Spoiler Warning Hitmas 3-Marty Graw

By Shamus Posted Sunday Sep 4, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 47 comments


Link (YouTube)

Watching the “perfect” play-through of a Hitman level can be a strange experience. The player walks into a room, grabs a random item for no reason, walks into another room, changes clothes, goes upstairs, puts the item down, crawls out the window, stands there for two minutes, then goes to the basement, flips a switch, and vacates the premises. Then they get a message that they’ve killed three people and successfully stolen the microfilm.

If you’re foolish enough to ask the player what the hell just happened, they will begin a long, rambling explanation that ends with, “Nevermind. You kinda have to play the game yourself to get it.”

Still, I think Rutskarn did really well on this one. He ought to hire a lawyer and see if he can’t get that “Hoodlum” rating overturned.

 


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47 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning Hitmas 3-Marty Graw

  1. Aanok says:

    But… but…

    where’s all the random accidental murdering? :'(

    1. acronix says:

      And why isn`t he bunny-hopping his way to victory?

      1. Jjkaybomb says:

        And I didnt see him pop a single pill the entire episode!

        Sirs and madame, I demand a refund!

  2. James says:

    I Generally use some odd tactics for this one like bombs and sniper rifles, mostly cuss the WA2000 sniper is badass. and i like to allways make a habit of getting my suit back

  3. GiantRaven says:

    The first time I played this mission and walked outside, my jaw literally dropped.

  4. Mailbox says:

    That level really impressed me with its body count.

  5. littlefinger says:

    Okay, how the hell does this game manage to create a crowd I as large as that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen another game with that many people – rts excluded.

    1. Rasha says:

      Dynasty warriors?

    2. Viktor says:

      Kameo:Element of Power and Dead Rising both did so, but they were launch 360 titles, so it’s an unfair comparison.

      That said, the designers obviously used shortcuts here. There’s only about 15 character models in the entire level, you can’t see more than a small chunk of the level at a time, and most of the people are following very basic pre-scripted paths.

    3. Irridium says:

      Kingdom Hearts 2 had a battle where you fought 1000 duded. All there, on-screen.

      Though I have a big suspicion that the guys way in the back are 2D sprites that do nothing, and they gradually gain more detail as you kill dudes.

      Also, Infamous 2 lets you put a ridiculous amount of characters onscreen with it’s content creator. Like, stupidly high amount of characters. Plenty of user-made missions are huge-ass three-way battles.

      1. Simon Buchan says:

        If I remember right, only a few tens of them were models, the rest were sprites rendered from the model, with little animation and a known resolution and camera angle, it’s hard to tell them apart. Unfortunately, that means it (supposedly) looks really aweful on emulators.

    4. theLameBrain says:

      Kane and Lynch, the Dance Club level.
      Then you start a fire fight and they all panic. Annoying as hell.

  6. Mr. Wizard says:

    The Crowd scene has a lot of interesting little tricks to render that many individuals. For one, they hardly have any AI to them, I can run through the crowd with my guns out and no one will flip out. Also, they use a LOD system that drastically reduces the polycount on crowd models just a small distance away. At about a half block distance, they no longer have feet and walk around on spikes, which is difficult to see normally since the crowd hides that little detail.

    I hope you do the “A New Life” mission next. :D

  7. Fang says:

    Wow. That’s a lot of people.

  8. Adam says:

    Ironically, the chicken suit is one of the few disguises I can see working. It looks stupid, sure, but it obscures 47’s body shape, and hides the freaking BAR CODE on the back of his head.

    1. littlefinger says:

      Are you implying that it is impossible to disguise a tall caucasian baldie as a short blackhaired Chinese gangster by a simple wardrobe change? I must protest, sir.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        I protest as well.Its so easy to do.

      2. ENC says:

        47 is a mix of all races, so he’s supposedly passable as any one.

        It’s just easier for US audiences that he’s a white male aged 18-32 apparently.

  9. Siel says:

    Wait wait isn't Hoodlum a better rating because the police thought it was just a ruffian stealing people's money and valuables instead of a professional assassin doing a premeditated homicide? In court the second crime would be a lot more serious than the first.

    In summary the assassin was so good that the police didn’t even think it was an assassination attempt but only a minor burglary gone wrong.

    1. acronix says:

      That means THAT should be the best rating in the game instead of Silent Assasin.

      1. Atarlost says:

        The best rating should be “cops are ruling it a suicide”

        1. Decius says:

          The best rating would be “natural causes”, followed by “accident”, “suicide”, “robbery”, “random killing”, “assassination”, and then “attempted assassination”. The worst headlines would be “bald man with barcode commits suicide”

          1. Winter says:

            “Giant bald man with barcode arrested by police outside of nightclub for stalking. Bizarrely, when searched, he was carrying several high powered weapons and illegal drugs. It’s unclear why he was carrying them or what his purpose was, as all he would say is ‘this is bullshit, you shouldn’t have found me!’ over and over again.”

          2. Jarenth says:

            “Bald Man With Barcode Tattoo Commits Embarrassing Explosive Suicide, Leaves Tapes Of Previous Crimes All Over Over Crime Scene For Some Reason”

      2. Siel says:

        Actually the best ranking should be something like “Act of god”, meaning that the police thought the people murdered, died of natural causes and/or accidents (ex:Overdose due to drug use) instead of assassination.

        1. littlefinger says:

          The victims were found to have suffered a fatal dose of lead injected with some force into the skull.

        2. Pete says:

          The best rating should be the newspaper story being on the outrageous state of chandelier supports and dangerously rusty railings over fatal drops, instead.

          1. Irridium says:

            The best would be nobody knowing you even killed anyone except for your employers.

