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Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Right so, when I say the writing in hitman 2016 is a massive improvement...anyway, I'll stop derailing things now. I'm really looking forward to your coverage of the rest of training!

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Fish Noise
Jul 25, 2012

IT'S ME, BURROWS!

IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, BURROWS!
If ChaosArgate permits, this seems like really morbidly fascinating supplemental material to go with the LP? Maybe compare it against 2016's promo materials like the Gary vs Gary thing.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
:magical:

I only knew Absolution as "that bad game which almost killed the franchise", I had no idea how deep it went :stonk:

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Again, who the gently caress would've thought that was a good idea? I mean, surely someone on the marketing team had more brain cells than teeth, right?

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


CommissarMega posted:

Again, who the gently caress would've thought that was a good idea? I mean, surely someone on the marketing team had more brain cells than teeth, right?

You don't understand man, edgy sells.

shut up blegum
Dec 17, 2008


--->Plastic Lawn<---
Lol, that's crazy. I remember playing Absolution and quite liking it. The only thing I remember about it though is the Chinatown level and shooting a glass floor from super far away in some secret laboratory level. So it probably wasn't good :D

Anyway, just picked up the entire first season, so I look forward to this LP. After going through some episodes a couple of times, it'll be nice to see what other ways there are to complete a level.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
Therein lies the problem: the Hitman games before Absolution were never edgy. Morally ambiguous, yes, especially Silent Assassin. But not edgy.

e. this was in response to wiegieman. That'll teach me to leave the reply window open for a while before submitting the post.

Mikl fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Mar 10, 2017

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry

Fish Noise posted:

If ChaosArgate permits, this seems like really morbidly fascinating supplemental material to go with the LP? Maybe compare it against 2016's promo materials like the Gary vs Gary thing.

I'm honestly very tempted to do this, actually.

Dinictus
Nov 26, 2005

May our CoX spray white sticky fluid at our enemies forever!
HAIL ARACHNOS!
Soiled Meat

Discendo Vox posted:

oh, right, forgot to mention:

quote:

On 4 December 2012, IO Interactive faced heavy criticism for releasing a Hitman: Absolution Facebook app that allowed users to identify and threaten Facebook friends for assassination. Methods of identifying female friends included "her hairy legs", "her muffin top" and "her small tits". Methods of identifying male friends included "his ginger hair", "his poo poo hair" and "his tiny penis". Users could choose a reason to kill their friend, such as the fact that they "smell bad" or were cheating on their partner. Friends received a personalised video on their Facebook wall identifying them as a target. Signing up to watch the video presented recipients with a mixture of their own photos and Facebook details merged into a video of Hitman character Agent 47 shooting them. IO Interactive admitted the promotional app was in bad taste and removed it the same day.

You know, this could have worked. If the whole application assumed the same crazy-rear end reasons for killing targets like in the Hitman series. Without this misogyny and lovely dick jokes.

Professional gamblers and hustlers meeting their ends by a fictional mark with power or competition. Ties to a fictional gang. Contact of a fictional diplomat who may incriminate them at the drop of a hat. Outrageously out there, dumb stuff.

And prefacing the dumb videos with 'this video is promotional for an upcoming videogame; all characters herein are fictional, likenesses to actual people are coincidence' or poo poo.

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry

Dinictus posted:


You know, this could have worked. If the whole application assumed the same crazy-rear end reasons for killing targets like in the Hitman series. Without this misogyny and lovely dick jokes.

Professional gamblers and hustlers meeting their ends by a fictional mark with power or competition. Ties to a fictional gang. Contact of a fictional diplomat who may incriminate them at the drop of a hat. Outrageously out there, dumb stuff.

And prefacing the dumb videos with 'this video is promotional for an upcoming videogame; all characters herein are fictional, likenesses to actual people are coincidence' or poo poo.

Base the identifiers as things they have actually "Liked" or have as "Interests" would be fun.

[You were identified by <Joe Bob Markinson> thanks to your carelessness!]

"YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON ANYMORE, STEVE!"

Then just feature a video with two old dudes playing chess. One moves a pawn and says "Check!" and then the table explodes, killing them both.

