Shooter Hitman: Absolution - the craggy thread

[basetarded]

I think the game would lose it's focus and clarity in an open world. In our heads it's easy to imagine, with limited time and resources for a dev I think the game would have be dumbed down or lose it's creative options to work in a huge enviroment.

One of the best things about hitman is giving you all these different scenarios and enclosed locations with a certain number of props and options and then lets you experiment. I'd like for the AI and those options to be more dynamic and varied in number but an open world/GTA hitman wouldn't work in the way you imagine it would. It's beyond realistic development. Or it would just be some hub where you drive from one mission to another instead of a menu screen. But anything more than that is just fantasy.

There's a reason GTA style games all have the simple/usually linear missions.

Dunno.

I thought the New Orleans map in Blood money is one of the best maps of the series. It became something different with the large crowd walking about. Of course, perhaps it would be best to separate philosophy and budget? Would a new Hitman game have a limited budget considering the success of the previous games, or would it have a *large* budget? I hope they get tons of money!

In the previous games, you could always complete any map simply by killing everyone. Thats a minor game breaker. The game obviously empathize on brains not counter strike type of game play.

All though the hitman games is great fun, they are very limited because its all very very scripted. a larger world would create an illusion of things being not that scripted. I would imagine.

[basetarded]

I really liked the mission-by-mission aspect of Blood Money (and the other Hitman games, I assume). Some games are suited to having large open worlds and freedom (Crackdown) and some really benefit from being the linear set pieces that they are.

Did you ever play Headhunter on the dreamcast?

It was supposed to be a very open world, but due to funding it ended up being somewhat limited. But its a great example of how an open world could work for Hitman.

[snowbind]

Jesus Hitman in a GTA sized map would be terrible. I am all for living world and less bounded scenarios, but a GTA sized game would not lend it'self to the game at all.

[Uzi]

Yeah, I doubt they'd be that better than the hitman style missions in Saints Row 2 or GTA4, which are incredibly crude and simple (but fine for the context of those games)

The current format for Hitman is fine, best just to improve on how it already is (indiv focused locations/levels) than most likely ruin it with an over ambitious/impossible sounding feat design wise.

[Pob]

There's a reason GTA style games all have the simple/usually linear missions.

I disagree. GTAIV could absolutely have had Hitman-quality missions if more time had been given to mission design. The reason GTAIV has such simple, linear missions is to make it instantly accessible, and because Rockstar wanted to push cut-scenes and scripted moments in your face at every opportunity. All the tools are there, it just wasn't the direction Rockstar chose to go.

Take the mission in GTAIV where you have to set up an interview at a firm in order to assassinate an exec. Remove the hand-holding messages which pop up telling you exactly what to do, and use that mission as an ideological template for all other missions - you'd end up with basically Hitman in an open world.

Not that I think Hitman 5 should be set in a single open-world environment, mind. Mini-sandboxes FTW.

[Uzi]

Take the mission in GTAIV where you have to set up an interview at a firm in order to assassinate an exec. Remove the hand-holding messages which pop up telling you exactly what to do, and use that mission as an ideological template for all other missions - you'd end up with basically Hitman in an open world.

I remember that, but you wouldn't end up with Hitman in an open world even with your suggestions there. It's still FAR too simple and limited in it's execution in that mission. It's so incredibly barebones in comparison to the typical hit in Hitman and the different options available. There is no genuine realistic way I can see that an open world like that keeping the focus and intelligence of even what is essentially tech wise, a last gen Hitman game (blood money).

Having all that open space comes at a price in terms of planning for variables and making intelligent plants.

[basetarded]

Jesus Hitman in a GTA sized map would be terrible. I am all for living world and less bounded scenarios, but a GTA sized game would not lend it'self to the game at all.

How do you know? did you play Headhunter? I suspect not.

What makes the hitman games great is the illusion of freedom of choice.

[Ferine]

Hitman is a puzzle game at heart. I'd rather see the next game expand on possible solutions to scenarios rather than diluting interactivity for the sake of an open world.

Also, I'm not sure what Headhunter has to do with anything. There was literally nothing to do in its city other than drive from the start of one level to another.

[basetarded]

Also, I'm not sure what Headhunter has to do with anything. There was literally nothing to do in its city other than drive from the start of one level to another.

Hitman was supposed to be much more than it turned out to be. It was cancelled, then released (thank god)

[Spacehost]

No-one played Headhunter.

