Hitman: Absolution

Plot synopsis:
Set after the events of Hitman: Blood Money, the game begins with Agent 47 detailing his relationship with his handler Diana Burnwood whom he had trusted until she, without explanation, betrayed the International Contract Agency (ICA) by sabotaging their funding and database, using the subsequent confusion to vanish. After the ICA is reformed, 47 is tasked by his new handler, Benjamin Travis, a high level official within the ICA, to kill Diana for her betrayal and retrieve an important Agency asset; a teenaged girl named Victoria from her mansion in Chicago, Illinois. 47 sneaks into her mansion and shoots Diana. Rather than finishing her off, 47 comforts his dying friend and asks her why she betrayed the ICA. Diana discovered Victoria was genetically-engineered to become an assassin for the ICA. Not wishing to see Victoria suffer the same fate as 47, she betrayed the ICA and escaped with her. As Diana's final request, 47 agrees to protect Victoria, for which Travis brands him a traitor.
After 47 drops Victoria off at the Rosewood Orphanage to hide, he contacts his informant, Birdie, for information about Victoria and the ICA, which Birdie agrees to provide once 47 has assassinated a crime boss in Chinatown for him. After cutting the barcode tattoo out of his head and giving his Silverballers to Birdie, 47 is informed by Birdie about a man named Blake Dexter, head of Dexter Industries, a home defense system company, who is staying at the Terminus Hotel. 47 sneaks into the hotel and learns from a conversation between Dexter and his secretary Layla Stockton in his penthouse that Dexter is planning to kidnap Victoria and sell her to the highest bidder. However, 47 is knocked out by Dexter's bodyguard Sanchez. Dexter, realizing who 47 is, kills a hotel maid, frames 47 and leaves him to die after setting his penthouse on fire. 47 manages to escape the hotel, and is then hunted by the Chicago PD. After escaping the police, Birdie sends 47 to kill Dexter's informant Dom Osmand. After Dom is killed, Birdie calls 47 for help as Dexter has hired thugs led by a criminal named Edward Wade to find him in order to discover Victoria's location. 47 heads to Chinatown and kills the thugs searching for Birdie only to discover Birdie has already been captured, and immediately heads to the orphanage, learning that Birdie has betrayed him by revealing Victoria's location to Wade so that his life may be spared.
47 manages to arrive at the orphanage just as Wade and his men attack. 47 mortally wounds Wade but Victoria is kidnapped and taken hostage by Lenny, Dexter's son. Learning where to find Dexter from a matchbox found on Wade, 47 heads to the town of Hope, South Dakota, where Dexter rules the town due to his PMC's and the corrupt town sheriff, Clive Skurky, who is under his pay. Retrieving his Silverballers, 47 takes out Lenny's gang, the "Hope Cougars", who were planning to kidnap Victoria from Dexter and sell her to a rival weapons company. After interrogating Lenny over where Victoria is, 47 can either kill Lenny or leave him to die in the desert. Arriving at Dexter Industries HQ, 47 sneaks into the company's laboratory, kills the scientists who examined Victoria and destroys their research data on her. After killing Sanchez in an underground cage fight, 47 recuperates at a hotel but the hotel is attacked by an ICA strike team led by "The Saints". 47 eliminates The Saints including their leader, Lasandra Dixon. Angered over this failure, Travis heads to Hope with a large group of ICA operatives to kill 47 and find Victoria.
47 manages to find Victoria under the Hope Courthouse jails but is subdued by Sheriff Skurky. As Dexter tortures 47, demanding to know where his son is, he is informed that Travis wants Victoria back in exchange for $10 million and leaves. 47 manages to escape into the streets of Hope, just as the ICA takes over the town. 47 chases Skurky to a church where the sheriff tells 47 that Dexter is heading to Blackwater Park in Chicago, before 47 kills him. In Chicago, Dexter and Travis attempt an exchange for Victoria for $10 million but the deal turns sour when Travis refuses his part of the deal and Dexter takes the money anyway. After reaching the top of Blackwater Park, 47 kills Layla and finally Dexter himself, after the latter had tried to escape with Victoria on a helicopter. In Dexter's dying words he offers an apology to his son and his money, leading a disgusted Victoria to throw the $10 million on his body before leaving with 47.
