Still plenty of room for improvement
I’ve long adored the Hitman series. Ever since first playing Blood Money, I’ve wanted more. Well, I guess I ate those words, because we kept getting more and the quality started to dip real hard. I’ve always been looking for a game to rekindle what that entry started for me.
I thought it was going to be Absolution, since after playing the first area at E3, I actually came away impressed. But alas, it became a victim of “modernizing” games and removed the core of what made this series special in the first place. I’m starting to have those original feelings towards this new Hitman, but I’m still approaching it with cautious optimism.
Tested on: Intel i7-4770k 3.50 GHz, 8GB of RAM, Geforce GTX 970, Windows 10. Framerate measured with RivaTuner and ShadowPlay
While the game ran okay, there is definitely room for optimization. The first level was a perfect test since it was filled with NPCs. I wasn’t able to run Hitman at 60 frames per second with max settings enabled. Turning various options down to mostly medium did the trick, but it was a bit disappointing. With the higher settings, I generally managed between 40 to 55 FPS, depending on the surroundings. As you can tell in the videos, my frame rate hovers around 50, even when I’m more or less alone (both videos show the highest settings).
The game first boots up with a pre-launch window. It’s possible to alter the settings from here before heading into the game, but the good news is that they can be changed while inside it as well. All of the usual suspects are there, and can be changed on the fly with little to no interruption. Hitman runs on the same engine as Absolution, to give you an idea on how it looks.
The keys can be rebound, which is a godsend because the defaults are awful. Do people really prefer C to be crouch? Is that only foreign to me because I grew up playing Counter-Strike and others didn’t? Also, there needs to be a memo distributed that bans the Caps Lock key from being a default button. Anyway, I rebound many of the keys and you’ll probably want to as well.
There’s also a decent auto-save function, which is great since you needed to be online to play the beta. I didn’t lose connection at any point, but if I had, I knew there was a somewhat competent save function to back me up. Even when I royally screwed up my mission, I could easily load an earlier save if I wanted to. I never did though, because that shit is weak.
As for the actual Hitman part, it was pretty good! I had some fun messing with the mechanics, which may come off as disliking the game, but I genuinely enjoyed myself. I hope they hide the screen that straight up shows how to approach the objective from different ways, though, since it ruins most of the fun. It has got a long way to go before it’s perfect, but if they build on what they’ve got now, Hitman should please fans in the same boat as me.