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry
Makes about as much sense as Absolution too! :v:

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

Discendo Vox, I'm gonna link to some of your posts in the OP because they're really good with conveying how this game is a decisive step back in the right direction after Absolution.

Fish Noise posted:

If ChaosArgate permits, this seems like really morbidly fascinating supplemental material to go with the LP? Maybe compare it against 2016's promo materials like the Gary vs Gary thing.

I would 100% be down for that whenever this LP gets to the relevant points!

Also it's not HITMAN™ related, but Faerie Fortune, Artix and I are doing something special over on my Beam channel around noon EST, so come join us if you can make time!

https://beam.pro/chaosargate

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

ChaosArgate posted:

Discendo Vox, I'm gonna link to some of your posts in the OP because they're really good with conveying how this game is a decisive step back in the right direction after Absolution.


I would 100% be down for that whenever this LP gets to the relevant points!

I'd be totally down. Hitman has pretty much always had some of the best trailers in the business- I can help collate things.

mandatory lesbian
Dec 18, 2012
i know literal nothing about this series, is there an over-arching story or are they mostly self-contained things?

shut up blegum
Dec 17, 2008


--->Plastic Lawn<---
Just played the first Paris mission. drat, there are a lot of options. And I like the 'master level' system. Seems like that unlocks a ton of new approaches to your objective.

GoneRampant
Aug 19, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

mandatory lesbian posted:

i know literal nothing about this series, is there an over-arching story or are they mostly self-contained things?

For the most part, it's a self-contained game. There's a few instances of references to the older games, but for the most part every Hitman is built around it being the player's first.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!

mandatory lesbian posted:

i know literal nothing about this series, is there an over-arching story or are they mostly self-contained things?

Mostly self-contained. The only thing that's really important to know is that Agent 47 is a "clone" grown from a mix of the best genes from a bunch of dudes who fought together in the French Foreign Legion, created for the express purpose of being a perfect soldier that would then be sold to the highest bidder. The first game is 47's creator using him to kill all the genetic donors, and then trying to kill 47 him and replace him with Number 48 (because 47 had too much free will or something like that, while 48 will always obey no matter what), to which 47 says "gently caress this" and kills 48 and his creator.

There, that's the entire backstory you need.

Miliardo
Dec 3, 2014

I'm excited for this LP. My first Hitman game was Blood Money, and it kind of ruined me for the older games in the series. I tried Silent Assassin after playing and loving Blood Money, and I just couldn't jive with the game. It's been years since I played a Hitman game aside from Hitman GO.

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Some notes:
  • At about 7:14 you can actually hear the ICA actors break character and react to the accident.
  • It's worth noting that one of 47's unique traits is his whole disguise schtick. That means that Soders, when he ran this mission in reality, presumably did it the equivalent of suit only (as well as without the various mystic clone powers that 47 has, like a minimap and instinct). On the other hand, it's the tutorial mission with extra guards. 47 is, from the beginning, way, way better than anyone else the ICA has.
  • You can turn off the switchbox using the technician disguise, I believe- or do it while the characters are en route.
  • The plans in the meeting room/office have an easter egg on them: a note saying "allan, please add details!" This has been a running gag since Hitman Blood Money, where it was accidentally left as the description of a really visible, mandatory inventory item from the tutorial level. The caption appears on all kinds of objects throughout Hitman 2016.
  • Soders is pissed at 47 becoming an operative because they don't know where he came from, and unlike other agents, the ICA doesn't have any way to rein him in.

I have a ton of :words: about the trailer, which is indeed a series of kills from the previous games. I'll write up a brief series synopsis post that will also break down those kill references.

ZenVulgarity
Oct 9, 2012

I made the hat by transforming my zen

Buy this game

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
You kinda skipped over it, but your Handler suggests stealing the jet as an escape route, though a very risky and attention grabbing one. You don't have to go back to the car.

White Coke
May 29, 2015
Were the guards using M16s?

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry

White Coke posted:

Were the guards using M16s?

Pretty sure they were, yeah. One of the guards was carrying a Fusil G1-4, which, in-game, is a French Assault Rifle.

White Coke
May 29, 2015

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Pretty sure they were, yeah.

