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Slow_Moe posted:The contrast between Absolution and 2016 is pretty stark. Oh... it gets worse.
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Nov 17, 2017 17:13
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Oh... it gets worse. I know, I've played it.
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Nov 17, 2017 17:18
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Slow_Moe posted:I know, I've played it.  
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Nov 17, 2017 17:19
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Absolution is really just a decent stealth game with a terrible story and thin Hitman dressing. Also I couldn't possibly go back to any of the old Hitman games after 2016, it's just too obvious now that there's basically one game-sanctioned way to kill every target.
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Nov 17, 2017 17:36
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Arist posted:Absolution is really just a decent stealth game The very loving hell it is
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Nov 18, 2017 08:42
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At the end of the day I feel like it's more a Postal 3 type scenario, a redheaded stepchild the devteam would prefer to forget even existed 
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Nov 19, 2017 02:43
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whatever man, I had a decent time with it
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Nov 19, 2017 02:48
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It's real bad though Like I've had fun playing bad games but you can't have any illusions about them, it's unhealthy For example I spent loving ages on Clive Barker's Jericho and I still love it even though it is objectively a v bad game on many levels
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Nov 19, 2017 07:43
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By itself it's just a mediocre stealth/action game. But IO put the Hitman name on it, and that opened it up to the expectations of the existing fan base. And that made it worse. Because it is a bad Hitman game. Story is garbage and overshadows the gameplay way too much. The levels are linear and offers little in the way of experimentation or replay. And the stealth mechanics are unintuitive and relies on the instinct to smooth out the roughness. Had IO simply made a "bald shootman goes on rampage in a gritty and lovely world" it would probably have been received better. But they didn't, so it wasn't.
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Nov 19, 2017 15:11
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One of the descriptions I've heard of Absolution was "IO was required to make a Hitman game, but they wanted to make another Kane and Lynch game." Having seen a playthrough before now, that feels like an apt summary.
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Nov 19, 2017 17:04
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Oh man, Shitman Absolution makes so much more sense as a Kane and Lynch game.
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Nov 19, 2017 17:39
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Zagglezig posted:One of the descriptions I've heard of Absolution was "IO was required to make a Hitman game, but they wanted to make another Kane and Lynch game." Having seen a playthrough before now, that feels like an apt summary. Yeah, that uh Hm. I kind of want to replay it like it's a Kane and Lynch game
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Nov 20, 2017 07:48
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I mean I'm not going to, because that's time I could spend playing New Colossus, but it sounds like fun
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Nov 20, 2017 07:50
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Nov 20, 2017 16:45
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Assuming you were trying to pronounce Sarajevo, I believe it's sair-ih-yay-vo.
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Nov 20, 2017 18:42
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   Hitman: Absolution 02 - What could have been (Commentary) Hitman: Absolution 02 - What could have been (Cut Commentary)
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Nov 24, 2017 03:37
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Chinatown was probably a vertical slice for absolution. At least that would explain why it is one of the better levels in the game, and why there is a little bit of everything in it.
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Nov 24, 2017 14:21
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 Hitman: Absolution 03 - End of the Line (Commentary) Hitman: Absolution 03 - End of the Line (Cut Commentary)
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Dec 1, 2017 03:54
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Dec 8, 2017 02:14
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 Hitman: Absolution 04 - Catch & Release (Commentary) Hitman: Absolution 04 - Catch & Release (Cut Commentary) As of time of posting, Commentary version is stuck at 95% Processing 
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Dec 8, 2017 04:12
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The reasons for killing the congressman ET are threefold: A) multiple friendly fire incidents that were suppressed, I suspect at least some of them may not have been accidental B) if you follow the guy to the library he starts "critiquing" Caruso's choice in books; dude is seriously anti-intellectual C) potential presidential bid. "Shoot first, think never" is not someone you want running a country, so i guess someone decided to nip it in the bud
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Dec 8, 2017 19:20
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He's described as a populist dangerous to both left and right.
