So, they seem to have snuck Hitman out without letting me know.
I can see that they've decided to go for the episodic formula, but all the reviews I can find tell me nothing about the quality of the episodes, only that they're butthurt because they decided to buy an episode at a time.
tl;dr, is the new Hitman game worth any money whatsoever? Should I buy it now or wait until it's completely released?
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They should honestly have released some of it free for people who were unfortunate enough to have believed in them and bought Absolution.
online/offline switching locks you out of a lot of content.
might as well wait until the full release so they can drop that bullshit
>online/offline switching locks you out of a lot of content.
How do you mean?
What content?
What I really want to know is, how much gameplay is there?
If I were to buy it now, would it all be finished within a day?
Is it even any good, are the mechanics like they used to be in Blood Money and Silent Assassin?
So far HITMAN is a surprise hit considering the formula of release and the quality of Absolution before it. This is also from someone who turned Instinct and Opportunities off, so I won't comment on those.
First off, there's some negatives for buying episodic. The up front cost is an extra $5 if you buy all the episodes, not to mention the Bonus Episodes aren't included for free even if you have all the episodes so far. Other than that, the Episodic release doesn't hurt the quality of the game at all.
There is some extra jewing with the way online works. If you're playing offline, then you can't use any of your online saves or any unlocks you've earned. You're also limited to the Story Missions, none of the extra Escalation Missions or any Contracts, so it's a bit of a shite thing if you're going to have a poor internet connection. They give you saving anytime to counteract that, but it's still janky.
For the actual quality of the game, it's definitely a contender for the best HITMAN so far with its systems. AI still is exploitable, but overall is around the standard it should be for a stealth game. The disguise system no longer requires you to use Instinct around people in the same uniform to keep hidden. For the most part, it's Blood Money's old system, but administrative personnel or just anyone who would be familiar with the staff for that area can see through disguises if you stand around too much. For melee weapons in the field, you can find a variety that allow you to make quick silent/lethal takedowns/throws, and many of them serve a dual purpose, i.e. using a crowbar to break open a door or using a wrench to unscrew some bolts. They keep Absolution's system of hiding yourself or two bodies in any containers. You can also blend into area depending on your disguise, ranging from drinking at the bar as 47 or flipping around and serving drinks while disguised as the party staff. Overall, they give you a lot of options. (CONT).
I bought the intro pack yesterday just to see if its any good.
If you like hitman blood money you will like this, without question.
My ONLY issue is the fact the challenges sections in the pause menu pretty much spoil the game and instinct/ opportunities as well.
Turning it off is nice and all but this game is a whole lot more dynamic than blood money so it dramatically increases the difficulty curve on that end.
In either case its an improvement over blood money.
While I'm waiting for the other user to finish his post,
>My ONLY issue is the fact the challenges sections in the pause menu pretty much spoil the game and instinct/ opportunities
What do you mean by this? I haven't seen any videos or anything of it, as I'll never get an unbiased view.
While I didn't like instinct in Absolution, it wasn't the worst thing ever, so what is the "challenges" mechanic? And how does it ruin the game having it on?
For levels, they give you the Yacht, Soviet Base, and Paris in the Intro Pack. The Yacht is mainly for tutorials, so I really won't say much more. The Soviet Base, despite being mostly made of cardboard as part of 47's training, is a great level. The myriad of ways you can take out your targets and infiltrate the base puts it above many of Blood Money's missions. The number of disguises, tiny ways you can mess with the target's head, accidents, escape methods, make it a great introduction into what HITMAN's overall quality of level design is going to be. Paris then continues this with packing two level's worth of missions in. The area is expansive and diverse, leaving lots of replay value. I was able to put 8 hours into Paris before even knowing about the catacombs, the non-climbing suit way of sneaking into the IAGO auction, the location of Helmuut, and more. For replay ability, HITMAN offers a lot within its first missions with the sheer amount of assassination methods they provide, and not to mention the great design of the levels. Sapienza goes on to boost this even further with the innumerable number of ways to infiltrate both the Mansion and the Field Lab. I can't say anything for Markeesh, and I hear that's a weaker entry, but so far the design has been impeccable. In terms of gamplay, there's argument to put it beyond Blood Money.
