Call of Duty: Ghosts Review (PS4)December 15, 2013 by


I keep letting myself get suckered into the Call of Duty hype. I've never been good at the game, online at least, and the single player just isn't interesting enough for me to solely justify a $60 purchase. So, why did I find myself with the game when the PS4 launched? I could cop out and say, "well, it was part of the Target B2G1 sale and I just didn't know what else to get..." which isn't entirely a lie, but it feels like a cop out to me. I like Call of Duty's gameplay, for the most part, it's fluid, fast and accurate. There is just something addicting about it, and even though the multiplayer makes me want to choke the eight year old kids who inhabit the game (Seriously, you shouldn't be playing kid, GTFO!), I still enjoy something about Call of Duty.

So, with Ghosts, Infinity Ward decided to restart, storywise, with a completely new experience. Gone are Soap and Price, and the "world" around them. We're in the same world, but it's like an alternate world....Gosh, this is confusing. Just know they got rid of all the characters from the Modern Warfare series, all the threats, and completely started anew, with new characters, new enemies and a dog. Yes, Riley is fucking awesome, recognize.

The story here is refreshing, because the enemy is not the typical Russians or Middle East sort, but from South America, who decide they're just not satisfied with being rich oil tycoons, they want to push upwards, take over the United States, and North America as a whole, and are willing to completely destroy the country to do so. The game starts off peacefully, but shit gets real, real quick...which also causes that old familiar Call of Duty problem AFTER Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare...and that is the game feels like it's just going from set piece to set piece, after establishing a beginning to the story, it just feels like it's moving along, but at the same time, you're missing out on the finer details of a plot that could use them. The game does its best to educate you on the goings on of the story throughout the loading screens, giving you pretty neat visuals trying to either describe a person's motives from another's perspective, or giving you info on why you're going where you're going in the next mission. It gives enough information to make you want more, making the story, while somewhat decent at specific parts, lacking overall.

Visually, Call of Duty looks great, considering it probably was designed on PS3 and Xbox 360, Infinity Ward did a good job of making everything look next-gen. It's not the cream of the crop like Killzone or Ryse, but it's definitely a good looking game with good looking set pieces. Underwater levels look awesome, with the mechanics of being underwater adding to the environment, making everything feel realistic. The sun shining through buildings and windows looks incredible, as well as shadows and even character models to an extent. It looks good, much better than the 360/PS3 counterparts. The PS4 even has the visual edge over the 360, with the game being played in native 1080p (NOTE: After a patch, which, I'll save for a rant one day), compared to the Xbone's 720p.

In the end, campaign aside, the real "depth" of Call of Duty: Ghosts, like other CoD games before it, is the multiplayer. Ghosts feels familiar to other CoD multiplayer games, but at the same time, a lot has changed. The customization has been stepped up, but at the same time, is not as impressive as they'd have you believe. You can customize soldiers, with many different loadouts, giving you a big opportunity for making many loadouts. The game also feels familiar to Black Ops II's Pick 10 system, giving you the ability to get rid of a secondary weapon or so for an addon to your primary weapon. The amount of options here is nice, and gives you plenty of options for finding that perfect loadout! A new class of rifle in between Sniper and Assault is a nice addition, but I found myself using the ol' trusty SMG weapons, I dunno why, I guess I've always preferred them, which may not be the popular CoD method, I don't even know...I'm not a pro CoD gamer, but my brother is. He won't even talk CoD with me, he's on another level of good!

So yeah, the maps on this game got bigger. One of the more common complaints about the Battlefield franchise compared to Call of Duty is Battlefield's maps feel too large and have a lot of downtime, just running around doing nothing, being bored. Unfortunately, that problem has found its way onto Ghosts. The maps aren't bad, and aren't near as big as Battlefield's, but I found myself running around for a few minutes with no one in sight, maybe because I didn't want to die, but I wasn't hiding, I was looking for someone to spray and pray! The bigger maps are different for an otherwise super fast paced, die every 15-20 seconds type first person shooter that Call of Duty is. Ghosts also features the ability to alter some of the maps, but the difference between these and Battlefield 4's Levelolution is night and die. The changes don't alter the game, or give an advantage, they're more for small shock effect, something this franchise overly exploits, but they don't even have that much of an effect. I guess after seeing the jawdropping sequences in BF4, Ghosts just fell flat in map altering moments.

