Games are rarely perfect and even for a game as amazing as “Hitman: Absolution”, there are a few things that the game doesn’t do well. When playing a game like this, it’s important to remember that dying a few times is part of the process and that getting frustrated is pointless. Treat the game, and the mistakes you make playing, as a learning experience and it will be a lot smoother sailing.

Speaking of mistakes, each one here teaches a valuable lesson for the current mission and the next mission after that, by filling in little tidbits of new features that get integrated into the game early on in the beginning. The training that a budding assassin goes through at the start helps to brush up old skills from past games as well as hone new ones to succeed in this game. This perspective makes each mission a powerful teaching tool that is a joy to earn rather than a frustrating list of events to go through on a chart. Hitman games require a delicate hand to execute well and certainly rewards creativity. It means that for “Hitman: Absolution”, replay value is high and allows you to kill the same target in a dozen different ways over and over again.

The few knocks against it? Either the enemies are really blindly gullible or part bloodhound. When using a disguise you can be discovered because it doesn’t matter if you’re a cop or a thug, someone will pick you out in crowd of hundreds of others dressed just like you. This is true every single time with no middle ground in between. It makes sense that a kingpin would recognize if you’re not one of his guys but knowing every cop in a major city seems pretty improbable.

Another issue is that you can’t drop weapons that you’ve used, you must take it with you and that wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it does get in the way of one important gameplay mechanic. Imagine you’ve subdued a body and naturally you need to hide them so no one else is alerted to your presence. This makes sense, but there’s an item next to the drop site that interferes with your ability to hide a body. So in this case, instead of hiding the body, you inadvertently pick up a weapon and there isn’t a way to drop that weapon at all. You end up cycling weapons instead of being able to dump the body. This happens occasionally, and is a frustration for those who want to earn maximum points when hiding a body.

The game otherwise lives and breathes the hunt, allowing you to spring out from behind cover to snap a targets neck or take them hostage as a meat shield. The character interactions are real world accurate and as you would in real life; even faking a surrender is possible here. If surrendering doesn’t appeal to your sense of survival, then shooting a target from cover or in slow motion using the targeting system called Point Shot, might be just move for you. Point Shot allows you to tag targets, in slow motion using your Instinct skills to take them out immediately during a small Hollywood action style cut scene. Regardless of which play style you choose, the game moves with purpose and as the main player, so do you.

After a 6 year hiatus from the world of video games, this is the best gaming reintroduction in a long time. “Hitman: Absolution” is an intuitive assassin style game that draws players deep into the story and mindset of Agent 47. Graphics and texture are as rich as ever and add a gritty depth to an already dark profession. Gameplay mechanics will be familiar to veteran players, while new features entice new players to join in the hunt for that perfect kill. Agent 47 is on the run, sometimes not alone and he wants answers. IO Interactive set out to renew his story and this time, it’s personal.

Rated: 4.5/5 for an excellent reintroduction into the story and skill set of Agent 47. Enhanced storyline presence and great gameplay mechanics for the modern consoles gives this game great versatility and endless replay value.

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“Hitman: Absolution” has been a much publicized game and its launch signals the return of the Silent Assassin as he tries to make his way across the Hitman storyline on a seventh generation console. Filled with great features akin to other assassin style games, the hunter style gameplay will entice those who want a modern take on the perfect assassination. Make choices across the board in a myriad of ways as you step into the shoes of Agent 47 once again.

Focusing on the storyline, the player is immediately drawn into the next chapter in the life of the silent assassin. This time around, it is his most trusted confidant, Diana, whom he must hunt. She’s betrayed the agency and it’s your job to find out her motives. Once you do however, that predictably leads to more questions than answers. The game is more story driven in many ways, owing to the less than stellar storylines from previous games. Hitman: Absolution doesn’t play out like a stuttering mission by mission video game anymore, but instead seamlessly transitions between each mission like a Hollywood movie.

Gameplay style has also been upgraded for current generation consoles and their raised expectations. The Hitman franchise has been a long running game series from Io Interactive and having the game play mechanics remain the same as they were from the last generation of consoles just wasn’t an option. Given new life this time around, the classic Hitman tools of Garrote and Silenced “Silverballer” Pistol are instantly available to the player on the first easy play through. What this leaves room for though, is a whole host of upgrades and tools in Agent 47′s bag of tricks.

Not only can the player select from 5 levels of difficulty, it is possible to change the difficulty mid level inside the game. Across those 5 levels you can change the level of instinct regeneration available to the player as well as how many checkpoints players have available to them. Enemy reaction timing, as well as instinct’s abilities change accordingly. Agent 47′s Instinct skill in Hitman: Absolution, when activated, gives him hints on enemy locations (even through walls), the ability to predict movement and find usable items in the environment and fool enemies while in disguise. Agent 47′s Instinct skill thumbs its nose at Ezio Auditore’s Eagle Vision from Assassins Creed and says “So what, you’re not the only one.”

The instinct skill, though, can be turned off. For players who’ve walked in Agent 47′s shoes on a PS2 or original Xbox, Hard or Expert will feel right at home. On Easy, Instinct regenerates, hints are given, there are a fair number of check points and enemies are slower. It makes for a happy, almost leisurely target hunt. Conversely the Purist level, as the name suggests: gives no Instinct, enemies will almost always be alert to you and there are no checkpoints. All you have is a map and a gun. Maybe.

The pace of the game though, with its slow calculated movement, means that changing weapons to suit the mission might become necessary and indeed could save lives. Well, lives or a great deal of frustration. The weapons and selection menu is accessed via the D pad on consoles and so changing from a handgun to two handguns to a shotgun that you found on a body is ridiculously fast. A simple button press or two from makes changing weapons a versatile joy and a great asset, not a detriment. There’s no messy scrolling around on a gigantic wheel of weapons here.

The game is immediately gratifying and that’s taking into account the slower stalking style elements that Agent 47 employs as he scales buildings and ducks under the cover of darkness. The game is linear as far as getting from point A to point B, but how you execute the target once you get to the scene is completely up to the player. Whether you go in guns blazing or use a subtle poison still earns you points to unlock character skills.

Points earned during a mission do affect your overall score though; each bullet that Agent 47 fires and hits an unintended target removes points gained from completing mission objectives. Thus, in this case, getting rated as a Mass Murderer is not encouraged, but is still immensely gratifying upon the second run though of the game. In many ways, expending bullets makes it too easy, almost like a mistake or a letdown. The mark of a true professional in this game relies on a mysterious death and denigrates the flashy executions.

Part 2 our reviews continue with more gameplay mechanics as well as a few things that made the game a little frustrating at times.

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