I thought so. I love that they bothered to make (presumably) period appropriate costumes, but not give them guns. It can't be that hard to find some AK-74's lying around.

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry

White Coke posted:

I thought so. I love that they bothered to make (presumably) period appropriate costumes, but not give them guns. It can't be that hard to find some AK-74's lying around.

So the Fusil G1-4 is the in-game name for the M4, and I can't remember where, but Hitman 2016 does have AK-47s.

I'll have to actually check who has them, though.

Added Space
Jul 13, 2012

Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!
One pedantic thing that bothers me - it's actually nearly impossible to drown in a toilet. They're specifically designed with that in mind. :eng101:

Good LP, looking forward to it.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Hitman History Effortpost
Click the title of each entry for a representative sample of the game's storytelling/cinematography, which was generally excellent for its time from Silent Assassin onwards. There's some bottom line plot stuff at the end if you don't want to read the Rich Hitman Lore.

Hitman: Codename 47
47 wakes up, knowing nothing, in a padded cell, in a murky, unreal facility. A strange voice comes on over an intercom and instructs him to sneak out of the strange asylum he is in, kill a guard, take their clothes, and escape.

Sometime after his escape, 47 becomes an agent for the mysterious International Contract Agency, working under novice handler Diana on assignments to gradually weaken and assassinate a set of world-renowned crime lords:
  • Lee Hong, a triad leader known as "the man without a conscience". It takes several missions to weaken Hong's triad enough for him to be a viable target. The first mission of the game, "Kowloon Triads in Gang War", is a sniper assassination that is also the first kill in the Legacy trailer in ChaosArgate's video: note the Hong Kong scenery in the background.
  • Pablo Ochoa, a Columbian drug kingpin who is totally not Tony Montana, you guys. Pablo's missions never reappeared in subsequent remakes and usually go unmentioned, either for IP reasons, because of racist depictions of natives, or because they were incredibly unfun.
  • Frantz Fuchs, a former nazi and brilliant international terrorist for hire. This is the original and iconic Hitman Hotel level. Fuchs is noticeably less defended than the other crime lords.
  • Arkadij Jegorov, a physically massive weapons dealer who is in the process of using biker gangs and a shipping boat to move a nuke. This level includes such impressive stealth gameplay as "hire a prostitute to distract a guard."

All of the crime lords have seemingly superhuman abilities, and seem unnaturally fit for their ages. They also drop letters referring to the "Five Fathers", harvesting "fruit", and the French Foreign Legion.

After the four are dead, 47's client sends them after a doctor at an asylum in Romania. The place is disturbingly familiar- and once 47 arrives and corners the target, someone contacts Romanian special forces to raid the facility. 47 discovers a massive facility beneath the asylum filled with medical equipment. The intercom crackles to life and the client reveals himself- Dr. Otto Ort-Meyer, his creator and a cloning super-prodigy. Ort-Meyer reveals that he met the four crime lords in the French Foreign Legion years ago, and they pooled their resources (and gave DNA samples) to fund Ort-Meyer's research into cloned organs (used to extend the crime lords' lives) and perfect clone supersoldiers. Ort-Meyer decided he didn't want to share, so he released 47, his "greatest son," and hired him through the ICA to kill the other four of his partners. Ort-Meyer releases a series of brainwashed, supposedly superior "# 48" clones, but 47 mows them down with a minigun and ultimately kills his creator.

In various missions in the game, 47 also meets two recurring characters: Agent Smith, a bumbling CIA agent who is always getting caught and freed by 47 in exchange for intel, and Lei Ling, an unwilling prostitute who flirts with 47 and gives him intel for freeing her.

Codename 47 was considered a fairly inventive and fun game during its time, but as others have mentioned, the game looks terrible by today's standards, and is missing a huge range of quality-of-life features that we've all gotten used to, like detection meters, knocking out guards, and generally being able to tell what is going on. It's a very frustrating game to play.

Hitman: Silent Assassin
Russian crime lord Sergei Zavorotko is searching for information about the man who killed his brother, Arkadij Jegorov. With the help of a well-informed, unnamed assistant, Sergei heads to the Romanian lab and finds out about 47. Together they hatch a plan to take revenge, steal a nuke, and make 47 do all the work for them.