Call of Duty Ghosts features something like thirteen total game modes, with a lot of "new" modes being added. A lot of the "new" modes are recycled old ones with an new objective here and there. I will admit, Cranked is my favorite mode. You get a kill, and have a short amount of time to get another kill, or you go boom. I'm assuming something about the movie Crank inspired this, or maybe it's similar and I'm trying to draw comparisons because I like Jason Statham, who knows, it's late and I'm tired. While the new objective match types are fun, I always found myself going back into Team Deathmatch. It's what I know, yo.

Extinction is the new Zombies, and the new Zombies are Aliens, and you make the Aliens die. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after I tried one round of this, and I immediately went to look and see if this game was co-developed by the folks at Valve. I loved Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360, I played the hell out of it. Extinction felt like L4D, with Zombies being replaced by Aliens, and the fun being replaced by a big pile of Meh. It can get pretty difficult, with the aliens being a lot different foes than the stumbling bumbling Zombies, and so in some cases the challenge was there and it felt rewarding, but I prefer Black Ops II's Zombie mode way more. If you're in the mode for the "Horde mode of the Week", check out Squads, which is a neat tie in for someone who is looking to take a break from the annoying children plaguing the Call of Duty servers ("At least on Xbox, PS versions are more mature," said the troll) and also giving you an opportunity to gain some experience that carries over to other multiplayer modes. Your create-a-soldiers make appearances in this mode, which feels like a good practice routine to go through. I found myself spending hours playing through Squads, mostly because I get frustrated playing online competitively, but that's me!

Call of Duty: Ghosts packs a lot of content, in both current and next-gen titles...or should I say Last-Gen and Current-Gen titles. Xbone and PS4 are technically current now, right? Anywho, the game has a lot, but it's just spun off stuff we've seen time in and time out. Call of Duty needs something, some what of a major overhaul, at least for me to get excited about it again. I enjoyed the campaign, it was mindless dumb fun, and multiplayer is multiplayer, nothing has changed there. You can change game modes and add new modes, but the core gameplay is there, and the game is fundamentally the same, as it's been roughly since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (my favorite in the franchise, by far). If you're looking for a decent shooter, and don't mind a mediocre story, or the same essential multiplayer that's been around since 2007, Call of Duty: Ghosts is for you.

Treeter's Score: 7 

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Ryse: Son of Rome ReviewDecember 3, 2013 by


Ryse was the first game I played on my Xbox One. I'll save the whole discussion and debate on whether or not I wasted my time and money on Xbox One at launch for a whole other blog, trust me, there's ALOT more in the pipeline. Ryse is a mess of a game, a beautiful mess, but a mess at that. It's a game that creates something of a longing for something better. The whole time I played Ryse, I imagined a game that LOOKED this good, but offered a lot more. I wish Crytek had thought of that too, because if they had, this game would have been a whole lot better.

Marius Titus, the protagonist of the game, travels up the ranks of Roman Soldiers in an attempt to avenge his family's murders at the hands of Barbarian armies. He is a rather bland hero, someone I really couldn't find myself getting behind at all throughout the game. Most of the missions are played through as flashbacks, with the "present time" being Marius telling his tales to Roman Emperor Nero. Nothing about the plot stands out, minus the locales you visit, from a visual standpoint. This game feels like a Call of Duty game almost, going from set piece to set piece, not really giving much narrative, and assuming the combat and visuals will carry you throughout the experience. The visuals sure do, the gameplay sure doesn't...

                                 Beautiful Graphics...boring everything else.

The main thing wrong with Ryse and its gameplay is the repetitiveness. It loses its steam way too song, we're talking the end of the first chapter, you'll have seen everything there is to see. The game has basic functions, like dodging, parrying, attacking with your sword and bashing with your shield, and then that's it. You have those same basic functions throughout the entire game, and it really gets old, really really fast. You'll encounter an enemy, hit them until an icon flashes above their head, and then begin the execution quick time event...which proceeds to highlight the enemy a specific color indicting which button you're supposed to hit. So if they flash yellow, hit Y, or blue, then hit X. It's really that simple. The game has a combo system, seeing how many hits you can rack up in a row, without getting hit or going a certain time without landing a blow. Now, where it gets to be ridiculous is where the executions come into play. When you hit the execute button, you don't even have to press anything, you will still execute the enemy, the only reason you should hit buttons if you want to keep your combo up... So, yeah...there's that.

