New Review Posted: Hitman: Contracts

[Dale Weir]

Scott Jones reviews Hitman: Contracts

"...Hitman: Contracts is ultimately worth playing because it's one of only a few videogames on the market that does not lead me from point A to point B and just flat out refuses to do any of the hand-holding that gamers are accustomed to."

http://www.gamecritics.com/review/hi...racts/main.php

[Doug Troy]

You can actually check in? That's awesome. I just swiped the bellhop's Master key (dumbass left it in the door), caught a security guard unawares with the syringe and just walked around with impunity (until I had to get into the X-ray room, of course).

That's what I like about Hitman: it rewards you when you're smooth as silk about things, but if shit goes south it doesn't punish you.

One thing I really like about the Hitman games, and this is a middling detail for most people that I just find so cool, is the character animations of 47. When you're walking through a complex, calmly putting bullets into those that'd kill you, it just looks so cool. The way he casually walks with his dual Ballers out just makes him look like the Grim Reaper, and the story has enough beef to it to make it worth paying attention to.

Which is why I'm mystified that John Woo would try to direct a 'Metroid' movie and not a 'Hitman' movie. John Woo with a good writer and Jason Statham as Agent 47 would potentially make for a good movie.

[Andrew Fletcher]

A great review from Scott. I'd heard some less-than-enthusiastic responses to this game, lamenting the similarity to its predecessor. But this review made me realise why I loved Silent Assassin so much in the first place.

Descriptions of 'being patient' have never sounded so exiting. I can't wait 'til I have my own Hitman stories to tell. Good job.

[Gene Park]

Holy crap that was a great review for an equally great game.

Here's my little twist on the "seducing the room attendant" scene. I pretended that was Hitman's bitch wife being the hoe that she is, and when they go to the bathroom for some dry humping, he would promptly interrupt their sexcapade and place a bullet in both their heads.

Within the span of one or two hours, Hitman can also be a disturbingly violent game too.

[EnduroGamer]

Awesome review. Superbly done. Great job Scott!

[Sajon]

I'm really glad Hitman is continuing the tradition of *true* non-linearity, not only in the stealth genre but any genre. It seems to me that what many cames claim is "non-linearity" is actually "multilinearity." Real non-linearity is sandbox/toybox mentality where designers give you a world, a set of tools, and then get the hell out of your way. When this is done well, it leads to fluid improvisation and emergent strings of compelling events. It boggles the mind that more designers don't realize that *this* is what a story-oriented game should be. It should a *simulation* that creates focused narrative possibility, not vice versa.

This is why Hitman is so special, because it has this philosophy down cold. It's the true torch-carrier for Thief, which pretty much wrote the book on simulation-oriented non-linear storytelling in the stealth genre. Of all the stealth games that rip of Thief and follow its legacy in one way or an other, Hitman is clearly the one that really "gets it." Ironically, it gets it a LOT more than the Deus Ex team does, which is supposedly also philosophically in line with Thief. I've long been frustrating with how deliberate and mechanical the so-called "non-linearity" is in Deus Ex, where, sure, you get let loose in a simulated environment with a series of tools, but the different "ways" to progress through it are so bleedin' obvious it feels like the only choice you really have is which linear path you want to follow. Games like Thief and Hitman are a lot less obvious in this way, and have a sense of cohesion that makes the constructed nature of the world blend seamlessly into the background. Being able to check into the hotel is a perfect example. It feels like something that's just "happening" not like something that's been obviously designed for you to discover.

Of course, you could argue that the reason Deus Ex seems less cohesive is because it's not *just* a stealth game, and it's a lot easier to blend different stealth elements together seamlessly than it is to blend stealth and hard-core action, which seems to be Deus Ex's excuse for why having a "steathy path," a "violence path," etc. is acceptable. Is this really true, though? When Warren Spector explains it, it seems to be. To be perfectly honest, though, in practice I don't think there's anything that suggests this is necessary. As anyone who's played Hitman can tell, the game is often just as interesting when stealth fails as when it succeeds. If Deus Ex thinks it has to give up cohesion in order to allow for multiple play styles, it's fooling itself... because more hard-core stealth-only games do this all the time. There's never anything stopping you from gunning your way through levels in Hitman, and the game is often no less fun. It just doesn't give you the SAME sense of satisfation you get from Silent Assassin.

I think the real problem with Deus Ex's design philosophy is that thinks it has to "give players choices" when that itself is actually going too far. Hitman and Thief don't "give players choices" with big, blinking neon lights with an arrow pointing saying "CHOICE HERE!" Rather they create a world where its own internal logic makes choices naturally arise. In other words, players need more than simply the ability to choose the solution--they need to be able to choose the *problem* as well. Hitman lets you choose the problems you face, whereas Deus Ex carefully constructs the problems and then lets you choose which solutions you want... and this just isn't as interesting. It's like Deux Ex can't decide if it wants to be hyper-text or a simulation.


-Matt

[Zanbatou]

I don't know what to say other than the first Deus Ex worked perfectly fine for me, both as a stealth game and as a sandbox. It may be a bit more scripted than Hitman or Thief, but it also tells a much more complex story that the player's actions can actually influence in meaningful ways. There's a lot more going on in Deus Ex, and the levels have to be constructed not only around simple objectives but around a narative as well. I agree that eventually a true sandbox/simulation minded game will be what all story-oriented games should be, but the necessary ai just isn't there yet. I believe that the balance that the original Deus Ex struck between simulation and script is what story-oriented games should shoot for now.

However, I feel the criticisms you raise are perfectly fitting for Deus Ex: Invisible War. The reason I was disappointed with that game is that it leaned more in the scripted/planned direction, which is the opposite of where I wanted it to go.

