Video Games Suck - Hitman Absolution

What the shit happened to the dev team at IO after Blood Money that led them from making one of the best/funniest stealth games out there to one that actually made me nostalgic for Splinter Cell fucking Conviction? My money's on Square Enix putting so much emphasis on masturbating over their DEEP PLOT and GRAPHICS that they forgot about making the actual game fun or interesting. Where do I fucking begin ripping this thing apart?

Graphics
Do you like lens flares blinding you with the force of a thousand suns during levels set in the daytime? Do you think that all kinds of clothing and Agent 47's bald head double as natural reflective surfaces? If you answered yes to both questions then these graphics will earn a perfect score, assuming you can still read this screen after playing through the first few levels.

Sound
Good news, they got David Bateson to return to voice Agent 47 instead of that hobo who did his best Timothy Olyphant voice for a half-eaten ham sandwich during the early trailer. Also Steve Blum shows up because if he refuses to voice a character in any video game or cartoon his heart will explode. Bad news, everyone else sounds terrible, especially the Chinatown informant who sounds like a Cuban doing a bad Tommy Chong impression. I guess that's the fault of the script though, which I'll get to.

Story
Agent 47 kills his waifu, drops the waifu's daughter at an orphanage, then spends his time running around Chicago. The Agency he once loved is now run by David Carradine's drunken half-brother who commands a hit squad of latex-clad fetish nun commandos led by Vivica A. Fox and so 47 has to destroy them so he can be together with the daughter. Also there's a redneck millionaire guy who calls up a legion of hicks from Buttfuck, South Dakota halfway through for some reason. I stopped paying attention to it, but Square Enix assumes you love their story so much that they embed it into all of the fucking loading screens.

Gameplay
Remember how you actually assassinated people in a Hitman game? Guess what, you barely do any of that in this one! Most of your time is spent going from Point A to Point B until you trigger the next cutscene! You don't even get to choose your weapon loadout, because why would you want to use weapons in a Hitman game right?

Want to craft an intelligent solution to an irritating problem? Of course not! What you really want to do is run down a hallway where there's only one way in and out of the next level! Whichever asshole thought the level "Run For Your Life" was a good idea in a Hitman game deserves to be punched in the dick until it turns into a grape-colored paste. I guess calling the game "Fugitive on the Run: Absolution" wouldn't fit as well on the box.

Remember the size of the levels in Blood Money? Did you ever think "gosh this level is so big my tiny little retard brain can't possibly think of a way to beat it?" Well IO has shrunk them down so you barely have to walk one minute to find the next cutscene trigger! Every guard happens to have an empty locker or dumpster two steps away so you can hide their body easily. And as an added bonus, large weapons can magically disappear into your suit now, so you don't have to worry about actually hiding or tossing them anymore!

Want to dress up in disguises and hide in plain sight? HAHA FUCK YOU! The guards can see you from all the way across the map if you're wearing their same disguise, even through some solid brick walls, unless you use the new see-through bullshit mechanic "Instinct" button. And good luck doing any stealth runs on harder difficulties, which they obviously didn't test and just jammed in there to shut the "purists" up, forcing you to either use babby mode just to complete the level or shoot your way through and hope you don't die.

Multiplayer
"Contracts" mode is a slightly interesting take on setting up custom contracts on any NPC you want for different levels in the game under certain conditions. Unfortunately, 95% of them are just shit that other people vomited out to get a stupid achievement, literally just cap the first guard you see and run back to the exit. Even if they weren't, there are maybe four levels that aren't set in a single fucking hallway or have one predetermined path for you to follow, so if you aren't achievement-whoring there's still not much use for it. If this were a better game I would love this mode, but here it just reemphasizes the turd sandwich you made the mistake of buying.

Overall
Hitman Absolution gets a 3/10 for David Bateson's voice and the (unfilled) promise of Contracts mode. Just play Blood Money instead.