E3 2012: Despite Bizarre Marketing, Hitman: Absolution Stays True

[News Portal]

Patrick Stafford was able to disguise himself as a games journalist and sneak into the [app=8269]Hitman: Absolution[/app] booth at E3. He found a game that stays largely true to the series, despite some controversial marketing.

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[meji]

Big 'phew' that it seems to retain it's Hitman heritage.

[HandsomeSandwich]

Could never understand why they did so little with the last Hitman title. A simple level generator would have extended the game play for years.

A random map generator where you could drop models in and script bad guys to walk certain directions with a simple tool system would have been incredible.

The opera/theatre map and the rich apartment hideout in the snow I think I played every way possible with every gun possible in every play style possible.

Hopefully some serious DLC and re-playability is added to this one. The mechanics were great for an assassin game but the same ten levels deaded the game within a week last time.

[droopy]

In case if it has not been mentioned,
The original voice actor of 47 has been dropped for someone else.
Just like the next Splinter Cell will not use Michael Ironside.
Better not be some American actor trying on an English accent.
Dislike.

[Rogue]

One of the more controversial inclusions is the Instinct system, which will allow players to mark targets for execution in the same manner as Splinter Cell: Conviction. However, IO says this will only be possible with silenced weapons to maintain the stealth experience.

Does everyone but me know how you mark targets for execution in Splinter Cell: Conviction?

[DjVu]

Basically if you see an enemy (with your eyes or with devices) you can 'tag' them for execution (just by pressing a button).

In Conviction at least you can mark up to 3 enemies depending on how your 'execution charge'; this is charged by knifing guys.

Once tagged you simply press another button that sends your character into an uncontrollable animation where all 3 tagged people are killed.

I didn't even know this mechanic was in Absolution and it makes me very sad that it is I hope this mechanic along with Instinct overall will need to be off in order to get Silent Assassin ratings.

[Bronze_D]

translation: the console players find it quite hard to perform their 'action hero' kill sequence without some assistance (apparently generous auto aim was not enough) so in order to keep the appearance that the character is a powerful assassin or spy (Splinter Cell have long abandoned their old stealth style) or what not, they make it automatic and do it for you.

understandable given that target acquisition on console gamepad is like trying steer a fully loaded fat oil tanker.

but a very poor gameplay mechanic overall since it essentially removes control from the player for the action.

This would be fine if the action was some sort of mundane or potentially non vital action to the core gameplay, less so when it's the very crucial point of the game itself.

[PlasmaDavid]

Much better games just have mechanics in place where you control the action all the time, and end up going "wow I just did something cool" to yourself. Often helped along by high levels of environment interaction, physics etc

[Bronze_D]

You have to understand though that the options are not exactly easy for the dev either when it comes to console, you have a relatively cumbersome aiming device and you are trying to somehow make the player still appear to perform actions that are sleek, fast, efficient, and deadly despite that problem.

i mean quick time events are part of their attempt to mask that, 'instinct' or 'execution' or whichever else other 'auto kill' moves is just a natural progression of the development on that.

until they can come up with a future console controller mechanism that is precise and fast (at the moment with gamepad you can do one of the two, but not both at once with the same degree you can with say a mouse) they will continue to try and substitute it with these 'auto actions' move since they make for a good visual style to sell on their marketing and also because it's EASY to setup compared with a natural player controlled action.

[Rogue]

Basically if you see an enemy (with your eyes or with devices) you can 'tag' them for execution (just by pressing a button).

In Conviction at least you can mark up to 3 enemies depending on how your 'execution charge'; this is charged by knifing guys.

Once tagged you simply press another button that sends your character into an uncontrollable animation where all 3 tagged people are killed.

Thanks for that.

It sounds very poor.