Sunday 19 November 2017

Hitman (Xbox One)

Hitman (2016) is the sixth game in the series developed by IO Interactive. They decided to go with a strange approach this time around, a triple A title going episodic... This isn't Telltale, but Square Enix also publish Life is Strange, maybe this is their new approach.

Hitman has six episodes and a couple of special episodes. The first episode has a training mission, a small mission and then the main mission in Paris. The next five episodes have a big mission, and the two special episodes have a couple of smaller missions. There's a decent amount of content in fairness, and they're really well made as usual. It doesn't feel like a triple A game though, I don't know if it's because it's episodic, there just doesn't feel like there's enough for the price. Hitman is a great game, but even your first time through a mission you can do it quickly, but there's an incredible amount of replayability.

There are now 'opportunities', they offer unique ways to take out targets or set up events to take out a target, there's a bunch per mission. I really liked them, they were great to try, but I felt they made the game to easy. The marker could point you straight to a weapon or a certain room and make you do difficult tasks easy. At the same time, some of these would be incredibly difficult to ever find out on your own just from playing, so it's 50/50 the way I feel about them.

It looks fantastic, it really does. For the amount of people on screen it runs smoothly. The beautiful environments you're taken to through your assassinations, there's so much to explore, there's so many challenges and disguises, so many ways to take out your targets. It's content overload. You have instinct mode, which is similar to detective mode from the Batman series, it works in a similar way and is a huge help in completing missions. There's a quick save function which is a godsend in a game like Hitman.

Unlike Hitman Absolution; if you wear a disguise to someone else in the level, they won't all immediately discover you. Only people in the same outfit with a circle above their head can spot you. Like Absolution; Contracts are back. The ability to create your own missions and play ones other players have made. I'm not a big fan of Contracts though, they are great but I prefer to play the main missions.

Hitman has a story that doesn't really engage you, they link the missions together, but I don't play Hitman for story, no one does, although Absolution had an interesting one. Most of the cutscenes feature people you have never seen before and don't know if they're even relevant. When cutscenes played excluding Agent 47 and Diana, I felt like I was playing a different game all together.

After you've completed a mission you can replay them and there's loads of reasons why you should, you're able to pick a starting location, starting disguises and even your load outs like the old days. These make the same level different every single time you play. The main levels take you to Paris, Sapienza, Marrakesh, Bangkok, Colorado and Hokkaido. Each level is brilliantly made, beautiful to look at and fun to explore. Hitman 2016 also keeps in the light humour the previous games have had, making it even better to explore for these moments.

I'd be interested to see if the next Hitman game continues the episodic format, I'm inclined to say it will as a Game of the Year version has recently released to my surprise. It is an excellent game in all fairness, the quality has definitely stepped up, but the amount feels like it's taken a hit. I'm worried for gaming as we are being charged more for less and it's a current problem. I'm also not a huge fan of episodic games, I was only into Telltale doing it, not triple A games, this can't become the next gaming trend. Anyway, despite it being episodic it's a great game.

8.1/10

Before I go, stop making Hitman films. This series doesn't work as a film. STOP.

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