But of course there's some flaws. The only things outside of Story Missions are Contracts, Escalation, and Elusive Targets. Contracts are like Absolution's, player-made assassination missions, so you can't promise they're going to be good. Escalation missions have you target one of the staff around the level, adding more escalating parameters as you complete it again and again, but those range from piss easy to annoying impossible. Elusive Targets take place once in a great while and you have only one life and one chance after you make your move. They're better than Escalation missions, but not by too much. (CONT)
>So, they seem to have snuck Hitman out without letting me know.
If you call it "sneaking" when the person lives under a fucking rock/ Yes it's good. It's great I dare say.
Basically there's a bunch of achievements for each level, if you open up the achievements page for the level you'll get a list of those achievements, even if you turn off the description text you can still get some of the creative kills spoiled to you just from the picture.
for example: in the Paris mission you can kill both targets by pushing one target off a balcony onto the other target, the achievements spoil this for you if you go through the list
This would be a non-issue except the achievements all give you points and those points are how you unlock new gear, new entrances for the level and so on.
Oh. All right then, but while that may be frustrating to some, it's not the end of the world.
Quality posts man, keep going.
monstervine.com
Teaser for the next level, you're killing rockstars in a luxury Thai resort.
Then for the way you get more gear, it's tied to Challenges. These range from a variety of different things. The basic ones are just infiltrating areas or killing targets, while some map-specific ones might require you to use a special disguise and a special weapon. They can end up spoiling the existence of these special items, like for example: Paris has a Vampire Magician costume in the attic and several challenges and I think one Escalation mission tells you that it exists. Sapienza tells you that you can disguise as the target's therapist, which is something I missed my first time through because where the therapist spawns is behind where you start.
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship for this system. It does reward you with better starting gear for the mission. For example, the more Level XP you have for an area, the different ways you can spawn in change. You could start as just a member of the staff, while the deeper locked options put you right in restricted areas. The part I hate are the special weapons locked behind challenges. They use this in favor of Blood Money's system of buying new gear and upgrades. The new system might make it a grind for anyone that wants the special breaching charges or even 47's signature Silverballers. It's not really that much of a problem considering that the levels have a large amount of replay value, but it's still a bit ass having to do a level over and over if you want that specific piece of gear that was standard in Blood Money.
Other than that, not much to say. I think that overall, the overall quality of HITMAN's gameplay and the actual execution of all the systems that I had flaw with make up for said flaws. I heavily suggest picking up at least the Intro Pack to give it a shot, and of course turning off all instinct and opportunities like I did.
Thanks m8.
Cheers guys, you've convinced me.
I assumed that if the game was ass, you'd do nothing but shit all over it, but all I can see is praise for its mechanics going back to its routs, and a shit ton of replayability.
Looks like I'm going to buy this.
I think the main difference between this hitman and blood money is that this hitman encourages you to replay the levels by giving you a checkbox that needs accomplishing for each level, there is no sense of mystery of finding out all the ways to kill your target its all there.
While in blood money you had little to no information and pretty much just said "here go figure it out yourself".
Its still good but its sort of sad they have to try and force people to replay the levels instead of just realizing the levels are so dynamic an fun that people would have replayed them anyway like in blood money.
I'd like to add how great the disguises are now that they involve 47 actually talking and such. In the previous games you'd get a disguise and just walk through security areas, maybe trigger a cutscene or some thing in a rare case, here 47 actually talks his way through which I think is a really nice touch.
Side note since I forgot and didn't know what system you were buying for, but system requirements are a little bit hefty on PC. It's not really much for anyone with a mid-range PC, but Toasters/Budget does not apply at all.