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Dec 9, 2017 17:33
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The Paris episode is available for free on Steam until the fifth of January.
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Dec 21, 2017 02:18
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White Coke posted:The Paris episode is available for free on Steam until the fifth of January. It's true, and also available for every platform this game is on! Now there's no excuse to at least try the game! Also, have two videos today; one is seasonally appropriate, and the other is an ET.  
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Dec 21, 2017 16:07
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ChaosArgate posted:It's true, and also available for every platform this game is on! Now there's no excuse to at least try the game! My computer won't run it. 
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Dec 21, 2017 17:42
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Felinoid posted:My computer won't run it. Let me amend that to "no excuse not to have it in your system of choice's library".
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Dec 21, 2017 17:46
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 Hitman: Absolution 05 - 1 Forward, 2 Back (Commentary) Hitman: Absolution 05 - 1 Forward, 2 Back (Cut Commentary)
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Dec 22, 2017 01:13
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Does 47 have a second bandage on top of his bandage? How many layers will he have by the end?
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Dec 22, 2017 04:00
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Oh, oh boy. I missed that this was starting. I know much, much too much about Absolution, especially its development, mechanics and the unbelievably awful plot. Ask me anything about the Deep Hitman Lore, or the many, many ways this game is broken, or all the somehow even worse ideas that didn't make it into release. I'll try to go through the LP episodes so far and explain things as best I can when questions are raised about the plot. I'll be out of town for a week in a couple days, but I'll try to get up to speed in the meantime.  Episode 1: It Begins Notes "why does 47 look old?" One of the planned plot elements of the game was that 47 was basically aging out of his Clone Powers, his body was deteriorating and starting to age. "why is Diana giving us a tutorial?" The first mission of the game was hastily rewritten a bunch of times due to the jigsaw mess that was this game's writing. I'm not clear on where it appears in the intended order of things, but the lines from Diana were added later to explain the interface. It does appear that the safehouse was always intended to be a tutorial mission. "I can't believe they implemented VATS in hitman" Most of the systems in hitman are taken from other games and implemented worse, without considering how they'd mesh with a social stealth game. This is at the core of the instinct setup, which was basically a vehicle for bad mechanical experimentation. "Ellen Page needs a longer skirt" Why was she wearing a schoolgirl outfit in the first place?! The scripts for Absolution were originally a snuff film of this character- the story is of 47 watching her get mutilated, tortured, raped, and killed and going on a grindhousey murder streak in response. It was dire, and although 90% of that was excised for her character, they treat almost all the other female characters in similar fashion. Really, every character in Absolution acts like they were written by an MRA south park fan- punching down, casual bigotry and toilet humor are universal. Part of why I talk so much about absolution is because it's a great rhetorical hammer in talking about representation in game writing; no one can be confronted with what the game does and straightfacedly say it's not problematic. "Extended Big Bad Helicopter ride" The tutorial level's plot was one of the things I know was rewritten- I think almost all of the shots of Travis were hastily recut using the helicopter model to explain the revisions. In at least some drafts, 47 has a firefight at the house with Travis and blows off his hand. This is also why Travis' other hand doesn't appear in those suspiciously narrowly shot Helicopter scenes. Travis is also supposed to have an artificial ear; this gets replaced with a bluetooth headset piece thing in later cutscenes. A Note on Lost and Found Lost and Found has entries for all challenges associated with each level, as well as an entry for every item 47 can pick up in the level. For a long time it was impossible to 100% the lost and found system because a couple levels have items glitched into the geometry, removed, or otherwise inacessible. Months after launch, the offending items were removed from Lost and Found on PC. The challenge system can be 100%ed, but it's horribly opaque, like most of Absolution's gameplay mechanics. Generally, Absolution takes a lot of cues from the Hitman novels, which are a thing that exist and are uniformly godawful by all accounts. A lot of the plot and characters from this game are based on one named Hitman: Damnation. One of the most noticeable effects is that the Agency/ICA goes from being an impartial, mysterious assassination contractor that mostly targets criminals (to not destabilize the world too much, which would be bad for them) to something resembling SPECTRE, with a huge bureaucracy and multiple directors, tiers, committees- all after supposedly being mostly wiped out in Blood Money. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2017 19:22
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Discendo Vox posted:Oh, oh boy. I missed that this was starting. I know much, much too much about Absolution, especially its development, mechanics and the unbelievably awful plot. Ask me anything about the Deep Hitman Lore, or the many, many ways this game is broken, or all the somehow even worse ideas that didn't make it into release. Please tell me about the worse ideas that did not make it into this awful thing.