[Ice Honkey]

Yet, I never questioned my actions, never felt especially lousy about what I was doing, the way I did when I clubbed people to death with a baseball bat in Manhunt. Hitman: Contracts cleverly employs a moral relativism that says, Yes, I'm a bad person, but my targets, the guys that I'm killing, are much worse than I am.

I guess the enemies in Manhunt were precious little angels.

[Solidsnack1234]

Originally posted by Ice Honkey


I guess the enemies in Manhunt were precious little angels.

Of course! Don't you remember how innocent they sounded when they said "You run like a beat up hooker!"?

[EnduroGamer]

Yeah, never mind the fact that the enemies in Hitman don't really know or care that you're alive, whereas those in Manhunt are actively hunting you.

[Andrew Fletcher]

Originally posted by Sajon

Real non-linearity is sandbox/toybox mentality where designers give you a world, a set of tools, and then get the hell out of your way. When this is done well, it leads to fluid improvisation and emergent strings of compelling events. It boggles the mind that more designers don't realize that *this* is what a story-oriented game should be.

Or rather, what a story-oriented game can be. I too see great potential in Hitman’s allowance for freeform gameplay, but I can’t be the only one to notice that it also relies heavily on what is possibly the oldest videogame trope of all, namely a system of progress by trial-and-error.

If Contracts is anything like Silent Assassin (and from what I hear it most definitely is), then it involves a careful exploration and mental-mapping of each area (and the activities taking place within) before the hit can be carried out. Very few levels in Hitman 2 could be completed without exploring a few doomed paths first, and many required an absolute mastery of the environment to achieve a satisfyingly stealthy kill, or the coveted ‘Silent Assassin’ rating. This is not a criticism of the series by any means, but if all story-oriented games played out like the episodic Hitman titles then surely narrative fluency would suffer in a large number of cases.

As for the Deus Ex comparison, I won’t make a judgement on whether or not it employs a ‘better’ system of exploration and discovery than Hitman, but I think the majority of gamers would agree that Deus Ex tells a better story. But then I didn’t play the version that contained big, blinking neon lights with arrows pointing saying "CHOICE HERE!" (Is that a Special Edition you've got Sajon?)

[Hypatia93]

Most excellent review, Scott!!!

I hated the first Hitman (on the PC), but I really enjoyed the second (on XBox). I'd had mixed feelings about picking up Contracts until now. Yep, it's a definite must have! (I suppose I'll have to go back and finish Silent Assassin, first. )

BTW, how was the fetish club level?

Oh, and I'm gonna stay out of the Hitman vs. Deus Ex argument; they're both "non-linear" in their own way. (The former for variety of kills and the latter for moral judgments.)

[Sajon]

Originally posted by GC_Andrew

As for the Deus Ex comparison, I won’t make a judgement on whether or not it employs a ‘better’ system of exploration and discovery than Hitman, but I think the majority of gamers would agree that Deus Ex tells a better story.


Of course it does, but my point is this has more to do with the content than the mechanics of the choice-design. Those mechanics in Hitman are better realized, even if the actual content of the story isn't as interesting. I think if Deus Ex had the more robust simulation design of Hitman, it would easily be twice the game it is.


But then I didn’t play the version that contained big, blinking neon lights with arrows pointing saying "CHOICE HERE!" (Is that a Special Edition you've got Sajon?)



I played the version that has numerous, big, suspiciously human-size air vents that exist for no other purpose that to give stealth-oriented players non-confrontational routes to key goals. It didn't have neon signs, but it might as well have. :P


-Matt

[GC_Scott]

Hey, thanks for the (mostly) kind words.

Yes, Manhunt obviously employs the same kind of moral relativism that Hitman does. But the crucial difference between Manhunt and the Hitman games is that the Hitman games are about a hundred times more interesting to play. The Hitman gameplay is "mature" in the truest sense of the word. Anyway, I probably shouldn't be stirring this nasty pot.... If you love Manhunt, hey, it's your world, baby.

The fetish club level, Hypatia, is very good indeed. Lots of prurient stuff. And the Beldingford Manor level a masterpiece....

I especially liked Sajon's comments about not only letting us choose the solutions, but letting us also choose the questions as well. Very well said. What's that smell? Is that a second op brewing...?

-jones

[Sajon]

Originally posted by Moron Lite
Thank you for saying this, Andrew. After a few odd missions I'd come to suspect that Hitman just doesn't present the level of intuitivity that Thief does. Every time I started a new mission I'd go in feeling almost completely lost, and it really isn't until after I've figured out where everything is and how people are going to react to what (requiring many restarts), that I can really perform the mission in any satisfying kind of way. But as I only played a few odd missions, I wasn't sure if there was just something I had to get used to first. Apparently my suspicions are (more or less) correct.


That's interesting. I didn't notice much difference between the trial and error factors of Hitman and Thief. Sure, on Hitman's highest difficulty setting, you have to know the level in a superhuman way via trial and error, but this isn't much different than Thief on its highest mode. Both are remarkably unforgiving, but they both are completely the opposite on their lower modes. Hitman on easy mode is a walk in the park. You can just gun down everyone and make your way to your goal however you want. Same with Thief. Although in Thief stealth is still necessary on easy, you can kill everyone you come across from a distance which eliminates a lot of the strategy.

I dunno. I mean, trial and error is part of all games. While I do agree that the same level of trial and error should not be imposed on all narrative simulations, I have to wonder how something like Hitman is guilty of being unbelievable when the level of trial and error can be widely adjusted. Am I the only one who found Hitman to be almost as good as Max Payne on Easy and almost as good as Thief on Hard? Given that spectrum of possible approaches to a variety of situations, I think Hitman is a remarkably powerful engine for narrative simulation... because the whole breadth of the spectrum remains interesting and dramatic.


-Matt