Bought my PC six years ago, and it's still going strong as I dumped a shit load of cash into it.
I never buy games without checking specks first, but thanks for the info.
Full game price for episodic content seems a bit shit to me.
I can't really tell how much content I'm getting.
Didn't they prevent everyone who didn't buy the full experience from having a bonus level?
I really liked the back and forth if you sneak into the IAGO area in your suit and sit down for the auction. The name and excuse 47 gives is stupid and I loved it.
Nah, they gave the bonus levels to people who bought the full pack last month, they'll put the bonus levels on sale this month alongside the Thai level supposedly.
Tobias Rieper is a common alias of 47s.
I really loved the ejection seat kill in the training level though, really highlighted the difference between BM and this, where in BM you would just sabotage the thing and stand around waiting for the guy to kill himself.
Yeah, the two Bonus Missions are only free for people who bought the Full Game or the Intro + Upgrade Pack. They're putting them on sale soon in a pack with a third mission, but it's still shit that they didn't give them out for free to owners of all three maps in the first place.
So no bonus levels for anyone who buys the game now currently?
How off road can you go with the assassinations?
I always liked going back to levels and enforcing different rules like trying to kill everyone on the map without being a suspect or no disguises
Text-wall man, from what I've seen the ability to lock-on throw melee weapons is OP as fuck, any comment there?
I think that syringes and the garrot-wire only when used silently from behind being silent melee kills system from Silent Assassin was the best system for Hitman and Blood Money's introduction of punching fucked everything, awkward and undesirable as it was. I do like how sensible it is that if he has to 47 can just suddenly punch people out without warning but it also seems too powerful.
And how is access to silenced weapons? The way that Contracts always locked your inventory to the silverballers, syringes and wire at the start of each level was a bit of a downer, but not having a silenced handgun made things much more interesting.
I'm pretty much certain I'll buy this one once the full game is all together next year but I've been seriously wondering about this stuff since Hitman's balance has never been consistent between two entries and since it seems like everyone's pretending Absolution didn't happen I see potential for Hitman to go to good places.
I personally wasn't huge on Blood Money so the idea of Eidos taking elements from the older games or coming up with new ones to make the game less of a casual ragdoll fuckfest is nice.
You should buy the special summer edition.
Loved all the hitman games except codename 47 it turned into a shooter and those fucking jungle missions, terrible. Certain missions were great but you can play all those in hitman 3. Also absolution sucked dick fuckt hat game and now this new episodic bullshit. Im not even going to bother anymore. RIP Hitman. Oh also Hitman 2 had those broken snow levels where enemies start cheking your fucking "ID" from across the map
Great hitman game but it runs like shit even on my 1070. Think I'll wait to play again when they fix that
Hitman is a video game
How is this possible? The game looks on par with Absolution
or are the levels three times the size?
A lot of npcs and big maps. When I walk into an area with a large crowd it drops maybe 5 fps.
Everyone speaks american all over the world.
You can't throw guns
The coin is overpowered (npc will get distracted by it even if you just place it in front of their path, they'll also hear it if you throw it in sand or when it's a loud area)
Their engine is really good at making massive crowds but it fucks a lot of peoples framerate.
Another area. Not as crowded but I read some people had issues here.
No, I'm pretty sure if you buy the full pack now you'll get them, you won't if you buy the levels separately though.
You still get the bonus level if you buy the "Full Experience" version.
Do you only get elusive targets for levels you own? Or could I just get the intro pack and hunt Gary Busey?
Have to own the Sapienza level to get Gary Busey.
that anti piracy thing that Doom has, Duveno is also on Hitman.
It's still the best Hitman since BM and is a worthy successor
>Everyone speaks american all over the world.
legitimate complain, annoys me too
>You can't throw guns
what purpose would that serve
>The coin is overpowered
it's true, but it's still less broken than in BM
Thrown melee weapons aren't too over powered depending on the context. Most have a relatively short throwing distance and cause an audible noise. There's no real significant advantage to using them beyond nailing a target you're willing to be heard hurting or is just in that perfect zone where they can't be heard but you don't want to use a Ballistic Kill.