A few months later, Travis and his assistant Jade Nguyen arrive at a cemetery in England with an ICA crew to find Diana's grave as he has suspicions that Diana might not be dead. 47 is there as well as he recounts the letter Diana gave to him. In the letter, Diana reveals Victoria was created by Travis's funding without the knowledge and approval of the ICA higher ups and tasks him to eliminate Travis. After eliminating Jade and Travis's elite bodyguards, 47 confronts Travis himself after injuring him in an explosion. As Travis rants at 47 for wasting Victoria's potential for the ICA, he asks 47 if he really did kill Diana to which 47 responds "You will never know" and kills Travis.
It is later revealed that Diana survived and Victoria is with her at her mansion where 47 watches them from his scope thus revealing that only he knew all along he hit Diana with a shot that would not be fatal. The game ends with a message from Diana to 47 welcoming him back to the ICA and thanking him for his help. This also reveals that the story from the end of Blood Money to Absolution was all one daring hit contract on individuals within the Agency by Diana and executed by 47 to protect Victoria and terminate the assassin cloning project. In the epilogue, Detective Cosmo Faulkner of the Chicago PD, who has been tracking 47 since the Terminus Hotel fire, is having trouble discovering 47's identity until Birdie offers to help him for a price.

Tags: violence

Review:
As a longtime Hit-man fan, I was eager to play the follow-up to 2006's "Blood Money," but as the years ticked by, I began to think it wasn't going to happen.
Either that, or the programmers would take too long and we'd end up with a product like "Duke Nukem Forever." Luckily, the time spent making this latest installment of the Hit-man franchise was well worth it!
The storyline might be more in-depth than previous Hit-man games (which some critics have scoffed at, strangely), but it just engrosses the gamer even more into this dark, awesome world.Without giving too much away, the gameplay is basically the same as "Blood Money," but with a new focus option that allows you to see through walls and focus in on the patterns of the AI around you (think of it like Batman's sonar vision from "The Dark Knight" - it's basically the exact same thing).
There's also an option to "point shoot," which is identical to the "Dead Eye" target-shooting from "Red Dead Redemption." Hey, if another game made it cool, why not put it in Hit-man?
I'm not a huge fan of stealth games, nor have I played the other Hit-man games, being a guns blazing kind of gamer.
Regarding the other aspects, I loved the atmospheric environments, the interesting conversations you can eavesdrop on and the dozens of ways the game presents you with for eliminating your targets and eluding everyone else, including the guns blazing way.
The fifth run in baldie's franchise, Absolution packs new features and even a competitive leaderboard mode.As in previous installments, you play the scary man with the lustrous head.
Being the sequel that it is, if you've never played at least one of the other games in the series before, you're probably going to miss out on a lot of references, but the narrative is still entertaining enough by itself that you don't *have* to.The thing that stands out the most is how the general presentation and vibe have changed.
It's true that this compromised the freedom that, say, Blood Money gave the player, but it also helps in not getting overwhelmed in huge maps if exploration is not your thing.There are also quite a number of mechanics that have been introduced to 47's repertoire, most notably, the Instinct feature and upgrades tied to your mission performance.
While I can appreciate the effort to add some online competition to the game and the idea behind a reverse whodunit is certainly great, it would've been nice to have some more variety when setting up your own contracts.The core and substance of the game are basically left untouched: you sneak around, kill stuff in whatever way you so choose and walk away.Of course, there are some faults.
Yet, there are aspects to design, like baddies spotting you in disguise from a mile away, certain missions sort of pushing a balls-to-the-wall, guns-blazing approach while at the same time penalizing you in rating for not being stealthy enough or the constant crutch on the new Instinct feature, that detract from the overall enjoyment.
While the general direction seems to build upon the good stuff from the previous games, some sections could've been fine-tuned better.Summing up, Absolution is a more accessible and linear mix of what worked in its predecessors plus some decent new features, a much cleaner design and pretty visuals to boot.
I knew the premise, Agency creates genetic experiment to be the perfect assassin and he kills people and that it was a stealth game but I never really branched into playing it until I played this.
I played it first because the only other way I can play Hit-man games is to buy 2, 3 and 4 on a much higher price and I wasn't sure if I was a fan yet.Okay the story, Agent 47 assassinates someone he works with at The Agency and her dying wish is that 47 protects this teen-aged girl who was experimented on, just as he was.
With a change of heart towards the Agency, 47 does all he can to stop the people who want her for financial gain (or in some cases - otherwise) and give her the opportunity he never seemed to have.The story is actually really good.
I do find Agent 47 interesting although it might be because I have never played another Hit-man game but that's it - He's interesting.
The levels can be re-selected so you can play them again and boy can that be fun in the way of you trying to beat the score you made last time.
