Here we are again, our bald assassin with surgical precision and velvet steps! Six years after the famous Blood Money , which has been remembered by all infiltration fans as a little gem, here is Hitman Absolution and its controversial gauge of instinct ... Despite all the worries that the latter aroused, the preview version of the game had finally heated us like chestnuts! But this time, the hour of the final verdict has come. Tadaaaa.
A personal contract
The Agent 47 is back for a new mission, and not least since it is to eliminate Diana Burnwood, his usual liaison, who is accused of treason against the Agency. She has fucked a box of all hell before fleeing with the so-called Victoria, a girl who seems to be extremely important to the new boss of 47, the very penguin Benjamin Travis. The game begins when our favorite bald approaches Diana's heavily guarded villa. Objective: to liquidate the treacherous and bring back the precious girl to the fold ... A plan that should normally unfold without a hitch, except that for the infallible 47, perfect killer and formidable machine to liquidate, Diana is the only person in the world with whom he was able to maintain a normal human relationship one day ... What compromising for the very first time one of his missions? 47 does he have only one heart? Capacities of empathy? Of revolt? This is what we are offered to discover over 20 missions much more scripted than usual, with a lot of long cutscenes and with - you guessed it - aspecial focus on the hero. So do not expect to chain like missions and targets without real links, but rather to follow a continuous story, which will travel 47 from Chicago to South Dakota and put it in all its forms. Because this time, it's personal!
A beautiful killer mouth
The first satisfaction with Hitman Absolution is visual. The new engine (the Glacier 2 ) works wonders by displaying very large and complex environments, offering a top-of-the-line lighting system and sumptuous graphic effects. As tradition dictates, 47 must be able to mingle with the crowd in certain situations, and so the engine can handle a multitude of characters at a time. This is what he does with 1200 characters maximum in a level, 500 of which are displayed on the screen at the same time. This is the number given by the developers (no, we did not count), but in any case the effect is frankly striking when you discover the crowded streets of Chinatown, the danceflooroverflowing with a strip club, or the dock of a subway station packed. Admittedly, we see a lot of duplicates of characters, but we did not want to nitpick on it for hours: it's impressive and that's it. Especially since all this crowd reacts in a rather credible way to the mistrust or the general panic resulting from your actions.
But beyond technique, Hitman Absolution simply has the mouth. Aesthetically, too, the developers did a great job. It's both realistic and very stylized. The image has a particular grain, the colors are saturated at will, the diffused light sources ... and next to that the variety is of putting: there is a lot of different environments, and every corner of map has been pampered to have its own atmosphere, without untimely reuse of the elements posed here and there. The class.
Here is the time to make a note to PC players: you have been spoiled by IO Interactive , who has worked hard on your version of the game by optimizing everything that could be, namely a higher resolution of textures , a better rendering of lighting, new graphic effects especially in reflections, a use of tesselation with Direct X10, a reviewed interface, an optimized keyboard-mouse gameplay, Steamworks ... Visible results at first glance when one compare PC and console versions. It's beautiful.
Instinct or death
But now that these good basics are set, let's talk a bit about what interests us the most: the gameplay. Hitman Absolutioncomes of course with some novelties on this side too, starting with the famous gauge of instinct. The latter fills each time you perform stealth actions (kill silently, hide a body, etc.) and then allows you to activate different aids. We can thus, in a more or less limited way, see the position of the enemies through the walls, or even display clues in the environment (for example to highlight the way in which this or that element of the decoration could be used for liquidate one's target). One can also launch a "Reflex Shooting", during which the time slows down to allow to target several enemies at the same time and all to liquidate them at once, with style and effectiveness. But the action you will use most often with this key of instinct remains the small hand embarrassed on the skull, to hide "discreetly" his face. It is useful when one is disguised (for example in cop), that one crosses an enemy (another cop) and that one does not have to arouse his curiosity, to avoid being unmasked because he would not recognize in you one of his colleagues.