The game tries to do things to keep you interested, like giving you options on receiving benefits after successful executions. Health, Focus, or XP can be gained by killing, but really, it doesn't change anything. I still don't really know what focus does in this game. Is that bad? Yea, kinda, I played it, and I'm reviewing it, but I'm being honest...what the hell does focus do? No idea. None. You'll get experience to earn upgrades throughout the game, but none of them impact combat in any fashionable way, they just enhance your abilities...and by that I mean increase your ?focus? and health, or give you other things I barely noticed while finishing the campaign. There just isn't a lot of depth here, it's a shallow game, with a shallow story. Occasionally you're able to form a phalanx and march to your destination, which is cool, but even the handful of times you do that became annoying. Luckily, the game is gorgeous to look at.

                                     I fought this guy...about a million times

If you're looking for that game to show off to your friends and boast about the Xbox One's graphical powers, Ryse is it. It's without a doubt the best looking game on either console. It's simply beautiful, but at the same time, no one is really impressed, because it's Crytek. People have come to expect that kind of greatness from them, so when something this good comes out, people are more like "Meh, Crytek", than "OMGZ GRAPHIXXX SHITE!" The game is beautiful though, with fantastic character models, lots of effects going on in the middle of battles, and amazing environments that look and feel alive. My main concern with anything visual in this game is in the form of enemies. There are seriously only 4 models used in this entire game as far as enemies go. There's a heavy, mid-weight and light enemy, that have unique attack patterns, but they all look the same. Later in the story you'll see them with masks on, but they're still the same model. The heavy guy always has black long hair and a full beard. The light guy is always bald. It's ENTIRELY too consistent and playing through two chapters with my buddy Thomas had him laughing his ass off at the fact. It's silly...and lazy. I expect more out of Crytek. I guess the game really is beautiful because they focused on quality models, but definitely not quantity.

                   Now that's a hero I can get behind....What's his name again?

There is multiplayer, in the form of having a friend join up with you in the Coliseum to fight baddies. You'll select a good to pledge loyalty to and get bonuses depending on which you choose, but if you're playing this after the campaign, you'll run into nothing new here. It's the same old, same old, and it sucks to say that. The game just bleeds potential, then finds a way to stop the bleeding, and patch up the wound, giving you nothing in the end. Poor analogy, I know, but this has been a rough Xbone experience.

Ryse: Son of Rome is the most disappointing launch title I have played for either console (and I played Knack...another day, another time). It's beautiful to look at, and should have been kept a tech demo to show off the power of Xbox One. Instead, it came out, falling short on almost every level, and providing players a short experience that fails to excite, and if you manage to make it to the end of the six hour campaign, you won't be interested in going back. It's an experience I'd recommend skipping for now, wait for a sale, if you must play it, or wait for Crytek to hopefully get their shit together, get a sequel in the works, and really show us what they can do. I am hopeful, but they have a lot of ground to make up.

Treeter's Score: 6

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Xbox One Facebook reactionsMay 21, 2013 by

I didn't take kindly to the Xbox One announcement. Enjoy my nerd rage....

FailBox introduced in 15 mins. Can't wait to see the next Kinect, all the games tailored towards mom and kids, oh, and another stupid Call of Duty game. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FUTURE, AMIRIGHT? #FailBox #PS4

IGN's Senior Playstation editor is covering the next Xbox reveal. Wonder how he feels about the new system. They also want to see Halo 4, Gears 4 and Forza 5. I want to see some NEW games...plz

and there went Neogaf.

Xbox one? The hell? Get your numbering together.

Is this a gaming system, or are we here to watch The Price is Right?

Skype on Xbox one! Grandma is interested now.

I like the controller tho....


I swear to god, if EA is going exclusive with Microsoft, I am going to flip the f out.

Remember everyone before you get all excited. ...don't believe the hype.

They opened with Cable TV/Interface/Kinect and will close with Call of Duty: Lame. Priorities are all messed up.