In HITMAN, the melee system is relatively the same as Absolution's. If you're going to take someone out silently, then you have to approach from beyond and enter a subduing state. From there you can mash the melee button to knock them out or take the easy route of snapping their neck with a single button press. If you approach them from the front, you enter a QTE to knock them down, and after that you still have to either knock them out or snap their necks while they're on the ground or else they get back up. For Melee Weapons, it's a bit easier. Attacking them from behind with one takes them out quickly and silently, with the garrote getting a bonus for taking you directly into Drag Mode. If you attack them from the front, it's still done in a second, but you attack them more audibly, so you have to get away/hide the body quickly.
And for Silenced Weapons, you can bring one in as part of your Starting Gear for whenever you begin a mission, but there's not many beyond the first one you get and the Silverballer you unlock from Paris.
its surprisingly good, but its a real pain in the ass having to wait for them to slowly trickle out all the levels
it dawned on me as i was about to attempt the first proper level (the fashion show map) and i just decided i'd wait for them to release a bunch of levels first before getting invested
Two Things:
First, when someone finds a weapon, it's taken to a weapon box to store it. If you know where they are, then that can be a way to safely keep weapons off you're person when getting frisked if you can't find a trash can to hide it in, or you could use it as a way to get a disguise if you follow them into the closet where they're going to put it. By letting you throw them, then you can alert them to there being a disturbance and luring them into picking them up with no risk towards yourself.
Second, it's a way to get them past being frisked. I always began the White House mission in Blood Money by running to the side fence and tossing my Silverballers to the other side before entering the area blocked by the metal detector.
It's solid. I have 44 hours in and play here and there still, as there's still stuff I haven't done. And I know some people who do all the contracts and so on have way more.
It's pretty good, on par with BM. The only problem is that it's being released episodic, so you're going to have to wait for all the content to be availiable. You should just wait everything is released.
Everyone I know who has put good time into that game has said the same thing, saying it's a great Hitman game but it's best to wait. When are they planning to do a "Full HITMAN Experience" release?
Well, wouldn't the "full hitman experience" be just buying the full game after everything is released? Shame you miss all the elusive targets, though.
end of the year/early next year.
Early 2017.
Never.
Oh, that close? Aren't there only like 4 levels currently? How many are they planning to have for the Big Release?
>You should just wait everything is released.
The only reason to do this is if you expect them to suddenly start shitting the bed in terms of quality with the remaining episodes. Given the design model with the contracts, escalation missions, and elusive contracts, I'd rather be playing a steady stream of new content than get the full game, beat it, then dig through a ton of contracts.
They just fucked up by changing their minds on release model 2-3 times.
I think there's supposed to be three more main missions and then another side "bonus" mission.
Is Thailand end of August or September?
Thailand is supposed to come out on 23rd of August from what I've seen
Thailand is supposed to be this month. Hopefully they keep to that.
Cool, so they should be set to have the last major update in November.
Yep, Thailand this month, US in Sept, Japan in Oct and the bonus missions in Nov. If Squeenix have any common sense they'll release the full package in December in time for Christmas.
>what purpose would that serve
looks like someone never SA'd "Amendment XXV"
By "full package," do you mean a box copy? Because the full package will available as soon as the last mission goes live. It's already being sold (Buy HITMAN™ – FULL EXPERIENCE [Episodes 1-7]), it just doesn't have all the content yet.
You can still pull that off, you just let security bring the guns to a safebox and then retrieve them once you get past the frisking.
Or have the gun be in an agency drop-off, which is what they're for.
Yeah, boxed copy that will be sold in brick-and-mortar stores.
BRIEFCASE WHEN
I don't remember much about BM, but i don't think you could put your silenced pistol in a drop off.