47 has retired. Living as a gardener at a small rural church he has restored with the last of his money, 47 is shaken out of his peace when mafiosos kidnap the priest running the church. He is forced out of retirement to take contracts from the ICA again. In return, the ICA help him track down the priest's kidnappers. This turns into a sort of "World Tour", with 47 heading to
  • Italy: To take out the mafiosos and search for the priest.
  • Russia: To assassinate a collection of former Soviet generals and track down a missile guidance system. You encounter Agent Smith again.
  • Japan: To take out a yakuza leader and get the missile guidance system. This begins by assassinating the leader's son at a sushi restaurant, which is used in the Legacy trailer. You also encounter Lei Ling again.
  • Afghanistan: To kill several lookalikes of Arab world leaders and despots and try to steal a nuke, which is stolen by some bald suited man after you finish.
  • Malaysia: To play some really awkwardly made levels and establish the whole "Rubber Ducks" joke. Bikini guards appear.
  • India: To kill a cult leader and successfully steal the nuke back. Agent Smith appears again, having been massively demoted. You're briefly ambushed by the bald, suited man as you make your exit.

The agency realizes Sergei has been using them to get a nuke and accepts a contract from the UN to take him down. Returning to Russia, 47 is ambushed by another clone from the asylum: "Agent 17", an older version of himself that Zavorotko and his mystery friend took from the asylum. Killing him and tracing his steps, 47 returns to Italy, confronts Zavorotko in the church, saves the priest and gives up any hope of living a peaceful life, returning to the ICA full time.

The mystery man who told Zavorotko about 47, led him to bring 47 out of retirement, and sold him out to the UN, disappears.

Gameplay-wise, SA was considered the best in the series for a long time. It introduced pretty rudimentary elements of the game, like being able to knock people out, and a (borderline useless) detection meter. The varied locations, relatively strong visual design, and fun gameplay of the first few missions are what a lot of people remember. At the same time, SA was still an incredibly janky game by today's standards. The game feels a lot like entirely different teams built the different sections of the game, with different world locations representing wholly different design approaches. After Russia, the game has some really unpleasant moments- the highlight being the infamously garbage Hidden Valley map, renowned for its snipers, useless disguises, tremendous length, lack of objectives, and worst of all, the "Truck Glitch". Trucks driving through the map could randomly kill off an NPC at the other end of the map due to a poor scripting, ruining your mission ranking. With that said, it's still where a lot of the standbys of the series were established.

Hitman: Contracts
47 has been shot by one of his targets, a police officer who somehow knew his identity and was waiting for him in ambush. Stumbling into a Paris hotel room, he fades in and out of consciousness, reliving distorted, darkened memories of the lives he has taken.

Contracts is a sort of best of/remake game, with remade, vastly improved versions of almost all of the missions from the first game, interspersed with new missions. Among them is a remake of the Fuchs hotel mission, starring a new kill opportunity that gets used for the Legacy trailer. In reality, a back-alley doctor sent by Diana sews up 47 and he recovers just in time to evade a massive police raid of the hotel and take out the police chief that shot him. This final mission is heavily inspired by the climax of Leon the Professional. Reconnecting with Diana, 47 finds out that simultaneous attacks have started on all of the ICA's active agents. About to cut his ties with the ICA, 47 finds out that the entire attack appears to have been orchestrated...to get to him.

Contracts is my favorite game (aside from the one in this LP). It oozes polish and style (watch that intro cutscene), and is the only one in the series that doesn't have a design-breaking bloodbath or forced non-SA mission somewhere in it. Jasper Kyd's soundtrack really shines, and the effects of 47's coma are integrated into the missions with rain, distortion, and shared imagery from the hotel room. In particular, if you hear a distinctive flickering fluorescent tube sound in the current Hitman, that's an intentional callback to its use as a motif in Contracts. Contracts also had the best progression system of the series in its time, letting the player both unlock weapons in missions by taking them out of the mission, and other weapons by getting an SA ranking on each mission. It's not as well-liked because it's mostly remakes, and wasn't available on steam for a long time due to IP issues with a song in a particular level.

