A Wolf Among Sheep
As always, the slow-burn thrill of these games comes from planning, patience, and hiding in plain sight. The key to success is finding the perfect disguise for exploration, listening and looking for opportunities, and getting the timing just right to pull off the perfect crime and escape unseen. It’s an unapologetically single-player experience that rewards rational thinking over rushing, although it is flexible enough to cater to both extremes: those who prefer to follow the multilayered mini-stories playing out within the levels to make invisible, surgical strikes and disappear without a trace, and those who like to improvise and leave behind piles of dead and unconscious men in their underpants stacked like cordwood. [poilib element="poll" parameters="id=112958e4-d6de-42ba-b116-fdfa9a99d278"] You can get away with all of this because the often hilariously naïve AI is still easy to exploit as ever. Of course, tricking the dopey guards and civilians with unexpected distractions and suspicious items has emerged as such a fundamental part of the puzzle solving in the current Hitman trilogy, and I’ve actually grown to love these dumb bastards over the years. These folks won’t even blink an eye at a severe-faced stranger who’s wearing the clothes of a man they’ve very recently had a conversation with and, while that does rob stealthy victories of believability at times, this kind of suspension of disbelief is simply necessary for Hitman to function. As grim as the murder-for-hire premise seems on the surface, this has always been a cheekily self-aware series that relishes in a general degree of silliness and gallows humour. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=As%20grim%20as%20the%20murder-for-hire%20premise%20seems%20on%20the%20surface%2C%20this%20has%20always%20been%20a%20cheekily%20self-aware%20series%20that%20relishes%20in%20a%20general%20degree%20of%20silliness%20and%20gallows%20humour."]These great levels are linked together by the conclusion to the limp story arc that kicked off in 2016. While this hackneyed story of competing shadow organisations is unlikely to have Netflix power brokers sprinting to the nearest chequebook, it’s nice to have it wrapped after five years – even if it’s been entirely inessential to my enjoyment of the levels themselves. Now, at least, we’ll be able to move on to something that’s hopefully a bit different.Greatest Hits
The biggest advantage of there not being any revolutionary changes in Hitman 3 is that owners of Hitman and Hitman 2 can carry over their levels and progress to Hitman 3. There’s a certain tidiness to rolling the trilogy into a single product that I really like, and I admire IO’s commitment to keeping the previous games’ content alive like this. On Xbox Series X this is mostly seamless; as an owner of both previous Hitman games on Xbox One, Hitman 3 was automatically augmented with all previous maps, although the progression carry-over functionality wasn’t operational for me at the time of review. The PC situation is hindered somewhat by the shift from Steam to the Epic Games Store, though IO Interactive has gone on the record that an import feature will be available within weeks. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-hitman-review&captions=true"] It’s also proven to be a little unruly on PlayStation 5. Despite having both previous games installed, Hitman 3 is directing me to further downloads to allow access – neither of which are available at time of review. The lack of native support for PSVR on PS5 also meant I had to download and install the PS4 version of Hitman 3 alongside the PS5 version, which is a bit of a messy solution – but that’s really on Sony rather than IO. For its part, IO provides a free digital copy of the PS4 version to all who buy the PS5 version so nobody misses out. When you get it up and running, Hitman in VR is worth a dabble if you own a PSVR, though really only to experience its general slapstick goofiness first-hand. You have to play with the DualShock 4 because the Move controllers just don’t have enough buttons and, while it can generally handle melee attacks, the shooting experience is really quite cumbersome, imprecise, and irritating as a consequence. The end result is a system that winds up marooned halfway between full motion controls and traditional controls – which I found regularly brain-bending and occasionally stomach churning. There’s no denying that getting access to all of Hitman and Hitman 2’s levels in VR is incredible value – and it’s a novelty feeling as if you’re truly inside these levels – but it’s janky, primitive, and really not the best way to play. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/01/07/hitman-3-sandbox-vr-trailer"]from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/2XW6O6m
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