@jeffgerstmann "Applause is coming from the back of the room, for those of you that asked. Pretty sure that's where all the MS employees are." TELL EM JEFF. Biased event ftl

Yeah, this woman's a gamer alright.....

This woman looks like my elementary school principle. AKA, the antigamer. Get her off the screen, please.


Ok, it's just a TV show for Halo....nevermind. I don't have to buy one....wait, a Halo tv show? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH #FAIL

And, not interested in Call of Duty, it will sell because people are obsessed with mediocrity. Whatever.

Call of Duty: Ghosts featuring such riveting new things as pushing objects over, swimming and a dog! Oh my god, the creativity, it's .....amazing

I don't want to use Kinect, I don't want to use SmartGlass, I don't want to Skype my grandma, I want to play games. You showed a video of "Gameplay" 59 minutes into your presentation. You fail as a Gaming console. Sony, you have my money.

We better not hear anything at E3 about the non-gaming stuff on this console. We got enough of the useless BS today. I want to see the GAMES, cuz you know, that's what it's about...Games....I want to see those "15" exclusives they claim they have. I bet 12 of them are XBLA games.

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Injustice: Gods Among Us ReviewApril 22, 2013 by

The last time Netherealm Studios had anything to do with creating a DC fighting game, we got the disaster known as Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It failed on many fronts, a lot of MK fans wanted the opportunity to perform fatalities on Superman, while a lot of DC purists didn't want their beloved heroes near Johnny Cage's stupid gimmick. It's understandable, and the game didn't make a big splash, it's a bargain bin title at best, and even Walmart gave it away for free, for purchasing Injustice. Netherealm didn't give up though, and in 2011, they released Mortal Kombat 9, bringing the franchise that put them on the map back to its roots, and it was and still is, my favorite fighting game, of ever. Yes, I don't like Street Fighter, or MVC3, or any of those games, I'm a Mortal Kombat guy, to the end, and I've put many an hour into MK9, climbing up the challenge ladder, fighting online, or playing with buddies (the same can be said about the Vita version as well). Netherealm wanted a second chance at making a good fighting game with DC characters, and WB gave it to them. What we got was a solid fighting game, with some minor issues, that is a DC Comics fanboy's wet dream.

I'll start with the story first. Yes, there is a story, and it's very similar in breakdown to Mortal Kombat 9's story mode, although a LOT shorter. It is broken down by chapters, but also a cool little touch was added in the chapter select screen to make it seem like a movie. I like the story, I really do. I can't get into deep details because I'll spoil it, and it's something everyone should experience that plays this game. It involves multiple universes and if you're familiar with the main players in DC Comics, you'll be surprised to see their actions in this game, it's really shocking, but also incredibly bad ass. One of the more disappointing things about story mode, to me, is the fact that it's 1. Short, and 2. You don't play as every character throughout the story. You play mainly as the good guys, or more popular characters, and you even play as one character more than once throughout the story. It's a little disappointing, but doesn't detract from the overall quality of the story itself.

The amount of modes in Injustice is staggering. The traditional ladder returns, as "Battle" with a lot of interesting options, most of them waiting to be unlocked (more on that later). You'll find a traditional ladder where you fight many opponents along with a boss (usually Superman in my experience). If you want to mix it up and try some different types of battles, you can do things like "Poisoned" which constantly drains your health as you fight up the ladder, or something like "Random Fighter" where every fight in the battle gives you a different random fighter. This is one of MANY examples of the battle system, there are many options, and some of them are very difficult, but you can spend a lot of time in battle mode. It's one of my favorite parts of the game, hands down. When you finish Battle mode, you get an ending for every character, which most of them are disappointing. I was hoping for some cutscenes, and not still images, so, I could do without those endings. I just felt like the still image endings with narrative was kind of a cheap way to give these characters proper endings, but then again, they did it in Mortal Kombat as well. It's just kind of....lame.

Remember the challenge ladder from MK9? I beat all 300 levels of it, and it frustrated the piss out of me. Well, it returns in Injustice, as STAR Labs, and adds a star system. Each mission has 3 stars for you to achieve, most of them require you playing the mission again but going about winning it a different way. Things like: Beat Batman without being hit by a Batarang are what challenges consist of, or win the fight only throwing punches, or, win by a throw...various things that range from easy to hard depending on the mission conditions. I have not 3star'd all of these missions yet, as some of them are causing me to nerd rage, so, they are fun, and a big challenge.

