Hitman: AbsolutionThis was my introduction to the
Hitman series a few years ago. It's not particularly representative of the series, being more of a modern, linear action game full of scripted setpieces, lengthy cutscenes, and the like, with an emphasis on infiltration rather than assassination. This shift in priorities seems to be accounted for by a number of the devs having previously worked on the shitty
Kane & Lynch series. There are occasional moments in the game where you're required to assassinate certain people, but these targets are usually random-ass extras with only the barest hint of personality or motivation to them. It's better than nothing, I guess, but having proper context for your targets is half the fun in a
Hitman game. In the latest two games, by contrast, every target has a fleshed-out personality, a certain motivation, and a distinct role in the "story" of the mission they appear in. You never get the feeling that they're just cannon fodder, someone you have to kill for the sake of it. They all exist as a seamless part of the world they inhabit.
The story gets a lot of focus here, which is remarkable, given how shitty it is. I mean, yes, a lot of video games have terrible stories, but I don't think I've seen one this bad be taken so seriously by the game since I played through the AssCreed series. There are so many long cutscenes, so much dialogue, a narrative that constantly twists and turns as justification for driving you all over the map - and it's all done in favor of what amounts to a pastiche of awful exploitation movies. Okay, so taking 47 out of the fancy suits and exotic locales and putting him in a grittier setting isn't a bad idea. It could have been a nice change of pace for the series. But doing it like this? Dumping him in a world of S&M dungeons, latex nuns, and corrupt backwater towns full of hick stereotypes? I don't think that could ever have resulted in a good story. Also, the girl who drives the plot has no real agency and is treated as an object rather than a character most of the time, and this familiar "protect the special young girl" trope has been handled far better by plenty of games both before and since.
In many other regards, the game is immature and mean-spirited, with an unmistakable edgelord streak. The profanity from almost every character is excessive and contrived, putting two unconscious NPCs in a closet together will have one of them slump forwards so it looks like he's taking it in the ass (somewhere a thirteen-year-old is in hysterics), and there's a truly weird emphasis on sex (strip clubs, lurid ads for porn, NPCs watching porn, the latex nuns, the focus on the sex life of one character who's into S&M, etc.) in the environments, despite the fact that nothing about the story is directly related to sex at all. The harder
Absolution tries to insist that this is an edgy, mature game, the more childish and desperate it looks. The constant hick jokes during the middle act of the game grate as well. They're not funny, and they go on for so long that they eventually just end up seeming far too nasty.
On the notion of game mechanics. The disguise system sucks. They won't fool people you're dressed as - which is usually everyone in the room you're trying to get through - unless you burn through your "Instinct" meter (which is very tricky to refill), so you usually end up cowering at the other side of the room ducking in and out of cover to get past everyone. It doesn't feel like you're really in disguise at all. There should be some limits on a disguise system, but doing it like this was a terrible idea. I feel like this should have been brought to their attention during testing. I also don't like that it counts as SPOTTED!!! and you receive a hefty penalty to your score if an NPC gets suspicious of your disguise or if you poke one toe into a trespassing zone for half a second. The biggest issue of all is the lack of manual saving. That is bullshit, designed to waste your time and add artificial difficulty to a game that would otherwise be pretty easy to get through quickly. Maybe as far as the infiltration sections of the game go it makes a little bit of sense, but when you're given an open area to roam and targets to assassinate, it becomes a fucking pain. You're trying to explore, to experiment, to play around, and the game keeps smacking you down while yelling "No! Wrong! Now start everything over again, and play the game properly this time!" It's like it's going out of its way to stop you from playing the game in your own way.
Despite everything I've just said,
Absolution is still an enjoyable game, and much too competently put together for me to really call it bad. Some of the assassinations are pretty nifty in the classic
Hitman way, and a few levels are genuinely great. I also appreciate that crowds of people look and feel realistic and weighty, which is something that the later games haven't really been able to nail down. Besides, at least IO came to their senses and returned the series to form for the next installment, which is more than I can say for the
Splinter Cell series, which took a similar detour into heavy action, watered-down stealth, and stupid edgelord writing with
Conviction, and sadly never came back.
NiohThis is easily the best non-From Soulslike I've played, which isn't really saying much when its main competition seems to be Deck13's mediocre ripoffs
Lords of the Fallen and
The Surge. Unlike those games,
Nioh clearly had a vision behind it, and it feels like its own unique game despite the heavy
Souls influence. The combat emphasizes rhythm and speed over brute force, with a feature that lets you regain spent stamina by tapping a button at the right moment - it's not uncommon in any given encounter to spend a lot more time dancing around the enemy than attacking or blocking. There's also a ton of loot to collect, and frequently switching out your weapons and armor for higher-leveled gear is all but required, as the option to upgrade your current equipment is available, but prohibitively expensive to use too often. And instead of making your way through an enormous, interconnected world, the game is split up into a few dozen fairly brief levels.
The fatal flaw in
Nioh, the one thing that almost kills this game for me, are the boss fights. These bosses are bullshit. They are the very definition of fake difficulty. They can change attacks mid-attack, attack while retreating in almost the same movement, hit you with attacks that are all but unavoidable unless you turn around and sprint in the other direction, knock you to the ground and hit you while you're lying there motionless, freeze you in place and continue to pound you for another few seconds, and so on. They all have absurd amounts of health, and most of them can easily one- or two-shot you with certain attacks, even if you've leveled up your vitality extensively. It's ridiculous. Now, I know that there are ways to take out these bosses quickly, as shown by numerous speedruns, largely through delicate combinations of the right equipment and the right spells and all that, but even if I knew how it was achieved with every boss, I can't imagine anything less fun than suiting myself up in an ultra-precise manner for one quick moment of gameplay and then dropping the build completely. I shouldn't
have to do that for boss fights, and there's no way that it was the intended playstyle. If you play this game the normal way like a normal person, you're going to find that the bosses are insanely overpowered, and it feels like a very cheap way to pump up the game's difficulty.
I really miss Blanko. He would probably argue with me about the bosses and say that I was a scrub who needed to git gud, but more than that, I'd have been interested in his thoughts on the mechanics, particularly the combat system. May he find peace, wherever he is.
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