see through walls system, but then they streamlined the game too.
The next Hit-man will apparently be made by Square Enix Montreal studio. Let's hope they don't take the same direction as IO interactive.
As a hit-man game this gets 4, as a standalone game it gets 6. I settled on 5