Once you've exhausted all the single player options (good luck with that) you can move on to the multiplayer, where most people already spend much of their time with this game. You can do your standard local versus if you have some buddies over, and that's a lot of fun. One thing missing from this game is tag-team style fights, something I really enjoyed in Mortal Kombat 9. You can also hop online and prepare for a pretty awesome time. I rarely noticed any lag in ranked or player matches, and that's essential for fighting games. While I don't play the particular genre much online (the thought of me playing UMvC3 online is laughable), I do enjoy this fighting style of games, so I jumped in to try, and I've been impressed with both the performance of the online infrastructure, and how well I can hold my own online. I've done particularly good with Green Lantern, and Raven, but I still can get my ass handed to me by the Combo Kings.

Online mode features a couple of match types, for one, Ranked matches which is the competitive portion of the game, and then player matches, which don't really keep it competitive, just fun and entertaining. There's 1v1 matches, King of the Hill, and Survivor, which feature Lobbys that keep the people not playing entertained while they wait for their turn to fight the winner/loser of the match. It's a fun experience, and something I can see myself jumping into more often. I don't really do much gaming on PSN, but that is changing now that I rid myself of the Xbox 360. I've found their servers (PSN) to be very good, and capable, especially in this game. There are leaderboards, the ability to create private lobbies for you and other fiends who may not be at your house, among other things. It's a fairly meaty online section in a game that will keep you coming back for the foreseeable future.

The gameplay in this game is very good, and you'll be very familiar if you played Mortal Kombat, but do note some of the changes in this game. There is no block button, instead you press down and/or back to block high/low attacks respectively. This is a bit annoying to me, as I am not a big fighting game player, and I was rather spoiled by Mortal Kombat's block button. I missed it, but I got used to it in the end. I still would have preferred a dedicated block button, but that's the fighting game noob in me, can't help it. Bone Breaking moves in Mortal Kombat return in Injustice, in the form of "Super Moves". The concept is the same, you get a character specific move if you manage to hit your opponent with it (using R2+L2). A new featured called "Clash" has been added, giving you a chance to get some health back, while interrupting an opponent's attack. You can wager bars in you "Super Move" meter, by pressing a respective button, and whoever wagers the most, gets the upperhand. It could result in a tie, which doesn't punish either player, or you could not want to wager any "Super Move" power and just take the hit, it's up to you, but if you win, you get a little health back, which is always helpful. Every character also has a "character power" which is assigned to Circle (B for Xbox 360, A for WiiU). These involve various powers that depend on who you're playing as. Superman for example, gains a strength boost, along with glowing red, Batman activates some bats that surround him and can be thrown at his opponent, and Nightwing even changes weapons/fighting styles by using said power.

The roster size is good, in my opinion, featuring 24 of DC's best fighters. The most recognizable franchise in DC Comics is undoubtedly Batman, and I for one am glad they didn't overload the game with Batman characters (Some say they did Batman, Nightwing, Bane, Catwoman, Joker and Harley Quinn fill the roster, that's 6 of 24 spots, but it could be way worse) One of the reasons is because honestly, DC Comics doesn't have as many recognizable characters like Marvel does. You've got your Supermans, Wonder Womans, and Green Lanterns, but they also brought in some lesser known characters, like Hawkgirl, Solomon Grundy, Raven and Shazam. I think the roster is pretty good, although I'm not the biggest DC fan, I can appreciate them adding in some characters you don't know much about to help the get the fanbase familiarized with characters we could potentially see on the big screen one day. It's a respectable roster, and with 4 more characters coming through DLC (Lobo being the first one confirmed), the roster will expand just a bit more. Each character has many alternate costumes as well, that can be unlocked through various modes in the game, by preorder bonuses, or by playing the Injustice Mobile App.