Probably one of the later unlocks. In the alpha version of the game the briefcase was a separate item that wasn't limited to storing the sniper rifle, it's pretty powerful if lets you carry around an assault rifle or a shotgun without drawing attention.
I'm talking about the new game where you can't throw guns but you can have them in a drop-off
it's a good game. i'm surprised they were able to rebound after abomination. so many developers don't and continue on the path of shit. i would recommend buying the first episode and seeing if you like it. if you enjoy paris you'll enjoy the other levels
It's a great Hitman game and a worthy sequel to Contracts and Blood Money
You might be better off waiting, though, considering it's basically early access right now. It should be done by January.
Absolution didn't sell well with anyone though, their choice was either kill the franchise or do it right. Considering Squeenix isn't exactly swimming in popular IPs and IO's other game series Kane & Lynch is dead the choice was obvious
i thought abomination was the best selling and one of the highest rated though? squeenix just has unrealistic sales expectations. hitman has never been a huge mainstream title
It's the same trick they did in 'Murder of Crows' in BM. A lot of those NPCs aren't ragdolls. you can actually see it if you go to instinct mode in there areas. only a few of the people will actually have an outline around them.
it is. i haven't bought marrakesh yet though. i'm waiting for the full release. i have too many games on my backlog so i can wait
They'll probably do this eventually, to be honest. Make the Intro Pack free when the game is fully done.
If they're serious about this game being a "platform", that's what I'd do.
>300 hours of half the levels
Fucking hell, glad to see it's good. Will definitely pick it up once it's all out.
Just watched this
youtube.com
Why havent they added some of these features?
>Working Briefcase
>Human shield
We've been asking for these features for months, they better be in the new level
Even so there's ~300 actual NPCs in each level, compared to the maximum of 50 in Absolution and lord knows how many in BM.
a lot of those npc's in hitman 2016, won't actually respond to anything they are just there for looks
>That music
Shit, that's much better than the James Bond shit we have playing in the background in the finished game.
They need to fix the inventory. I don't see why a coin needs to be an item that takes a slot you can use for a bomb or an extra gun.
Well no, a lot of those NPCs will just be standing around doing nothing for the entire level but they'll respond to player actions like freak out if you point a gun at them and so on.
>looking at the map pauses the game
Come on, that's basic Hitman
it's stupid, but at the same time there's so many things laying around the maps that you can use as distractions on top of coins scattered around
that's from CN47, I think.
Is it worth your money? Hell yeah. Do we like the episodic shit? Hell no. Did you miss out on killing Gary Busey in the occasional elusive one-chance targets? You sure did.
whats even worse is to get to the map you have to hit F1 then navigate tabs, you cant hit M.
And its a pain to navigate through floors and it dosent even show half the people in the map, just targets
They all respond to stuff actually. If you pull a gun out they freak out, drop the chandelier and they all run, dead body found and they leave the building or area.
>it dosent even show half the people in the map, just targets
Look at this casual and laugh
>Ave Maria playing while zoomed in with the sniper rifle
I never knew I needed this until now.
a few of them are running, those sitting down will do so until the soldiers say its clear and then revert to standing around
i keep hitting rmb to open up the inventory after playing blood money again
I'm certain Busey ET already run out.
Me too
Yes, Busey ended a week ago. But people are probably right that they'll redo them in December or so.
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Can someone post the wemb of cigarette butt setting of black powder bag?
>I heavily suggest picking up at least the Intro Pack to give it a shot, and of course turning off all instinct and opportunities like I did.
And NPC icons in the mini map.
Those are the three things you absolutely must turn off.
If you're a man, you turn ALL OF IT off, though.
Yeah, but like the user you're quoting said, there's still like 300 actual NPC's per level and the maps are huge.
That's why the game is more taxing than Absolution despite not looking as good.
First playthrough of any level should be done entirely blind with everything except maybe button prompts turned off. You already get an audio cue if someone is suspicious of your disguise so you can totally make do without any UI.
new episodes
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