Hitman Drabsolution. This time it's personal! sort of.

‘Hmm well if half the effort that went into the menu went into the game should be up for a lovely murderous romp.’

Voila, witness my above average Hitman Absolution review, in which Hitman Absolved to murder lots of rednecks…. Huzzah!

Ok intro; can’t say I liked seeing 47 topless, he’s always been a merciless killing machine not really the pretty boy type, to see him sexualized was slightly stomach churning, and I get the distinct feeling that they're trying to crowbar feelings into is stern visage, well onto the game.

First impressions; love the look, lighting, not really a graphics whore but they were nice. The intro was a little square. I think we've reached an opus where some off camera voice just telling you how to play the game just doesn't cut the mustard. I think tutorials should be entirely immersive because they’re sort of your gateway into the game, Alice wasn't told to tap X to enter wonderland, tutorials are important they shouldn't be just tacked on, you should almost not notice them.

What I like about it so far is it seems a lot more plot heavy than the previous games. Whether you’re familiar with the previous games or not it stands to reason that a game about a hired assassin won’t entail much plot as the whole purpose of hiring an assassin is to have a professional who has no connection to the victim so there’s no link to the client. The odd thing about the previous games were that they still worked because they were laden with sub-narrative; every room told a story and then there was an overarching plot happening in the background building until the climactic ending. This game seems a little Hollywood for my tastes, I mean I hate to say it but it’s the basic Mario ‘Save the princess’ plot-line  (in the voice of Morgan Freeman) ‘a plot as old as time’ and the whole game is based around padding that out.

Although the plot is a bit hit and miss there are some really great new game-play features which are mostly ripped off of other games but who cares? 47 has this sort of vats, time stopping shoot everyone power now like fallout 3, but Splinter Cell Conviction already ripped that one off so it’s no big deal, why shouldn't 47 be able to walk into a room and shoot everyone without much input from me, maybe I should just sit this one out and catch up on my word based puzzles.

There’s also a new stealth system, long story short if you dress as a guard all guards are going to be suspicious of you so you have to avoid them, so the trick is to basically find the one person who is meant to be there but that nobody knows and you can wonder around freely. It makes a lot more sense than the previous games and I think it’s very clever… also they ripped off Assassins Creed lacing the game with hiding spots… but who cares?!

As side note, 47 has acquired the ability to hide a sniper rifle up his ass, I liked how in the previous games you couldn't hide two handed weapons unless you had a suitcase because it’s realistic and makes it more of a challenge to smuggle weapons into areas if you can hide a M60 in your pants it takes the sport out of the whole game. Also one thing I loved about the previous games was that there was always people frisking you (not that it’s a fetish of mine) or metal detectors or things like that so improvising or sneaking in weapons was really important. 

Whereas in this game they seem to let any Tom, Dick or Harry in with an AK under his arm. So although this game makes a big thing about improvised weapons, like using a brick or a bottle to kill someone it’s just sort of style over substance really since you can just use a gun or fiber-wire that 47 has all the time or his bare hands which he can do now. I mean I like the idea that you can kill them from the front with a screwdriver but there’s not much point to it.

The levels seem a little less well structured since this game isn’t about him carrying out a series of well orchestrated assassinations it’s just him basically killing anyone he fancies really. I often found myself reading the objective screen because I’d get half way through a mission with no idea why I was strangling and/or dropping things on all these people.

Don’t get me wrong I love Hitman, it’s one of my favourite games series, I've been waiting for this game for ages and I can’t say I was that blown away, I enjoyed it but it just didn't have the same clout as the other games, it was just missing something, it felt a little rushed, like I’m given all these nice set pieces to play with but I don’t get enough time to faff about with them. The systematic nature of the levels just drained the game of fun and to be honest I've always hated the scoring system on Hitman. I just think giving people targets like that destroy the natural flow of a game, to an extent it almost puts the game on rails, taking all the spontaneity away.