Throughout your time with Injustice, you'll notice a card at the top left/right (depending on what player you are) corner of your screen that acts as an experience bar. Everything you do in this game gets you experience, leveling up your card, unlocking different portraits, emblems, and backgrounds, giving you many MANY customization options for your Hero card. The amount of unlockables in this mode alone is staggering, as there's an icon for doing just about everything, from performing your first "Super Move", to winning 50 matches as Batman in online matches. Other unlockables are in the Archives, and you'll get various cards throughout the game than you can use to unlock alternate costumers, background music, and concept art. It's like the vault, but the MK9 graveyard, but a little more simplified, and not as much content to unlock. It's still rewarding, but with DC being as big as it is, I kind of expected a little more in terms of what you could unlock.

Injustice: Gods Among us is first and foremost, a good fan service to DC Comic fans. It has a lot of content, a movie-like story with a satisfying beginning,middle and ending, plus a pretty good chunk of unlockables. The good gameplay keeps you wanting to come back for me, coupled with a very smooth online experience with a lot of fun options, you'll spend a lot of time with this one, if DC Comics are your type of thing. I enjoyed it, and I will continue to play it, but I think I prefer Mortal Kombat 9 in the end. It's a little faster than Injustice, and I'm a big fan of the Mortal Kombat characters, compared to the DC Comics one. I recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of DC Comics, or fighting games, looking for a good experience, a challenge (Seriously, the STAR Labs has some challenging mission objectives, and Battle Mode can be an absolute bitch...) and a lot of longevity. This fighting game is definitely the one fans deserve...and the one it needs right now ...yeah. It's worth a shot.

Treeter's Score: 8.2

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Hitman: Absolution ReviewApril 15, 2013 by

It took a conversation with a buddy to realize that this is just the second Hitman game to be released this generation. I didn't even realize it. I was stunned, then I remembered back. I still lived in my upstairs bedroom at my parent's house when I played the last Hitman game; Blood Money. I was still sporting my OG Xbox 360, a 42' Samsung DLP HDTV (1 HDMI port, capable of only 720p) and I wasn't married yet. Holy hell, it feels like a lifetime ago when you start thinking of all those things. Blood Money was one of my favorite early current gen games, giving me so many options to take out my targets, and even though it had some of the most clunky controls in existence, it was FUN! Fast forward to today...well, a few months ago, really, but I am backlog blitzing my way through this title, and Agent 47 returns, with better controls, better environments, and an overall better experience.

Agent 47 starts the game by assassinating someone within the Agency who has gone traitor, and taken an extremely valuable asset, gone rogue, and is hiding out. Your goal is to take out the rogue agent, obtain the asset and return it to the Agency. Of course it doesn't go as planned, and you begin a long route to taking out all the true villains, and some morons along the way, in a story of betrayal, hidden agendas and terribly bad scripting. Yes, Hitman: Absolution's story is it's weakest point, going over the top with some of the people you encounter (Limp Dick Lenny... all I'm going to say) and their intentions throughout the story. While the story obviously isn't the focal point of this game, something has to be presented here, and while it's passable, most of the story had me rolling my eyes. If it does anything at all, it makes you feel no remorse for some of the targets you're assigned to take out.

Gameplay however, is the absolute shining point of Absolution. Everything feels....smooth. When you think of Blood Money, you probably have good memories of a good game, with some bad controls, whether it be sneaking up on enemies, or the lack of a proper cover system, Blood Money suffered from these things. Absolution does not, you cling to cover, able to maneuver to different points at the tap of a button. Movement, whether it be walking or crouching is no longer "Resident Evil"-y, you move about with some finesse. Sneaking up on targets and choking them out with your signature Fiber Wire is a cinch, just as disposing their bodies in a cabinet or storage locker is as well. Everything about how you move and interact with the environment in Absolution is spot on, exactly what I would have expected from the game.

Hitman: Absolution, to stealth purists, is a game of Trial and Error, but not in a bad way. When I restarted levels due to being spotted (I went through a couple of levels, aiming for this challenge - more on those later, to have an overall experience), I was not frustrated, I learned something, and when I started over I remembered how that particular enemy patrolled, what directions they were looking, and I used that in reference to going through the level again. If you're going for an Infiltrator award, for not being spotted, prepare to restart at previous checkpoints often, which, while the idea of restarting isn't very annoying, the checkpoint system is. In a certain area, there are 1 or 2 logos you can click on that give you a checkpoint to that point. Whatever you've done, whether it be killing a couple guards, or hidden a few, picked up a couple of items, whatever it may be, is saved at that particular point. While that may be helpful in some situations, in others it isn't, because you may regret having taken out that particular guard, or not picked up that C4 when you had the chance, and from the moment you click the checkpoint until you finish the level, you're stuck in that state. It can be frustrating. What also is frustrating is not reaching a checkpoint meter, and being spotted, after having progressed through a big chunk of the level, and having to restart and doing some things over again. In short, the game needs a more consistent check point system.