Hitman: Blood Money
This...gets complex. I'll give the short version. Blood Money was rushed through production and a ton of stuff was cut or rearranged, so bear with me-this is going to be disjointed.

Before the events of Contracts, 47 carries out a mission in Central America to take out the leader of the Delgado drug cartel, a renowned cellist. This scene is used for the Legacy trailer. You then play through the Paris mission immediately before being shot, with slight retcons- the police chief who shot 47 was no longer a target, and just ambushed him as he left the scene. Skipping the events of Contracts, 47 arrives in the US, encounters some really offensive African-american stereotypes in a tutorial level, and sets up shop in their former base. His purpose: to hit some mans, to track down who is targeting him and the ICA, and to find out why.

In cutscenes between each missions, a reporter interviews Alexander Leyland (urgh) Cayne. Cayne is a former FBI director who was partially paralyzed and put in a wheelchair in an assassination attempt, maybe. Cayne is not trustworthy, and most of the cutscenes are a combination of lies and a plot recap of the games. Among the lies, Cayne talks about how Ort-Meyer's cloning ability has been completely un-replicable, with the nearest match being albino clones that die in a handful of years. In reality, Cayne runs a rival assassin group, the Franchise, that makes albino assassins, and is responsible for the attacks on the ICA.

During the missions, which are mostly unrelated, 47 encounters Agent Smith, who is investigating some sort of high-level corruption in the US government. A fake death pill and antidote McGuffin are introduced. Very little happens regarding the whole "attack on ICA" thing aside from Diana mentioning that she is perturbed by it in some mission briefings. Newspapers and side conversations mention the death of the current President, and several references to a strange albino man. 47 stops the assassination of a politician, killing a team of snipers that includes an albino who is running the hit.

Eventually, Diana reveals that the ICA is going into hiding because everyone with any public position has been hunted down and killed; she wishes 47 the best and disappears. Agent Smith hires 47 for one last mission- to 1) stop the Franchise's greatest assassin, another albino, from killing the President, and also 2) to assassinate the VP, a Franchise agent. 47 infiltrates the white house (a mission that got IOI a secret service visit), has a very forced "we're not so different" confrontation with the albino clone hitman, and prevails in a weird quasi-forced-loud combat segment. Later, Diana suddenly appears in 47's hideout. She injects him with poison, revealing that she has betrayed the ICA to the Franchise. (47 calls her a bitch, which is just swell). It turns out the Franchise is a segment of the secret shadow gubmint, Alpha Zerox, who attacked the ICA just to get 47's body to create a better breed of clone, and whose other actions throughout the game have had the same goal of exclusive control over cloning tech to make a clone hitman army.

Cayne and the reporter arrive at a "funeral" for 47, whose body will be dissected for research. Diana puts on special lipstick and kisses 47, who comes back to life- it was a double cross, and she injected him with the Macguffin earlier. Immediately after she leaves and locks the gate, 47 comes to life. He kills everyone in the building, and disappears. The ICA comes out of hiding and seizes the Franchise's assets. Alpha Zerox disappears to wherever horrible edgy secret society ideas go, never to return. Or will it?

Gameplay-wise, Blood Money is well-remembered for its spectacular kills, and for introducing several systems that were demanded by fans, but didn't work very well: customizing weapons and newspapers that adapted to your performance in missions. Blood Money also introduced bullet time shooting and human shield mechanics that would be dropped in the 2016 game, since they incentivize non-stealth gameplay. Every part of the game is rushed, and it really shows. It's very popular, but I found it dull, because there are usually only a couple ways to kill targets, and they're signposted with giant flashing neon lights. You also have infinite coins, which can break the hell out of NPC AI. The game is also the place where the misogyny really begins to shine through- all female characters are supermodels or hags, which is played up for laughs/titillation. The game did begin IOI's interest in crowdgen tech, though it was only used in one mission in this game. It also introduced accident kills, which were probably its most notable design contribution to the series.

Hitman: Absolution
Here's the attack of the saints trailer, while I'm at it. Enjoy!
Ugh. OK. Again, the plot of this was sliced and diced, so bear with me. I'm...going to skip a lot of this because almost all of it doesn't matter or is a crime against nature. Parts of the plot are a follow-up/sequel to the execrable Hitman novels, in which the ICA is apparently SPECTRE. Bear that in mind.

