I didn't know it at the time, but now I'm older and wiser and I realise this is where the series doomed itself. They completely warped the "fan base" into this bizarre group of people who obsess about extreme minimalist playthroughs using as many exploits as possible to get the cleanest possible briefing screens. Suddenly there was pressure on the developers to make every mission silent assassin compatible, which means that the "best" solution is either ridiculous, anti-cinematic and awkward (silent assassin and contracts) or ridiculously simple and obviously set up (Blood money and absolution).

Really, by the second game they actually lost focus on what Codename 47 was and what I think the series should have been: Play the complete psycho assassin who gets the job done no matter what. Instead, the ideal playthrough has morphed into Splinter Cell without the sci-fi gadgets and if you actually use any of the tools/weapons given you are scorned by the "hardcore" fans and chastised by the game itself.

Absolution is the absolute low for the series where the game is constantly throwing negative red numbers at you for doing cool stuff like the most annoying backseat driver in the world. The only way I could enjoy it was by playing "purist mode" where the HUD is hidden and just play it as cinematically as I can by killing guards cleanly and not worry about the rating. Even then, I could not finish the game because the story is so bad it is goes past the "so bad it is good" point and into "don't waste any time with this garbage" and the mission designs/objectives were simply not enjoyable.

To be clear about one thing, I laboured for a month to get Silent Assassin ratings on every mission on the hardest difficulty setting in Hitman Contracts, I'm not whining because I'm not good at these games. I just want to play it cool and do awesome stuff without the game going tsk tsk tsk the whole time. Playing it like Sam Fisher with a tie only to push the target down a flight of stairs is NOT awesome, if a movie or TV show had an assassination like that on screen people would laugh in disapproval.

I actually enjoyed the game, I guess mostly because many things reminded me of Tomb Raider II, which I really liked, plus the atmosphere was good...

Concerning the drug lord boss fight, if you eliminate all patrolling thugs and all enemies on these wood towers, you can get yourself a sniper on one of the towers left (coming into the camp through the main entrance), then move onto a tower in front of the drug lords office and gun him down, but that takes some time. I personally managed to do all this after weeks of trying, then accidentally killed myself in the drug lab... I have to admit that I was angry enough to cheat through the level after this ):

I played the game with laptop touchpad and no mouse, so I had to find a way without direct enemy contact... XD

LOL!

I'm one of those that think those touchpads should be illegal. Did you complete the entire game with a touchpad?

Nope, I got myself a mouse for the 2 last missions (actually I only got that for the raspberry pi I bought...) but all other missions I completed with touchpad. I finished Skyrim (without DLCs) completely with touchpad, I explored Daggerfall for many hours, I finished Risen 1 and 2, Two Worlds II, Fallout 1 and 2, ...

You're right to not like touchpads, it's quite inconvenient, but still better than nothing when traveling or so (;