When you compare it to something like Max Payne where your jumping around firing two guns prematurely ejaculating bullets all over the place it almost makes murder boring, trying to make it as neat and economic as possible and when did the Hitman series become so xenophobic? In Contracts and Silent assassin 47 went all over the world, in the last game he spent most of his time in the south of America killing hillbillies then he went to Vegas and in this he just splits his time between Chicago and Dakota… killing hillbillies again. All games are set in America, I am seriously bored of America and I get the distinct feeling Hitman hates Americans, especially rednecks.

My only other little niggle is the addition of a cover system, it just destroys me to think that there are people playing this game as a cover shooter chest-high-wallfest and not as the methodical murderfest that it is. Also QTE?!.... in Hitman!? What were they thinking!?.... Nuns?

Happiness is a Warm Gun

    Games in all forms have since inception been viewed as intellectually degrading, which is irrational (Johann Huizinga - play anthropologist) games are central to the formation of culture, we learn everything vital to being a person as a child through play. An example of this is God of War. Throughout the game we’re taught a rather twisted version of ancient Greek mythology but it has a basis in ‘real’ mythology and since mythology isn’t really real anyway what does it matter if it’s altered or not? Play is essential to civilised society. It’s a social pleasure and it mediates social interaction, but what if games could mediate or incite crime like the facebook riots?

We don’t really want to kill real people in games, that’s why they look so computerised (people in games don’t look like people in the real world usually but they’re starting to) or wear masks or are just plain reprehensible (Inhumane actions result in a character becoming less human), we dehumanize them, separate them, they become the faceless ‘other’.

Still the subject fascinates us as most taboo subjects do and video games allow us a neutral non-judgemental environment to play with these ideas of murder, crime and revenge. In that respect gamers are more like sense explorers, than children playing. They are the philosophers of the 21^stcentury; they sample a variety of emotions and sensations that not everyone can or is willing to experience, everything from fear and loathing to love and lust as well as pure child-like wonder.

The obvious worry is that people will learn or develop violent behaviour from playing games. In reality a video game has no more power of an individual than a film or a book, it’s just information, holding a gun or a knife and a controller are so far removed it’s laughable. Obviously it’s beside the point, erections don’t rape people, people rape people.

“The fighting game, like fighting itself, will always be popular “(Poole 2000). Sadly people are savage in nature, every art form we have originates from that savagery before the television we had public executions and the coliseum and still the most popular forms of media are those that glorify violence, but what’s wrong with that? If mindless violence is not entertainment, then what is?

Although we've had light guns for a long time in arcades that emulate the look and feel of real guns, reason dictates that one day there may be a game that could in some way teach you something be it combat or cooking but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Knowledge is without agency, although it is said to be power knowledge has no will of its own it’s what is done with that power that is paramount and that is up to the individual.

That being said although the subject matter of most games may centre around murder, games are actually more like sport. In a game the goal is not actually to kill but to win, killing is just the means to an end it’s not an end in itself. So although in the game Hitman you are a professional assassin and the objectives of the game are to kill people the pleasure doesn’t come solely from the act of killing (admittedly some of it does) the joy of the game comes from the journey and the eventual conquering of the game, saving the world/princess/Holy Grail whatever it is.

 Killing is just a minor part of whole game, it can never be the main focus. If there was such a game just about killing you could put all the names of the people buying it on a register because the only people that would play it would be undoubtedly insane and it would probably never make it onto the shelves anyway. If you say video games are violent in the sense that they train someone to be more effective at killing or increase aggressive tendencies then martial arts, body building, fencing, shooting, paint balling etc. should also be suspect.

Even if video games did increase the ability to kill they don’t necessarily increase the drive to. The drive to kill is down to the person playing. Just because you play manhunt carve out a niche in virtual butchery doesn't necessarily mean you would turn those new found skills to actual murder, the two are not in the same ball park, they’re not even the same sport. The game Madworld is a good example actually because although it’s a game about a murder game show your actual objectives are not to kill but to win the game show and you have this overarching story where you’re a government agent sent into to stop the game show.