The thing with Hitman is it's a locked-room puzzle, but you're the murderer. All the weapons, all the possible solutions are there, scripted and unchangeable. It's up to you to do work out what the developers have left you to do in an extremely restrictive environment, then do it perfectly. Yeah, sure, eventually you might be able to do a proper open-world Hitman game, but that's a giant leap- you'd need to be able to direct players to items all over a giantic play area, track targets over it, track hundreds of witnesses over it, all while examining the environmental posibilities- it just wouldn't be possible IMO to design a game like that without making it suck.

The best compromise I can envisage is Blood Money, only with the odd boring tailing assignment or erratic car-chase between enclosed killzones.

[basetarded]

No-one played Headhunter.

Waaaaagh! Proud dreamcast owners played Headhunter, and they apreciated it.

The thing with Hitman is it's a locked-room puzzle, but you're the murderer. All the weapons, all the possible solutions are there, scripted and unchangeable. It's up to you to do work out what the developers have left you to do in an extremely restrictive environment, then do it perfectly. Yeah, sure, eventually you might be able to do a proper open-world Hitman game, but that's a giant leap- you'd need to be able to direct players to items all over a giantic play area, track targets over it, track hundreds of witnesses over it, all while examining the environmental posibilities- it just wouldn't be possible IMO to design a game like that without making it suck.

The best compromise I can envisage is Blood Money, only with the odd boring tailing assignment or erratic car-chase between enclosed killzones.

Hitman is/*was* a locked-room puzzle because it was created in 2000. surely you can admit the game is based on an outdated platform?

[snowbind]

How do you know? did you play Headhunter? I suspect not.

What makes the hitman games great is the illusion of freedom of choice.

Your argument is terrible. I've just sat through 15 minutes worth of videos of this game and it looks abominable. I don't think you really get Hitman, the fact you say you want it to be like GTA and then cite shit like this, really just confirms it. So I will spell it out for you, Hitman is a puzzle game. It needs to be set within a contained environment to facilitate that. Pretty much everyone who likes Hitman gets that.

[snowbind]

Hitman is/*was* a locked-room puzzle because it was created in 2000. surely you can admit the game is based on an outdated platform?

No because you just keep making the room bigger. I mean Bioshock and Arkham Asylum are all set, in what is essentially one big room.

[Mr. Gerbik]

And this is exactly why I fear for the series if Hitman goes to another developer. If there's even only one guy there that has played Headhunter and somehow liked it, there's a very real danger they'll ruin the series with an insistence on a GTA open-world environment

Hitman just doesn't work that way. The point of the game is that it consists of little self-contained sandboxes with a lot of variety between them. Each works like puzzle, with you as the assassin scoping out the environment, looking for possibilities, and observing the people around you. Making it into one big sandbox like GTA would completely transform it into something entirely different, it would lose what makes Hitman Hitman. The carefully balanced, detailed, self-contained, and controlled environments are essential to the Hitman genre (it's not really comparable to any other game, imo Hitman is in a genre of its own).

The first game featured huge open levels with a lot of content acting as simple filler, and this is what the series will return to -and worse even- if the developers agreed with basetarded. It's not a mere fluke that the Hitman game with the most detailed, most intricate, and most controlled environments - Blood Money - is also far and away the best in the series, and the game is that is widely considered as the one that nailed the formula. To replicate that in a GTA open-world sandbox is humanly impossible, do you realise the time it would take to design such a world as intricately as one of the levels in Blood Money and then even make it as balanced? It would inevitably need to be dumbed down and simplified, and spoil everything Blood Money has achieved for the formula.

Hitman is unique in gaming, once you get into it it's one of the finest and most rewarding experiences you can ever hope to enjoy on our beloved medium. IO are fucking legends for achieving this, no matter what other games they end up making form now on, none will be able to take this monumental achievement away from them. It would be a sad day if another developer ever gets their stinking mitts on the franchise, but it would be a fucking travesty if said dev made it into an open-fucking-world game. As if we don't already have plenty of those, go play Assassins Creed if you want to know just how simplified and completely different Hitman would become in an open world.

[Elliott]

Hitman works because it is scripted in a way that allows for multiple scripted ways in with some wiggle room. Not because it's totally open ended because as much as you think totally open ended might be good it's totally unfeasible because of the way this stuff is made.

[basetarded]

Your argument is terrible. I've just sat through 15 minutes worth of videos of this game and it looks abominable. I don't think you really get Hitman, the fact you say you want it to be like GTA and then cite shit like this, really just confirms it. So I will spell it out for you, Hitman is a puzzle game. It needs to be set within a contained environment to facilitate that. Pretty much everyone who likes Hitman gets that.

