Knights of the Cardboard Castle

I’ve never been a fan of the Hitman series. The only one I’ve played before this was Blood Money and I only grudgingly completed that one by dint of slavishly following online walkthroughs. I just never really understood the game. It felt contrived and confusing to me. After spending way too much time on Absolution, I now understand what it’s about and yes, I have to admit that the Hitman way of doing things is pretty great.

• One of the main complaints many fans have about the 2012 version is that the levels are so much smaller than those in its predecessor. This is true. But paradoxically this change allowed me to better understand the exploration aspect of the game. The levels in the previous game were just too intimidatingly large with so many scripted NPCs and options that I found it bewildering. The smaller scope of this game allowed me treat each level as a small puzzle, to be replayed over and over again until I learned all their kinks.

• I really like the new instinct system, though again, this seems to be something that longtime fans dislike. This only applies at normal difficulty since I found the higher difficulty levels too tedious to replay over and over again, but at this level, instinct provides proper information on the positions of nearby guards, where they’re looking and gives you a chance to slip by them under disguise. I also like how when sneaking around, you’re given a visual indicator when someone is looking at you and you’re in danger of being noticed. I don’t believe this system was in the previous game. I remember always being very frustrated when sneaking in Blood Money since I had no feedback over when I was being stealthy and when I wasn’t.

• The game is gorgeous. It has, in my opinion, the best rendition of masses of crowds in any game I’ve ever played. The first time you see Chinatown and push your way through the throngs of festival goers is an eye-opening experience. Its subway level is the only time when I’ve ever felt like I was in a real subway station in a game. I would love to see more games be able to support the number of onscreen actors that this game is able pull off. I guess the cost of all this is the small size of the levels.
• Many people don’t like the lack of a manually controllable in-level save. There are checkpoint saves, but these are very rare and even so only preserve completed mission objectives, scores and your inventory. Everything else is reset, including enemies and positions of objects. I found that this didn’t bother me. The levels are small enough that it’s easy enough to replay segments and I find myself replaying them often to really learn the NPC routines and get different achievements.
• The story is completely crap and the in-game cutscenes are too distracting and irrelevant. Most of the cutscenes are about the villains and it’s not like we care about them. Most players agree that it would be best if there were no story at all and it’s all about 47 complete contracts for money. I’d agree with that. The villains have laughably cartoonish and modest aims (USD10 million feels like far too little money for a venture that involves hordes of well-trained, heavily armed troops engaged in black ops). And having 47 try to act like a hero feels terribly out of place. A hitman is an amoral killer. They should have just run with that.

• Likewise, too many levels are of the running away from danger variety instead of the kill people in a cool way variety. That said, the levels which do involve killing people are pretty good. They’re the reason why I keep replaying levels again and again, just to try out all of the different ways to kill the targets. You can drop loads on them, electrocute them, set them on fire, poison them etc. It’s pretty great. I also like needing to wear the appropriate disguises in the appropriate places and blending into the crowd. I just wish there were more such situations and fewer Splinter Cell moments.
• The DLC for this game must be the pointless of any game. I mean, new skins? Whatever for? New weapons? This isn’t a combat game and if you need to pull out a weapon you’re probably not playing it right. Sure, while the game can theoretically be played as a shooter, you get huge, highly visible score penalties whenever you do so. It’s pretty clear that the intent of the game is to encourage players to go for the silent assassin style: let no one see you, kill only the target, leave without causing a ruckus. This is the only way to get a high score and high scores are necessary to unlock abilities (not that these are necessary since they seem mostly combat related).

I ended up liking this game and spending  a lot more time on it than I ever imagined I would. The bite-sized levels make collecting achievements so addictive and yes, now I’m finally getting the appeal of the Hitman franchise, even if does involve a whole of patience and watching the NPCs go through their scripted routines. I just wish that the writers would treat the subject matter more seriously. Less Saint’s Row silliness, more Ghost Recon style briefings and real-world relevance in storylines.