Another example of this is Manhunt a very controversial game by those lovely people at Rockstar who brought us Grand Theft Auto, that amoral classic. Manhunt is a game about making a snuff film but that’s the goal of your captor not your character, the characters goal is just to survive and get out of this maze of death and kill the director and stop the snuff film. So as a player you sort of a play a rival director following the snuff film directors orders for the time being so as to get closer to him and put a stop to him.

The bottom line is that actually it makes no difference because there is nothing to kill in the first place because it’s just a fantasy, the people aren't real, all the meaning and the consequence of their lives were imagined and taking their lives has no permanence because you can select ‘new game’ and do it all again.

Imurder

“Real, unreal what’s the difference? As long as you don’t get caught”

- Trickster (Brainscan 1994)

Brainscan was a brilliant nineties film starring Edward Furlong (Terminator 2 1991, American History X 1998) about what the Wii would be like in a perfect world and the reason the film really interested me was because it laid bare this vital truth about video games; they’re all about murder. A slight slippery slope of an argument coming up but please stay with me. We live in a time where people can socialise on-line they can visit casinos and virtual strip clubs, they can shop and take tours of places without ever having to meet with anyone condescending, so why can’t they kill?

On-line hunting is currently locked in legal battles with animal rights groups trying to have it banned all over the globe. For anyone who is not familiar with on-line hunting it's basically the commercialisation of remote control robotics that fire guns instead of make coffee. Similar to the ones used by the military to clear caves or go anywhere an american soldier might encounter ghosts, but you pay to shoot at animals rather than foreigners.Supposedly it’s targeting disabled people who can’t go hunting or just lazy people who can’t be bothered to put on a high visibility jacket and wellies. The possibilities are limitless, literally turning killing into a game, setting up this strange nexus between real and fantasy.

There are enough accidents that happen in real hunting imagine how many ‘accidents’ will happen when the person is just clicking a mouse and feels no real responsibility for the lives they’re taking because they feel so removed from the actual act as they’re not actually there. It's very much like Brainscan, it's basically a film about a video game where you commit a murder but it actually happens in real life. So that being said why not on-line murder for people that want all the thrill of being a serial killer without all the mess.

 It goes without saying that it wouldn't exactly be legal but since when has that stopped anything on the internet? Half the allure of the internet is that it’s basically the wild west of information, too big and too wild to be tamed by any law enforcement agencies but I think it’s fair to say it’s also a pretty scary place when you think about it. I still support that idea of real freedom even though it inevitably leads to deviance.

What I'm trying to say is; what if, like Brainscan, someone could make a real murder feel like a video game? People could in theory be tricked into murdering someone with an on-line game, and have no idea that real people were being killed as a result of their actions, it’s possible but wholly unlikely. On the other hand why couldn't a killer wait outside a house with webcam on his head and an earpiece in his ear to receive instructions from a paying customer how to commit a murder? The pretence would basically be that the killer was going to kill regardless and the customer would simply be paying to choose the method and tools used. Basically it would be up to the customer to suspend his disbelief to whether it was real or fantasy and would probably get the benefit of the doubt in a court of law. There could be a massive market for selling someone a murder fantasy that could be entirely staged but still leaving room for doubt. You may ask yourself ‘what’s the point?’ but you could say that about almost anything on the internet. What's the point of putting a cats face through a piece of bread? The fact is it doesn't have to make sense, it’s just supply and demand and there will always be demand for the taboo.

Video games are already used to train pilots and terrorists use them to map locations they plan to terrorize. It seems really strange when you think back to the Robin Williams film Toys (1992) of which the premise was that the military were making toys that could kill controlled by kids who thought they were playing video games and looking at today’s predator drones (the unmanned remote control bombers used by the US Military) and realising the only difference is they’re not controlled by kids, just under developed macho man children. Where do you draw the line when murder is legalised and a click of a mouse away?   The reason I love video games is that they’re honest, they operate on the principle that there’s a killer in everyone, they just allow the killer to come out and play.