Hitman

[eldargal]

The Hitman series (https://hitman.com) is getting a new installment soon, surprisingly and creatively named Hitman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yktoernWtw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkrUJJgQAaY
Gameplay video (with story spoilers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZXTAhpPKBc

HITMAN will launch on March 11 2016 as a truly episodic game experience with a major live component. The episodic nature of HITMAN allows us to craft both individual stories centred on Agent 47’s targets as well as longer season stories involving 47, Diana Burnwood, the ICA and an entirely new main cast.
The structure is inspired by contemporary TV series’ and will unfold over multiple seasons. To begin with, the overall story and the individual mission stories run in parallel but as the first season progresses, the tracks will merge and become one.

It's just had an open beta (which I forgot about) and all the reports from it have been glowing, saying its a return to the series' roots after the 'controversial' last installment Hitman: Absolution. The focus is back on open-ended solutions and less linear progression which is a good thing. I am really loving the sound of the Contracts system offering much more replayabiity than a simple story mode. I actually quite liked Absolution but this is sounding really promising.

[Kirsten]

is it definitely a hitman game? I don't see any fetish nuns with guns

[YorkNecromancer]

'Hitman: Blood Money' is one of the best, if not the best, games ever made. It's almost literally perfect.

I was so psyched for 'Absolution', then it came out and it was just disgusting. Insulting, stupid, a game that treated the fanbase, the series, and the main character without the slightest shred of respect. Everything, from fridging Diana in the very first mission, to stupid fat Danny Trejo on steroids, to the fact you couldn't get a Silent Assassin rating on many levels, to the crappy linearity of levels designed by people who had no idea about the way the games worked...

And of course, those f**king stupid f**king nuns.

I hated 'Absolution' more than I've hated almost any other game. If it had just called itself 'Grindhouse: The Game', and featured some other character, if it hadn't dared to call itself 'Hitman', it would've been fine. But it didn't do that. It called itself 'Hitman', and then it took the piss out of the franchise, and created something that wasn't just bad, but needlessly wretched in the process.

If the new 'Hitman' ends up being another 'Blood Money' - a prospect I severely doubt - then I will be elated. But if it's from the morons who did 'Absolution', then no. No, not at all. So yeah, ultimately I'm not yet really interested in this new one. I'm very definitely going to wait and see how it plays out, but my hopes aren't high, especially in the current climate of gaming, where a game is released for full price without being finished, then patched six months down the line for the same price again.

[eldargal]

Absolution was disappointing (especially the godawful nuns), but I actually didn't mind the more story driven approach it took, but I am SO GLAD they are returning to the series roots with this one. They have said they are basing it on Blood Money and a lot of the features of Absolution like save points, the awful map and whatnot are gone.

Spoiler: Diana isn't actually dead.;)

[Kirsten]

I quite enjoyed Absolution...

2 is probably my favourite.

[eldargal]

There were a lot of fun missions, but it was way too linear and then you had the unnecessary strip club level, and the dead stripper level, and the nuns and some very questionable gameplay changes (save points, the awful map etc.)

[YorkNecromancer]

I got about halfway through 'Absolution', and by that point I was so angry and disappointed, I just took it in to swap for something else, then restarted playing 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' because I wanted to play a stealth game that knew what it was doing.

I hated literally everything about 'Absolution'.

Like, a 'Hitman' game is simple. It's simple. It's a collection of short stories, and each one is a 'howdoit'.

Put me in the level, give me a target to kill, and if I kill anyone except that target, I've failed. Why? BECAUSE I AM A HITMAN. I DO THIS JOB FOR MONEY, AND NO-ONE HAS PAID ME TO KILL THOSE GUARDS. I DON'T WORK FOR FREE.

You want me to kill everyone in the level, I'll do that. But you pay me first. Otherwise, it's just the target.

'Blood Money' was perfect because every level worked that way, and every level was a simple, self-contained story. Here's a mob boss in rehab. Infiltrate the facility, make it look like an accident. Here's someone in witness protection throwing his daughter a birthday party; kill him on this happiest of days so everyone knows the price of crossing our cartel. Here's someone who insulted our boss; kill him on his wedding day.

So many horrible, horrible murders, all of them awful, but the money's good and that's all that matters. 'Hitman' was the one game where it never dressed up what you were doing as heroic. I am so sick of games telling me that violence is heroic. It's not. Violence is violence. I want to do it, not because I'm a hero, but because there's a lizard part of my brain that enjoys exerting dominance over others. I'm no moral coward; I don't need to dress my desires up in shining armour and pretend I'm somehow better than the villains. 'Hitman' was the only game that gave me that honesty: you were a hired killer, and the thrill wasn't the thrill of saving the day or beating the bad guy. It was the thrill of a job well done. It was the thrill of your intellect and skill vs. the level design. It was the inverse of a murder mystery novel - you're not working out whodunnit, you're working out how to do it, and that's a narrative that exists only in gaming. It cannot exist anywhere else.

'Absolution' ignored all of that, and was just a nothing game.

I so want the new one to be the new iteration of 'Blood Money', but it's just too much to hope for. the 'Hitman' series was genuinely too much for mainstream consumption: too overtly immoral, too honest in the intellectual thrill of its violence.

*sigh*

Christ I miss it.

[Kirsten]

it could do with being a bit more open to variation though, some of them were a nightmare to get a silent assassin ranking on, you had to find that one method which worked. I'd really like a game with a better focus on movement and how you get around a level. one day I am going to design a sniper game where you have a grappling hook a bit like Just Cause, and you can get yourself to a perfect position of your choosing, rather than the heavily scripted sniping location set out for you.

[eldargal]

Played the beta bit last night, it was fairly small in scale being a training episode but it seemed to deliver on what they promised. There were multiple paths to the target, many different opportunities to kill them in various ways, you could save whenever you wanted which also means more freedom. They also seem to have made 47 slightly more agile, in that you can vault over wire fences and the like. Really looking forward to the March release of the first episode and whatnot.