Some see this idea of instinct as an insult to the series. See through the walls ... what an idea! Fortunately for fans of the bald, for whom pure infiltration rhymes above all with extreme caution, IO Interactive has set up a difficulty system at the many levels (5 in all) that gradually disable all the helpers and add a little spice by putting more guards, making them smarter, by reducing the number of checkpoints ... instinct gauge can be first unlimited, then regenerate itself, then ask you to perform discrete actions to fill, and finally be completely disabled in the most difficult mode. In addition, the facilities that it brings are themselves gradually deactivated: the famous possibility of seeing through the walls can thus disappear, and the instinct finally allow only to deceive the vigilance of the guards when they cross, with the famous hand on his forehead and head down. That's all.
The hitmanian joys...
For the rest, you can add a new cover system (to hide behind walls and sides), an improved hand-to-hand combat (with even a few QTEs, yes), firearms and weapons fortune (decor items) galore, gunfights very action worthy of conventional GST (in case of a hard blow) or the possibility of launching knives, axes and other screwdrivers at a distance in the head. All this makes the handling of 47 much less rigid than at the time, allowing him to solve some difficult situations in a sudden burst of violence, but the "classic" formula of the series remains of course largely dominant, rest assured. You will spend most of your time slipping in the back of your isolated opponents to strangle them with the piano wire, to use disguises to move quietly in the levels, to drag bodies to swing them in dumpsters and erase all traces of your passage, tossing a bottle in one corner to get attention from one side and pass the other,Hitman so unique and so pleasant is there, and it's so good! There are even new possibilities for the guards, who will be able to spot for example traces of blood left on a wall following one of your assassinations, and who will always have a special word to say in all situations, whether either to ask 47 to clear an area where he does not have the right to be, or even to bask him when he does something suspicious!
About chatter, comical situations, humor and dialogue (there are really TONS) are always so great, so much so that it is not uncommon to land at a place long moment to witness a whole scene (like a stupid trial in a court), or to let a guard finish speaking before executing it. We do this because it's funny, but also because it always gives interesting indications on how we could proceed to approach and kill its real target ... And that's the essential point, the thing that gives the most pleasure in a Hitman: keep the goal in sight but observe thoroughly what is happening around us, just to find an idea and exploit it. Some levels offer dozens of ways to liquidate a target! It is sometimes expeditious and terribly effective, other times very convoluted but so funny that it provides an unspeakable feeling of satisfaction!
Highs and lows
Nevertheless, I must admit that I am a little past all states with Hitman Absolution . I had fun, a lot of fun even, but I also pestered on a lot of things and I was sometimes disappointed. In a general way first, it must be admitted that the Absolution experience , six years after Blood Moneystill, do not do very "2012". On paper it is certainly prettier, less rigid and with some novelties, but in the background the mechanics of the game and the structure of the levels has not changed much and will never really surprise the fan of the series. We must first accept that before starting, and the pill will pass all the better that, as said above, some levels are pure moments of playful happiness and slightly sadistic satisfaction.
Unfortunately, this is where we touch a more disappointing point: some missions are not only less inspired than others, but also sometimes very linear or downright very funny! Basically, for one or two moments of pure ecstasy like the level of Chinatown, that of the nightclub or the court, it will be necessary to type a kind of level of "transition" much less glowing. I think for example at the level of the orphanage (that you may have seen in video), far from being interesting in terms playful and even hyper relou by its extreme difficulty ... This is one of the black spots of the game: the difficulty is sometimes very, very badly dosed. We take his foot in difficult mode, we pay attention to everything, we infiltrate at no velvet, we do not leave traces ... in short, we like a crazy, and then paf, we come across a level like this, so complicated, so full of enemies and with a goal so con (recover three fuses to repair the elevator), we come to believe that the game wants to force us to use its new aspect "TPS", that is to say to stuff the enemies with heavy weapon from a strategic point, to clean the level and finally stop to start over again at the same checkpoint! Raging! We always end up being reconciled with the game, quickly, so much the other levels are pure masterpieces, but still, it is quite remarkable, especially as we face the passage to other defects, whether it's weird (or overpowering) AI reactions, or not enough checkpoints,
Scenario side finally, because there is a real this time as I told you above, we also go through different states ... but not really an alternative way this time. The story begins by being very promising at first, making us live a succession of very classy scenes that is more, before disappointing a little in the second part of the game, a bit too barred and less interesting, with in addition a finish too quickly shipped. We are far from the last cult sequence of Blood Money.