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Dec 23, 2017 19:23
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Night10194 posted:Please tell me about the worse ideas that did not make it into this awful thing. god, where to start. To avoid stealing thunder, I'll wait on posting the "making of" documentary that's my source for most of this. Things that stand out from a writing perspective: 1. Victoria was going to be raped by one set of targets, then murdered by another set of targets, all pretty early in the game, probably roughly where the LP is at this point. Most of it was going to be a revenge plot grindhouse thing. Victoria was going to narrate the whole game, as a ghost or something. That's why you hear her in the main menu. The hitman series has always had gender and representation issues, but even as released, absolution was like a bazillion times worse than anything that came before. 2. 47 was going to be a) homeless, b) alcoholic, c) prone to self-harm, d) losing all of his clone abilities and aging/dying/not healing properly, oh, and e) was going to kill himself at the end of the story, which was going to be the opening scene. Gonna do the ol' Solid Snake barrel swallowing routine, iirc. This is why 47 looks old and has dumb scar tissue cutscenes. All of these were going to be true, simultaneously. 3. The whole game was going to be conveyed with the narrative conceit of being sung by a lounge singer. Those are the bits that are most abhorrent at first glance, in a "why do this" way, but they're also just the tip of the iceberg. edit: watching video 2: "I admire a man with the courage to poo poo where he eats." Really? Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 19:34
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ChaosArgate posted:Let me amend that to "no excuse not to have it in your system of choice's library". It won't stay there. Guess I'll just have to forfeit the hard drive space until I get a better computer. Just to make sure.
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Dec 23, 2017 19:55
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Episode 2: What Could Have Been Notes The King: Oh yeah, nail meet head- this was a vertical slice proof of concept. That's why nothing about it matches any other part of the plot, why Birdie tells you to do it to get information from him, then wants 47's guns as a price for information in the next scene. The level has a whole heap of unique behaviors that aren't present in any other mission. In particular, if you get near the King while disguised as a cop, he'll turn around and make vaguely ironic insults at you. Repeatedly. At random. With a variable cooldown. Through walls. "Why the pigeons?" Carrier Pigeons. Like most characters made for this game (none of whom appear again), Birdie is a copy of the classic hollywood action movie type, "crazy pigeon man who is also connected informant". Most of the other disposable stereotypes the game trades in are also likenesses that are "Why is there vaseline smeared on the screen?" Grindhouse. Grindy grindy grindy grindy grindhouse. This game approaches stylistic conventions, narrative, visual, everything, like dumping Quentin Tarantino in a sewage vat filled with broken glass. Which, coincidentally, is also something you are encouraged to do to guards in a later mission.  the game."Why does Birdie want the guns?" So that 47 can be symbolically lowered/weakened by having his iconic guns-he-should-never-use taken. Plotwise I think he's planning to sell them, which doesn't really have a coherent motivation. Birdie generally lacks any consistent motivation aside from "is a scuzzball with a lot of vocal fry". He's used as plot lubricant. "This feels like 2016" A bunch of NPC animations, like the King eating at ~11:50, are reused in Hitman 2016. I have to assume the people who came up with this playground level concept are some of the only people who stayed on at IOI after Square axed ~75% of their employees after Absolution. More on that whole relationship some other time. "So, sniping him is a trap" Worth noting that many of the challenges throughout Absolution are traps- not only do they break SA, they also send out a massive alert. There's a tremendous amount of cases where "check out this sweet/funny kill" wasn't integrated into the game at all. "Wow, they really rendered the blood on him" A lot of Absolution's excesses are actually because fans demanded it. Absolution is way more unpleasant than previous games, but the reality is that there was always a line of weird gore sadism running through some aspects of the series, and an associated audience that was always demanding more gorn get added to the next game. On the hitman forums, one of the ongoing complaints was insufficient blood, bullet wounds, or dismemberment with kills. I remember a "why doesn't the shotgun