In this opportunity I again present Agent 47 action in Hitman, this time with a different episodic format than usual. Having previously been criticized for Hitman: Absolution has a too linear level design, IO Interactive finally presents Hitman with a sandbox design that encourages the creativity of players like Hitman: Blood Money.
Actually my lifetime has never played Hitman game, so I went into this game in a condition not familiar with the story at all. But I really like and often play stealth game genre. Will the latest Hitman compete with other stealth games that have been on the market? Find the answers below.
- Between Reboot And simulation
Hitman opened with an early scene showing Agent 47 joining the ICA (International Contract Agency) organization. Then you will be taken to several short missions which are also a tutorial. Opening like this is good for people who just know Hitman like me, but also a bit confusing. The impression is like a reboot, but it is not.
After the tutorial is over, you are immediately thrown into another mission that is not sequential with events in the mission tutorial. The story itself is not very clear, just a snippet of scenes about the mysterious people who are doing mysterious things as well. Understandably, Hitman is currently released until the third episode of a total of seven episodes, so you can not yet know the whole story.
Think of playing Hitman like watching a James Bond movie. It's a mission, there are enemies, and there are people you have to beat. Ignore the mysterious things that are not clear, then focus on finding ways to be a cool and lethal secret agent.
- Sensitive And Stretching
Hitman's game style is very open and free. Once you have chosen a mission, you will be thrown into a location containing the objective and target of the prey you have to kill. Some weapons and equipment you can carry, but otherwise no special instructions. How to complete a mission is really left to your creativity.
There are many things you can do to influence the movements of the NPCs. Starting from disguising others to your suspicion, generating coins with coins, switching off electronic devices, making a big fuss with fireworks explosions. The NPC will react to changes in the environment, and you should use it to create an infiltration gap.
The NPCs can interact with other NPCs fairly dynamically, and will react to your behavior differently. Suppose you blow up a gas cylinder in the middle of town. A soldier will come to check, while preventing other residents from approaching the blast site. Meanwhile ordinary people may run away in fear.
When you meet NPCs who have a relationship with your target of killing, you can use their relationship to run missions. For example if you find out that your target has an appointment with a masseur, you can disguise the masseuse and then finish him in a quiet room.
So many variations of interaction that can happen, so you have to try a lot to get the best solution. The first time you play Hitman maybe you will feel frustrated because the level of difficulty is high enough. But with the increase of flying hours, you will increasingly memorized the shape of the field and the cracks in it.
The more often you play, the more you will master the mission to finish it perfectly. That's when Hitman's real pleasure begins. You will begin to be tempted to do strange things, and commit murder in hilarious ways. Hitman's main reward is not the end result of the mission, but it's a pleasure to go through these missions as we please.
- The Technical Section is Less Perfect
Hitman's game style is actually very fun, but is plagued by many technical problems. There are two very annoying things that I met in this game. The first is the control system is not precision, and the second is the scripting that sometimes chaotic.
In a stealth game, responsive and tight control is an absolute thing that can not be compromised. Just one wrong push of a button or a misstep can cause your mission to break up. Unfortunately Hitman's control system is designed with many things that I find very unsuitable for this stealth game.
Hitman uses a lot of contextual buttons, ie buttons that can change function depending on the conditions. For example, the key used for stealth kill is the same as the button used to hit. I often intend to paralyze the enemy quietly, but suddenly the function of the button turned into a regular punch, making me so noisy so caught.
We also can not replace the weapons that we hold when hanging or standing on the ledge (narrow ledge). This is exacerbated by the feature of holding a weapon that is distinguished between the right hand and the left hand. If I was hiding on the ledge holding a gun in my right hand, I could not shoot anyone on the left side because it was blocked by a wall.
The quality of event scripting in Hitman is also often chaotic. When you activate an event, then do something that affects the center of the event, the event can stuck and not go forward. This kind of mess I've encountered even since the tutorial mission, and it's getting worse when running a fairly complex mission in Paris.
My advice, save often when you play Hitman. It sucks once when the mission gets messed up because of technical problems like this. When compared to other stealth games, I still prefer Deus Ex: Human Revolution rather than Hitman in terms of quality control and scripted event.
- Online features, profitable or harmful?
Hitman has an online feature that is quite intensive, and this feature there are advantages and disadvantages. First of all keep in mind that the save data you use online and offline is stored separately. So make sure you always play the right save data.
If your connection breaks in the middle of the game, you will be thrown out of the mission without any warning. This feels very annoying, especially if your connection is not stable. Again my suggestion, save frequently.
On the positive side, Hitman quite often get updates and additional missions from the developers. There is a mission Elusive Target that is released periodically and you should finish in one try only. There are also other mission variations such as Contracts Mode and Escalation Mode, adding to the motivation to play longer.
Overall Hitman is not the best stealth game on the market, but it's still pretty fun. It's pretty much a troublesome technical thing, but the core of the game itself is fun to play and watch over and over again. Especially if you're the type who likes to experiment and exploit games.
If you're a big fan of the Hitman series, I think the latest game will not be too disappointing. Just make sure your internet connection is stable in order to play with the extrane content. And if you play it on a PC, make sure your computer is quite capable, because Hitman needs a hardware specification that is high enough to run it.