  10. MrGamer says:

    Wow Chicken people and new orleans. That just screams hitman situation.

  11. Daemian Lucifer says:

    A question:This just for this week,has it ended,or do you have more episodes of hitmas before the next season?

    Also,like the new schedule,I hope you keep it.

  12. Irridium says:

    That reminds me of that once scene from Kingdom Hearts 2. Where you fought those 1000 enemies.

    Though you could kind of see the trickery they used to allow them to show 1000 people on-screen, but still, it was impressive.

  13. Ahluka says:

    I’m only asking because if I don’t it’ll drive me nuts: what’s the clip of music in the intro from? I recognise it and it’s bugging me. Google really needs a sound clip search lol.

    1. TheAngryMongoose says:

      Meet the Sniper.

      1. Ahluka says:

        YES! Hot damn do I feel better now, thanks =)

        1. Irridium says:

          I feel as though I should post the video.

  14. Thomas says:

    Although it was an impressive number of people it didn’t really seem to give much of a crowd vibe to it, I’m not sure why

    1. Crystalgate says:

      Probably because they didn’t behave like a crowd. While crowds are a lot of people, each having their destination, patterns do emerge. Even though we can’t decipher them without an in-dept study, our brain still registers patterns and will notice if a crowd deviates to much from what we’re used to.

      1. Peter H. Coffin says:

        It apparently doesn’t take *much* to make the patterns “work” to brains though. Just a little bit of flocking behavior to maintain space around each other sort of evenly and a tendency to follow someone ahead for a little bit before peeling off into their own path does a lot.

  15. Vect says:

    All’s I remember of the whole Cloning business is that the Marks in Blood Money are basically crappy versions of 47.

    Also, according to the alert bar, it seems that people actually do notice a chicken man running around a briefcase. Chances are unless said Chicken Man unleashes his Chicken Wrath they’ll just chalk it up to Mardi Gras.

  16. Pat says:

    Okay, that settles it. I am definitely going to buy this game.

  17. Lord_Bryon says:

    I wonder what is the max kills you can complete this mission with …

  18. CalDazar says:

    *shamus impressed at the number of people*

    You should check out the run Rutskarn did on his livestreem, now thats a lot of people!

  19. Thor says:

    I was also impressed at the thickness of the crowd in this level. Not being a programmer, I don’t quite know why some games are able to handle large crowds while others are not. Maybe it’s an AI thing?

    Imagine if they could have removed the barriers and added a crowd like that to The Strip in New Vegas at night. Instead we got a half-dozen jerks just standing around in each section.

    1. Alexander The 1st says:

      1.) Hitman is made by Eidos, presumably on their engine.

      2.) Fallout: New Vegas is a game made on Bethesda’s engine.

      That might be why that’s a specific case.

      As for crowds in general, there’s a few things that don’t scale well with a crowd:

      1.) Models that need to be rendered, skeletons and textures.

      2.) AI scripting for response (Unless you want the Metal Gear Solid version of “!” and having every guard in the room know who and where you are.) needs to be dynamic, usually threaded, I’m guessing.

      3.) Every frame, they may need to do a check and make sure you don’t get two models in the same space, creating Temporary Siamese Twins and other odd abominations. This one doesn’t scale at all, because you have to somehow know that one model is not colliding with ANY of the other ones, nor the wall, or the ground, or the player…

  20. Johan says:

    On how the perfect Hitman playthrough can be surreal, sometimes, but I don’t think all the time. I really liked the one where you kill the Witness Protected mobster, since it can be done perfectly just by buying your intel. The FBI van guys like donuts, put sedatives in the donuts, give the FBI the donuts, now you have an FBI costume and a free run of the house. The rest can be accomplished by just ghosting your targets and waiting for them to be all alone.

    But I think that does apply to the Mardi Gras one, I STILL haven’t gotten a perfect.

    (They aren’t trying to kill the Veep, it’s the Secretary of State!)

  21. theLameBrain says:

    Here is the Hitman Plot in a nutshell:

    In the first Hitman game, Dr. Ort-Meyer is working on cloning the perfect assassin, with the backing of four crime-lords.
    “Mr. 47” is the only remaining individual of Ort-Meyers 47th generation. 47 kills Ort-Meyer at the end of the first game, after also killing a bunch of “Mr. 48″s.
    Someone at this point (maybe the agency, maybe 47.) destroys all of materials in the lab and attempts to erase any trace of Professor Ort-Meyer and his work.

    In the second game, 47 has quit the Hitman gig and is looking for his place in the universe in a monastery, when the brother of one of his targets tracks him down and forces him back into Agency. During the course of this game 47 meets “Mr. 17” which suggests that not all of Ort-Meyers clones were destroyed. (Mr 47 kills him upon meeting him, natch.)

    Next is Contracts which actually takes place within the time of Bloodmoney (between the second and third missions of Bloodmoney, I believe.) and is just a series of flashbacks.

    Bloodmoney picks up the story with the US Government considering classifying Human Cloning as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Behind this proposed legislation is “The Franchise”, a rival of the Agency. The Franchise uses Human Clones, and wants to secure their dominance. They copied (badly) Ort-Meyers work and created clones that were tractable and short-lived.

    The only threat is someone getting hold of 47’s genetic material, as he is the “Perfect Clone.”
    A copy of him would be inferior to 47, but superior to their clones. Worse, “47-clones” wouldn't be tractable or short-lived, they would be a threat.

    Looking forward to Absolution!

  22. Dude says:

    Anyone who was impressed with the amount of models in this level ought to play Dead Rising 2. It has a lot of zombies. A LOT.

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