decapitate" thread all too well. This isn't everyone of course, but this minority of users were vocal. In many respects, Hitman Absolution was the game these people wanted, and what they deserved. It does underscore that a lot of effort went into the Absolution graphics, and the game's graphics, especially light and transparency effects, were praised as one of its best features at release. "That outfit looks goofy on him" Many disgises in Absolution are completely useless- they were made for content that was cut, or for jokes, and then mashed into the game somewhere. It's clear that one of the design meetings was simply "what silly outfits can we make 47 wear", and the producer or designer took the list they generated straight to the asset team. A note on pathing and triggers Many events in Hitman Asolution, like Hitman 2016, occur only when the player is able to see them. Unlike Hitman 2016, these actions are often one-time scripted events intended to give the player a specific opportunity. This makes many levels a sort of funhouse ride where small deviations from the designer's intended script will break everything. Even looping behaviors require the ability to read the designer's mind. A great example in this level: right near the exit there's a hanging pallet you can shoot down on the target when he goes to urinate near it. The problem? There are two police standing right nearby. Clearly you have to distract them, or knock them out, right? Well, it turns out if you go to a specific area with a nice line of fire on the pallet opportunity (fully in view of the cops), the pair of police just...walk away. And if you step out of that area? They immediately turn around, midstride, and walk back. No reason, no motivation, just "the player is in the event zone, clear him a magic path". And you have to know this to succeed at the event. There's a lot of this mindreading bullshit required in hitman absolution. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2017 23:46
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The path from Absolution to 2016 is like an alcoholic hitting rock bottom and deciding to get all the poison of their life.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:23
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Even as someone who likes Absolution here more than a hell of a lot of the thread (I'm a sucker for grindhouse and I do have to admire how good lucking Absolution is for 2012, and ultimately Absolution was my gateway into Hitman), I do have to say those alternate plot points sound like a goddamn tire fire, especially that one where 47's body was failing him (combined with Victoria and that starts to sound eerily like a loose summary of Logan- all we would have needed was some senile old man in the backseat). It's a game that really suffered from IO seeming to go "OK, we have some good shooting mechanics and this weird thing we stole from the new Splinter Cell." "But we're not making a Kane and Lynch 3, we're making another Hitman game. You know, a stealth game?" "Well poo poo. Just add on a scoring system and funny disguises, that'll keep the old fans involved to the end and by the time they're complaining we'll have cashed in and fled to Majorca."
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Dec 26, 2017 21:52
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I’m stuck phoneposting into the new year, but when I get back to my computer I’ll try to get caught up with the absolution play through and my “what is going on here” posts.
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Dec 26, 2017 23:25
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Please do, your Absolution posts are a real treasure!
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Dec 27, 2017 01:48
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GoneRampant posted:I do have to say those alternate plot points sound like a goddamn tire fire, especially that one where 47's body was failing him (combined with Victoria and that starts to sound eerily like a loose summary of Logan- all we would have needed was some senile old man in the backseat). Logan, but all of the main characters are just different series of clones.
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Dec 27, 2017 22:52
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Absolution LP on standby BECAUSE I HATE MY NEW PC AND ITS THIRST FOR MORE DRIVERS
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Dec 28, 2017 02:37
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Not even your pc wants to play absolution. Also stereotypical texan dudes face reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on it. Nalesh fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 28, 2017 |
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Dec 28, 2017 02:54
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