As far as I recall, in Silent Assassin and Contract, you'll get limited (7 I guess) actual saves for easy (or was it normal, been a while, I can't remember), with which you can save anytime anywhere. In Blood Money, you'll get unlimited saves but only and only if you do not quit in the middle of the mission. If you do quit, your progress will be lost and revert back to the beginning of the mission level. I am aware of a hack exploit (by copying the save game files before you quit and then pasting them back later on), but that is rather inconvenient if I may say so myself.

Nice review, but I still have a question about this game.
The previous Hitman games had also a great atmosphere not in the least generated by the soundtrack (Jesper Kyd), does Absolution also have a great atmosphere (and soundtrack)?

Also worth noting is that Contracts doesn't have a mission load out screen either, and I don't think I hear people complaining about it.

I've seen a lot on Absolution and the review above generally is a good and accurate picture of the story campaign. People hungry for the Hitman of old will want to check out Contracts Mode (where available). Pretty much as close as you'll get to the older games.

Like Hitman, but with a touch of Commandos (maps with fields of vision). Also much more open than hitman, I felt I had more freedom in Death To Spies. i also found it was less silly (I have issues with the super-assassin designed to blend in and kill, while bearing a gigantic barcode on his neck), more interesting and varied. It just clicked better with me.

But yes, you sneak around, snipe, strangle, poison, swap outfits, infiltrate, etc. It's quite tense, maybe not entirely well polished, but Hitman bore me after a while and Death to Spies didn't. Plus, you play a smersh antihero, which is a bonus for any reader of Ian Fleming novels...

I've never played a hitman game on a lower difficulty than hard so I can't comment on normal difficulty.
In blood Money you get 3 saves per level on hard mode and no saves on professional, if you quit the game you have to then start back at the start of the level. This was the same with Silent Assassin.

Easy: simply play the game in Purist mode. No HUD and no hints whatsoever.

Good and fair review. Personally, I have stopped playing the game already. The detection/disguise system has made the game unplayable or at least too frustrating for me to further bother with it at the moment.

In general, I don't like the story (from what little I've seen of it so far). The first mission was already a huge disappointment for me. Besides of that I agree that the game kind of feels like a Hitman game. But at the same time it doesn't. It often feels more like an average stealth game now. It's annoying already that crucial moments are often shown only as cut scenes, thus making it impossible for the player to take his/her own actions/decisions. But on top of that 47 is portrayed rather amateurish in this game, which makes it silly and almost unbearable for me.

Technically, the game is great, even though they really have overdone all the special (post-processing) effects. But that's a problem with many modern games and seems to be the general trend now. Music is great. But it's clearly not a Jesper Kyd soundtrack anymore.

Again, I haven't seen much of the game yet. But from what I've seen Absolution doesn't even come close to such games like Blood Money or Contracts (which many people disliked. But I really like the game) in my opinion. In fact, I have already considered buying Hitman 2 Silent Assassin on GOG and play it instead of Absolution.

And since you can't look through keyholes anymore, you just end up in front of an angry security guard every time you open a restricted door.


Another of my grudge against the game is the sound propagation. Drop a screwdriver behind close doors in a bomb testing facility really shouldn't attract people 5 floors below.

However, you CAN pick a load out the second time you start a finished mission. In Absolution you can't whatsoever.

While in previous games you had a limited amount of saves, in Absolution what you get are checkpoints (not available in higher difficulties). Basically, you get to a point on the level and you see some glowing sign with the hitman logo, you use it and you've checkpointed yourself. If you die, you can restart there instead of from the beginning of the level.

The thing is that, when I say restart, I mean the whole fucking scenario restarts. Knocked out NPCs rewpawn. Traps you set up (such as opening the gas of a kitchen) reset. You get immersion breaking cases of knocking out the only chef, hiding his body, getting his disguise, saving at the checking, and when you reload the chef will be back and have the same conversation it had before you knocked him out (and sound the alarm when seeing you, of course).

I can deal with immersion breaking, even if it's a pain, but there are also game breaking cases when you knock out a guard, go up to an sniping spot, use a checkpoint there, and when you try to leave the guard will be back and will certainly spot you, as the way the developers set for you to distract him was while entering and not exiting.

All in all, it's usually simpler to to finish it in one go, but this involves a lot of tedious repetition. Then again, since the patrol routes are hardcoded, you end up knowing where each guard will be every time you restart, so you no longer bother opening doors with care; you just know this door is safe and if I run on this corridor no one will be able to spot me. It doesn't exactly kill the game, but it isn't very fun.

As for those wondering where to start, I too think Blood Money is the best hitman game. I relate to shadowmirage in that Silent Assassin was the first for me and nothing equals that, but it was objectively a lot more clunky. Every time some NPC guard got randomly run over by a car and trigger an alarm, ruining my silent assassin rating, I felt like punching the screen (for the screen is always at fault, obviously).

If you plan on playing only one of the Hitman games, go for Blood Money. If you plan to play more, it's probably better to start with Silent Assassin, as going forwards with improving mechanics is probably better. I don't recall the first one as particularly good: it was more of a test run on the franchise, it had hardly any story I can remember and several of the hits got beautifully redone in Blood Money. So, despite owning it myself here on GOG, I would recommend you to skip it.

This review sounds about right. In-line with my experience so far.
I played and finished Blood Money for the first time only a few weeks before Absolution and that makes the lacking areas of Absolution even more glaring. It's not a bad game, but there a lot of work to be done still if they really want to make a good Hitman game.

I suppose the way Squeenix and IOI saw this is that if you wanted the mission load out screen in Absolution, play in Contracts mode.

Likewise I have not played the Hitman series other than with the easiest or normal mode, so I guess that is why our experiences are different :-)

I've got to say that is a pretty bad change. As I mentioned yesterday, I have never understood why game developers always seem to feel this need to change something that is not broken. For me (based on the easiest or normal difficulty level I have played), the best in the series is the save game system in Silent Assassin and Contracts, then followed by Blood Money but only with hack. Without hack, I was a bit disappointed with Blood Money. And now this... *sigh*

What makes it different compared to Silent Assassin and Contracts? And what hack?

I mentioned it in the post above:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/2_cents_on_hitman_absolution/post16

Chances are you also only play with the hardest or professional difficulty level? In the easiest difficulty level, for Silent Assassin and Contracts you will get 7 saves, and for Blood Money you will get unlimited saves (that will get reset if you quit in the middle of the mission without finishing it).

The hack I am talking about is described here:
http://www.hitmanforum.com/index.php/topic/35809-method-to-retain-saves-pc-only/
Not really a hack per se, just a workaround I guess.

Never. I hate poor save systems so easiest difficulty it is to keep the unlimited saves. For Silent Assassin I asked a fellow GOGer to trick the .exe so that you technically have unlimited saves like in Blood Money. I read about the hack, cool trick. I'll bookmark it for my next playthrough.

As far as Absolution goes I missed the open levels and save system, other than that I had a great experience.