47 is hired back by the ICA, this time one of the "Division Chiefs", a guy named Benjamin Travis who mostly heads their R&D. His target: Diana Burnwood, his old handler, who has betrayed the ICA somehow and kidnapped a girl they want back. 47 infiltrates her heavily guarded home and surprises her in the shower (because of course). He totally shoots her to death (he doesn't) and takes the girl, Victoria, who was the result of an unapproved attempt by Travis to replicate 47. This makes no sense. Don't worry about it.

47 forms a special father kinship thing with Victoria, which is totally in character, and hides her in a convent/orphanage thing. At this point, unrelated arms dealer Blake Dexter, written as someone who Trump would appoint to run the Peace Corps, interrupts and kidnaps Victoria. What follows are a series of missions involving following people somewhere, evading the massive army of secret forces and heavily armored troops the ICA has now for some reason, repeatedly getting knocked out in cutscenes, missions the size of broom closets, and very little man-hitting. One of the missions takes place in a strip club; a target kill there is used in the Legacy trailer. 47 eventually kills Dexter and several other characters that were ripped off from 90s movies, saves Victoria, and kills Travis, who never had the approval of the ICA to use all their stuff in the first place. 47 returns Victoria to Diana (who is alive!), with whom she will lead a normal life and hopefully not appear as an insult to the writing of female characters ever again. Diana is established to have become one of members of the ICA board of directors for handling the Franchise mess, ousting/getting rid of Travis, and generally managing 47, their invincible murder machine. Several lingering plot threads are left open and will not be resolved because they are all horrible cliched garbage. As I mentioned elsewhere, the game we got was remarkably far less offensive than what was planned.

Gameplay.
Gameplay.
Absolution had really, really pretty graphics and mostly broken gameplay. The only other things that were good were the contracts mode, IOI's groundbreaking development of crowd tech, and some specific improvements to aural signposting that were squandered on a flaming dog turd of a game. One especially infamous problem was the decision to make it so that a given disguise could generally fool anyone not in the same outfit- and then to have many of the missions only have one kind of NPC. As ChaosArgate mentions, Absolution had a finite instinct meter that could be expended to bypass suspicious NPCs (by literally holding a hand up to cover your face), and a point-shooting mechanic more common in action games. Both are gone in the 2016 game, because they are dumb and because going loud in the 2016 game is meant to be a sign you screwed up.

Bottom Line plot stuff:
  • There's a Mystery Man out there who has some sort of interest in 47 and knows a lot about him. He's probably not the guy from the Legacy trailer (it's hard to tell, due to the time difference and graphics updates). IOI has been teasing his reappearance ever since SA.
  • Ort-Meyer's cloning abilities were basically magic. No one else is as good at cloning as Ort-Meyer.
  • 47 is superhuman in a bunch of ways. He aged (and was extensively trained/mindwiped) until he was about 20, and hasn't aged since, only getting stronger and better. He is perfect at everything.
  • Diana and 47 are now total buds, and 47 doesn't like working with other people. They have been working together for about 20 years.
  • Lei Ling and Agent Smith are characters that exist, and may appear. Victoria and Alpha Zerox will probably not make another appearance. Lei Ling may not either given her past role was pretty close to a racial stereotype.
  • IOI's games up until Hitman 2016 were really, really bad at portraying women and minorities. The game played for this LP is the first one to not have sex trafficking as a significant element.

A caveat on all of this: IOI has been willing to rewrite and retcon old plot elements, so some of this may change in HITMAN 2016.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Apr 21, 2019

double nine
Aug 8, 2013

... I played through Codename 47, Silent Assassin and Blood Money but I barely remembered any of the plot. Thanks for the writeup, that was useful to trigger some distant memories of good/horrible levels.

I do kinda miss the Silent Assassin actiony music track.

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

Huh, this game's on sale on Steam right now for half off until March 21, so definitely consider picking it up if you're interested in playing!

Discendo Vox posted:

Hitman History

And that's going right in the OP, great write-up! It's very enlightening!