The score system is if you kill your target - you get 50,000 points, If anyone gets in the way or if you go guns a blazing then the game punishes you for it by taking away points.I'd also say the disguise system is really good but one thing KILLS it.
If you walk around other people whilst maintaining this disguise you'll hear "Where have I seen you before?" or "Hey is that the new guy!" as if every single person who threatens you completing the mission has a photographic memory.
I mean this is nitpicking - I know but when you're playing 20 missions, each having dozens of guards asking if you're new or thinking it's suspicious that they don't have a photographic memory of who you are - yes it does get annoying.So will I play the other Hit-man games?
If you want to play it I'd say if you can rent the game then that would make things much better on yourself but aside from it's length I'd consider this being almost as good as other European games like Mafia: City Of Lost Heaven..
Compared to previous entries in the Hit-man game franchise, this one trades a semi-open world game play mechanic with being, not required, but strongly encouraged to sneak around from place to place.
However, it still has the core elements of a traditional Hit-man game in it.
With things like being able to change disguises, specific targets to kill, and being able to use the environment to your advantage (accident kills can be some of the most satisfying in the game.).
Set after the events of 2006's Hit-man: Blood Money, 47 is given a task that will force him to turn on the only person he's ever cared for: Diana Penelope Burnwood.
Before passing on from a grave bullet wound inflicted by 47, Diana uses her final, dying breaths, to ask 47 to look after one thing: a young girl that she stole from "the doctors." 47 chooses to fulfill his only friend's dying wish, setting up the remainder of the game for a cat and mouse chase as The Agency attempts to retrieve both 47 and the girl.
Gameplay features a new "scoring system," which either rewards the player points for playing stealthily, or punishes him/her for making mistakes.
So, overall Hit-man: Absolution is a very good game, it's just the repetitive challenges and the forced upgrade system that bring it down.
A good story with some great characters and humour, but gameplay is a bit mixed - rigid stealth mechanics with an arcade/consolitis feel.
The gameplay does offer good replayability though, if you want to improve your score for each level and beat the scores of your friends.Levels are on the small side and too linear, but many have nice detail and feel very alive with huge crowds of AI.
Even worse, if you reload a checkpoint, some enemies are alive that you killed before reaching that checkpoint.So, gameplay is arguably not quite as good as in Blood Money, but I did find the story in Absolution much more entertaining.
Worst of the Hit-man series.The game is made to look good with pretty graphics and this is emphasized the first time you walk through the gates of Chinatown when some fire jumps out of a frying pan.
Most missions consist of you trying to sneak from point A to point B.If you are a fan of the Hit-man series, you will hate this game as it does not resemble any of the other games.
The engine has been totally reworked to the point where it feels like a different game entirely.If you are not a fan of the Hit-man series, you may enjoy Absolution, but you will soon find there is no replay value and the game is just a drag from start to finish.Buy any other Hit-man game..
Nevertheless i'd rate all Hit-man games as 10/10 simply cuz they are Great in their own ways.
could whine a lot for this...) 2.The Level are mostly too small and linear (i need more freedom!) 3.sucks that story-levels cannot be re-played whit gear ofchoice anymore :S (tho in contracts mode it's partially possible) 4.the game itself is quite Short...(nothing compared to Skyrim etc.)I play the game on PC, thru Steam.~Agent M3554NJ4H.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys stealth (not going rambo) as this is a really entertaining, I want to play more of game..
That saying, I can't see any reason why any Hit-man fans of this game series are angry of the new Hit-man game, Hit-man Absolution.In my opinion, Hit-man Absolution is a mixture of both Hit-man: Silent Assassin and Hit-man: Blood Money.
In Hit-man: Silent Assassin, there are several missions where you are supposed to reach point A to point B without killing any targets.
Well, to that I say it's nonsense, as in Hit-man: Silent Assassin, there are already such missions.
Furthermore, Hit-man Absolution brought back the classic game-play element of Hit-man: Blood Money which is accidental kill, freedom/numerous choices to kill your target and open-ended game-play.
So, for what reason are Hit-man fans upset over Hit-man Absolution?Not to mention, the combat game-play such as the using firearms, melee weopens and hand-to-hand combat have improve tremendously.
And this is one core element of the Hit-man games, replaybility.
They will search for you and their conversation to one another such as fear, anger and arrogance makes it far much more exciting.Also, the story campaign for Hit-man Absolution is far much more engaging and interesting.
Even before I play the game, I have already predicted that Victoria could have been another super human like 47 which turns out to be true.