So you never played it? and your argument is based on youtube? FYI Hitman was fucking ace.

No because you just keep making the room bigger. I mean Bioshock and Arkham Asylum are all set, in what is essentially one big room.

Bioshcok was et in an underwater world. Thats quite limited. A hitman killing people all over the world is not supposed to be limited.

If there's even only one guy there that has played Headhunter and somehow liked it, there's a very real danger they'll ruin the series with an insistence on a GTA open-world environment

BAH Mr. Gerbik BAH!!!!!!! Dreamcast winners loved Headhunter. I suspect you are all about the Wii.

[Mr. Gerbik]

BAH Mr. Gerbik BAH!!!!!!! Dreamcast winners loved Headhunter. I suspect you are all about the Wii.

I don't like the Wii. At all. I still have my Dreamcast, in fact I have two, and I love the console. But - and I'm being brutally honest here - I played Headhunter way back when it came out and I thought it was shit. Seriously. And nothing like Hitman at all, like I said earlier, Assassins Creed is exactly the game you describe if you make Hitman open-world.

[snowbind]

So you never played it? and your argument is based on youtube?

Yes, considering you dismissed my argument on the basis that I hadn't played it. So I am dismissing all your views on Hitman development based upon the fact they are wrong. Plain and simple. We are no where near the stage where we could realistically create a world that is populated in such a way you could make a fun/interesting/engaging assassin game out of it. Not one that boarders more on stealth and being unseen, than action like assasins creed and that pile of shit you cite as being great.

[basetarded]

Headhunter was groundbreaking when it launched, and I'm sorry you cant see that.

than action like assasins creed and that pile of shit you cite as being great.

Assasins creed was shit. If you think it was great and at the same time think Headhunter was shit then you sir are insane.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Take it to the Headhunter thread in the retro folder, hippie

[Harsin]

I bought Headhunter the day it was released, it was a pile of bollocks.

[Wiper]

Nah, Headhunter was alright. Bugged to shit, but a more tightly-scripted Metal Gear Solid-with-bike-bits and a less batshit plot.

It's also nothing, nothing like Hitman.

Hitman could work with an open hub world, but for the missions to be the tightly controlled, puzzley environments that makes the Hitman series worthwhile, they'd have to be strictly controlled and 'separated' from the hub world; e.g. a full-sized, city, with maybe fifteen fully fleshed out 'assassination areas/situations'. Thus making the hub world something of an irrelevance. Anything else would just be unfeasibly difficult to make.

[kerraig UK]

So you never played it? and your argument is based on youtube? FYI Hitman was fucking ace.

Bioshcok was et in an underwater world. Thats quite limited. A hitman killing people all over the world is not supposed to be limited.

BAH Mr. Gerbik BAH!!!!!!! Dreamcast winners loved Headhunter. I suspect you are all about the Wii.

I played Headhunter through several times and i really dont see where you're coming from. The 2 games have nothing in common!

Hitman has many MANY mor eoptions in its gameplay than GTA, it is filled with choice. I dont need an open world to give an illusion of freedom cos the game already gives me more choice than I need

[Quest]

I do think there's definite potential in an open world game in which you play an assassin, having to actually track down the target in a huge city as much as find a means of killing the bugger, but that game would not be Hitman.

[snowbind]

Assasins creed was shit. If you think it was great and at the same time think Headhunter was shit then you sir are insane.

No that was the point I was making, open world stealth doesn't work. It is why MGS is just a series of puzzle boxes, linked with corridors and cut scenes.

I like that bastarded is still arguing when no one else agrees. To me that suggests the argument has been won.

Hoooray for boobies.

[basetarded]

I respect the majority decision.

[snowbind]

I respect the majority decision.

Well it just quantifies how bad a descision making Hitman an open-world game would be.

[Majora]

Also what I love about Hitman is not just the choice to carry out the hits, but the variety of locations and the way they're all filled with details and character. There's not a single mission or location in any GTA game that comes close to the complexity of Blood Money's scenarios and not just because Rockstar choose quantity over quality either. To keep the detail of the missions intact, the open world would just be a glorified hub and therefore pointless. Plus set it all in one city and you lose the beauty of carrying out one hit in a Vegas casino, one in a playboy mansion, one at a redneck wedding etc.

[basetarded]

Well it just quantifies how bad a descision making Hitman an open-world game would be.

If I had £1000000 I would publish it

[snowbind]

If I had £1000000 I would publish it

I wouldn't have thought you would get that far with £1,000,000