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
This game looks fun to watch and I've enjoyed both videos, but man I never have the patience for this kind of stealth-based gameplay. The ejector seat was hilarious.

shut up blegum
Dec 17, 2008


--->Plastic Lawn<---

Cythereal posted:

This game looks fun to watch and I've enjoyed both videos, but man I never have the patience for this kind of stealth-based gameplay. The ejector seat was hilarious.

The thing is, you can totally kill the targets in a couple of minutes once you get to know the maps/their behavior. That's part of the fun for me, you go in a mission and you plan doing things a certain way, but then you discover an entire new path/area/method to kill them and it totally changes the mission.
Besides, you can just shoot them if you don't want to wait :v:

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

There's an excellent video from Mark Brown as part of his Game Maker's Toolkit series about this game and that topic to explain how repetition helps you become a better hitman because you're learning the ins and outs of each map. I highly recommend it, but maybe not for a little while since it's mostly about the second episode and we haven't even started episode 1 yet.

Chexoid
Nov 5, 2009

Now that I have this dating robot I can take it easy.
The little NPC comments in this game are so top tier. They are either surprisingly detailed with regards to whats happening, or hilarious.

edit: One of my favourites is when a guard sees you throw an object like a coin, sometimes he'll just go "Hey, great throw buddy! :)"

Chexoid fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Mar 16, 2017

Fish Noise
Jul 25, 2012

IT'S ME, BURROWS!

IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, BURROWS!
After watching this video:
and reflecting upon this statement:

Cythereal posted:

The ejector seat was hilarious.

I wonder if IOI's big takeaway from Absolution was like "Let's make the comedy intentional this time."

47's most superhuman power is keeping a straight face through it all.

Slow_Moe
Feb 18, 2013

Fish Noise posted:

I wonder if IOI's big takeaway from Absolution was like "Let's make the comedy intentional this time."

Oh just you wait.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Fish Noise posted:

I wonder if IOI's big takeaway from Absolution was like "Let's make the comedy intentional this time."

47's most superhuman power is keeping a straight face through it all.

Yeah, I think that was the case. Reviewing the old games, it's remarkable- the Hitman 2016 devs went all the way back to Codename 47 to find interface and design choices that worked best. These people went through a practically forensic analysis of the series to figure out what would make the ideal Hitman game, including the writing, visual design, everything. I can't see them substantially improving on Hitman 2016. It's an incredible game. For folks who are only experiencing the game through the LP, bear in mind that the Jasper Knight tutorial level is still less than one tenth of the size, complexity, and detail that go into all of the actual missions in the game.

The new game also has some things in it that take the piss out of bad decisions in Absolution.

edit:
A couple more examples of how very on point the IOI trailer game has been:
A story trailer for the tutorial levels of Hitman 2016 (no spoilers)

A trailer explaining/hyping disguises for Absolution. Note the large number of "joke disguises".
A trailer explaining/hyping combat for Absolution. Note the emphasis on combat- and the use of human shields, a mechanic very intentionally dropped for the new game.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Mar 16, 2017

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

We're gonna step over to a map we're not going to cover for quite a while because there's an Elusive Target! Basically, with Elusive Targets, you get one shot at them, you can't save during a run and they're only active for a week or so, after which, they're lost forever. You can restart mid-run though, as long as you have not completed any objectives. Completing any ET for the first time on a map gets you a bonus costume based on the default costume of that map and completing ETs with Silent Assassin ratings, which means only killing the target, not getting spotted trespassing or leaving any evidence of any kind, earns you costumes too.

This ET takes place in Colorado, which is the penultimate map of the first season, so if you're not familiar with the game and are just interested in watching the LP as it updates, maybe save this one for later. There are two objectives: (1) eliminate the target and (2) steal a ledger. This ET is a little tricky because he will flee at the first hint of trouble and if he's killed first, his guards will eventually move to protect the ledger. I also really don't like Colorado, for reasons we'll get to when the LP gets to Colorado, so my solution is very :effort:.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
Man, now I'm curious as to what is really going on in that map in the main storyline. I mean, a car explodes, and no one bats an eye!

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wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Since he was technically killed by a car and not by the explosive attached to the gas tank that blew up the car, it was an accident.

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