He was able to bring out the personality of 47 when he was angry and still able to maintain that calm and cold calculating voice of 47.But to me, the best thing of Hit-man Absolution is that there is a challenge.
When I got Hit-man Blood Money the first time, I immediately got 10 levels with the 'Silent Assassin' rating, that's excluding the first and the last level.
The only level I didn't get Silent Assassin rating on my first play-through was the mission 'Flatline'.
Whereas for Hit-man Absolution, getting the rating is not as easy as Blood Money as apart form understanding NPC movements, you have to keep your distance from them as wearing a disguise doesn't mean you are invisible like Blood Money.
Hit-man fans who are too use to the invisible while wearing a costume find this tedious instead and game critics rated the game lower as they say in harder difficulties, remaining undetected is harder.
To be honest, most of the critics who criticise this game actually gave a lot of false and inaccurate information on the game.However, there is one major shortcoming of Hit-man Absolution which I didn't like a lot.
I would have prefer if they make one level as one whole thing as it is more fitting for a Hit-man game.
In fact, this one of the major reason why Hit-man fans and critics dislike this game which I won't disagree as I too didn't like it.
Using this reason about the levels broken down into different parts making the game more linear and removing the open-ended gameplay is again nonsense.
All in short, Hit-man Absolution is a worthy title of a Hit-man game and is definitely worth your money and time especially if you are hardcore Hit-man fan who wants a real challenge unlike the previous Hit-man Blood Money which is far much more linear and easier.
Do not be dishearten to buy the game because of critics reviews and Hit-man fans.
To me, most Hit-man fans hated this game only because they are too comfortable with the old Hit-man Blood Money playstyle.
A disappointing, irritating game that is undeserving of the name hit-man title..
If you took away the title, Hit-man, and replaced the game with any other name, this would honestly be a game that would be forgotten in 3 months down the track.My first complaint is that many of the features that made the franchise so worthwhile seem to be missing here.
Its a disheartening far cry from the massive, open world the original Hit-man games had that used to allow you to play the game however you wanted, and let you assassinate your targets in whatever fashion you wanted.Not only that, you are now incapable of upgrading your weapons or choosing what weapons you'd like before the each mission commences.
The stealth game play isn't much better.
The disguise system, which was all too effective in hit-man: blood money is practically useless here.
The game forces you to rely on instinct mode, which is not only useless on the harder options but it depletes really quickly, and the only way you can replenish it is from killing people.
Not only that, for a hit-man game, you literally don't get to do any killing here at all.
A lot of the most basic features of the previous hit-man games seem to be missing too, like for instance you can't even look through keyholes or even poison food or drinks to incapacitate or kill enemies.You can't even enter first person mode anymore.
This just simply feel like a hybrid between splinter cell and batman, rather than a legitimate hit-man game.
I'll start this off by saying that I'm a die-hard Hit-man fan.
I anxiously waited 6 damn years for the new Hit-man game.
In previous Hit-man games, it followed a simple but effective formula.
Why does the game make you play like this?
In previous Hit-man games, the story was set aside in favor of random assassination missions.
Hit-man Absolution focuses on telling a story, instead of random assassinations.
One level has you sneaking your way up to a hotel room to kill your target.
This is completely unacceptable for a Hit-man game.
The wide open, richly detailed levels of other Hit-man games are gone in favor of scripted, linear stealth missions where you sneak from point A to point B.
Overall, Hit-man Absolution is a generic stealth game that completely abandons every element that made the other games great.
The game is good and I liked it a lot.
A good thing in the game play is that you can choose to go full Commando with a shotgun or do it the sneaky way.
" and play the game the fun way.
If you think that the game is too easy that way you can turn the instinct off.
You can point shoot like in Red Dead Redemption and The Order 1886 which also makes the game easy but you can just not use it.
The first thing i want to say here is this game is not as good as the rating.
before going any further i want to tell that I'm a huge fan of Hit-man series and have been waiting 8 years for this to come out and I'm not someone whose going to bash any game that I've never played before.
Disguise doesn't seem to be part of the game plan anymore because you're more likely to be discovered every 10 seconds.
The second thing that really disappointing is the level based game play.
Most of the time, you'll be figuring out how to get from point A to point B, it's not Hit-man anymore, it's more like Splinter Cell.
Blood Money offered more possible ways to kill your target than this garbage.
If it's come out as a new title, than it's OK but to call this Hit-man, maybe NOT!.
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.
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 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.
This type of bad guy can be done well, see max payne 1One 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.
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.
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.