Hitman: Absolution

A good story with some great characters and humour, but gameplay is a bit mixed - rigid stealth mechanics with an arcade/consolitis feel. Sometimes you get detected for something that you would get away with in real life and vice-versa. Confusingly, enemy eyesight is matched to their torso instead of the direction their face is looking towards. The challenge is annoyingly increased artificially by over-populating levels with guards. To get past them you take things slowly and memorise their pre-defined patrol routes - which can get a bit tedious. The mechanics have a "puzzle game" feel to them. There is little room for improvisation. At least you can always go the guns blazing route if stealth gets too annoying. The gameplay does offer good replayability though, if you want to improve your score for each level and beat the scores of your friends.

Levels are on the small side and too linear, but many have nice detail and feel very alive with huge crowds of AI. Some also have funny things and some great easter-eggs. On a technical level though, the graphics are just average (aimed at xbox360 limitations). levels also take unreasonably long to load.

The control scheme feels a bit cumbersome. Shooting mechanics are acceptable, but melee combat is poor - clumsy and harsh quick time events that break the flow of the action. The screen FOV is low by desktop standards. The lack of frequent checkpoints or a manual save system can be annoying if you slip up and have to start from the beginning of a level. Also, your gear and outfit are not saved between levels. Even worse, if you reload a checkpoint, some enemies are alive that you killed before reaching that checkpoint.

So, gameplay is arguably not quite as good as in Blood Money, but I did find the story in Absolution much more entertaining. Other than some minor issues like very slow loading levels, a few bugs and glitches (an AI spotting me through a floor), the game runs stable.

Overall it is a decent game to get when on sale.