Challenges and infinite contracts
All these levels, the best and the worst, you'll still want to do them and redo them galore. Inevitably. First of all just for fun, because there are often tons of different ways to buckle them, but also because a new scoring systemmade his appearance. All your actions will give bonuses and penalties to your score (not to be spotted once, do not leave traces, etc.), but also your playing time and the ways you have proceeded to achieve your goals. Everything counts, and you can even try to discover all the objects and costumes of a level to have some bonuses, as well as pass special "challenges" which you can consult the list at any time. Of course, your final score will go somewhere in a ranking, compared to your friends' score to motivate you.
To this new scoring principle, very nice, adds a real game mode apart: the mode "Contracts". You've probably heard about it before, but basically it's about playing, creating and sharing missions with the community. It happens directly in any level of the game, but with targets and constraints different from those of the main scenario. To create a contract, we choose a level, then inside we designate one to three targets among all the characters that are there. Anybody. After which we liquidate the designated targets by using a particular weapon and in a particular disguise, and finally we share the contract. To succeed your contract, your friends will have to fulfill your conditions (such a target, such a costume, such weapon) and try to do faster and better than you (there are additional conditions such as not being seen, not leaving traces, etc.). A stupid principle, but which allows to create an infinity of missions to share online with the world. It's cool to play and it really extends the already long life of the game. It's good.
Absolution!
In the end, the observation is generally positive. I pined about a third of the missions, while still enjoying the fun, but nothing compared to the best levels, which are a credit to the tradition of the saga. The typical gameplay of the series, which puts us in open levels with multiple resolution possibilities, is still there, and it represents a slightly sadistic source of fun that is just unique and great. One laughs while listening to dialogues and by finding original solutions, one enjoys the purely infiltration aspect, the disguises, and finally one willingly forgives the game its some wanderings because the best sequences are really worth to be lived. The hardcore fans of Agent 47 will inevitably be destabilized as I have been by this lack of homogeneity, but they would be wrong to deprive themselves of one of the best games this end of the year, as usual bottled with hits. Hopefully the bald has enough followers to allow him to come back to fill us as soon as possible!
Hitman Absolution is a very good undercover game that suffers from some annoying little flaws. The 20 long missions that he offers are particularly uneven, making regular fans of the genre of frustration to a state of total pleasure. But these moments are so delicious that we gladly accept some wanderings (poorly dosed difficulty, perfectible AI, passages where we have no other recourse than stuffing). In the end, we will especially remember the pleasure of finding this subtle and original gameplay, these multiple ways to kill the same target, and of course all these features humor in dialogues and situations. It is impossible to deprive oneself if one likes infiltration!
| WE LIKE | WE DO NOT LIKE |
|---|---|
| * 20 long and rich missions of experiences, some of which are pure moments of happiness | * Finally not very innovative compared to Blood Money |
| * The different difficulty modes for all players | * Difficulty sometimes poorly adjusted, poorly dosed |
| * "Replayability" of hell | * We sometimes feel obliged to stuff |
| * Contracts mode to lengthen everything | * Some missions are pretty cool |
| * Neat design and aesthetics, great atmosphere | * Scenario a little too barred and without much interest on the end |
- The traits of humor, the very good dialogues, in VF as in VO
1-6 IMAGECREDIT
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