While the game obviously is best played through stealth means, going all out and killing everyone is possible, and works well. You can grab a machine gun, or shotgun and go balls to the wall killing anyone and everyone in sight. The game only punishes you in the sense that you lose points in your overall score. If that doesn't concern you, go crazy and kill all them sum' bitches. The cover system works, the aiming works, as well as the addition of a slow motion killing feature, similar to Splinter Cell: Conviction's. You press a button, and you can aim, and put a mark on several enemies, then hit the button again and you'll enter a kill-cam style scene where you shred everyone you targeted. This is cool, and fun to pull off if you happen to alert several guards in the area, and are looking for a quick way to dispatch them. Like I said, shooting up everything is an option, just don't expect to top any leader boards.

The Point Shoot option uses your "Instinct Meter" which also servers as a "source" so to speak for your disguises. When you grab a disguise in Hitman, and you walk by someone with a similar outfit on, they'll notice you're not who they're used to seeing and take note. The instinct meter allows you to blend in, in turn causing them to ignore you and not pay you any attention. The meter depletes fairly quickly, but can be restored by silent takedowns, accomplishing objectives and a variety of other means. The disguise system works well enough on Normal and Hard difficulties, but later on the instinct meter seemed to deplete a lot quicker, making the whole system in general kind of fail. Prepare for a challenge if you rely on disguises entirely. Forewarned!

Hitman: Absolution features a lot of replayability, which I liked. I enjoyed looking through the challenges, which vary every level, from things like not being spotted, to finding all the items a level, like various weapons for distractions, or evidence, which is the collectible item in Absolution. Other challenges include taking out the various targets by less than normal means. Using rat poison in someone's drink for example to kill them would be a challenge, or killing people by choking them out. There are enough challenges in each level, and enough variety within the challenges, and the levels themselves that you'll spend countless hours trying to beat them. This is a good example of replayability, because it doesn't burn you out on the game, and you'll get the sense of accomplishment, which I sure did, by doing the challenges.

If you're bored with the campaign, give the Contracts a try, which is as close to online interaction as this franchise has ever gotten. You can do contracts set up by anyone online, giving you goals, people to assassinate and a small backstory about the person you're assassinating. You'll have timed goals, and you can compare your score to anyone else who has accomplished the contract, and you'll see a US and World average much like the scores in the campaign itself. It's as close to Sandbox as this game is going to get. One of the annoying things about Contracts mode is the fact that you have to use the game's levels, and not new designed levels. One of my favorite levels from Blood Money was the suburban neighborhood, and I was hoping for some variety of that, at least in contracts mode. You can pick the NPCs, the items, anything really, within one of the game's campaign levels, and set the goals from there. It's a neat system, and has some longevity built into it.

Graphically and Audio wise, the game looks and sounds good. It's not the best graphics you'll see, especially on the console, but on a powerful enough PC, it can be a beauty to behold, especially in the CG cutscenes. The voice acting is passable, 47 sounding pretty intimidating and non-caring, and the music works, especially in moments with the tense building, with accompanying music. As I said, on a good PC, you'll see some amazing shadow qualities, but the models themselves look kind of plastic, especially one of the enemies in particular. Agent 47 himself looks good, but a lot of the enemies are too shiny...

Hitman: Absolution is worth your time and attention if you appreciate games giving you many options to accomplish an overall goal. There are many ways to take out every target and every level, and some of them are truly genius, if you're willing to put forth the effort to accomplishing them. If you're not, you can go about it your own way, and unless you're going on an all out rampage, you won't be punished as such. The game encourages you to play it your way, and the trial and error is not punishing, nor frustrating, it's fun to realize something slight you may have missed and remember to implement whatever change in tactics you adjust to it the next time around. A game like that, in which you can fail, and not be immediately sent into a state of nerd rage, is a rewarding, fun, and brutal experience!

Treeter's Score: 8.6


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