T w e n t y S i d e d

Here it is. The greatest episode of Spoiler Warning we’ve ever done, provided you’re normal like me and are obsessed with throwing people down holes, out windows, and over ledges.

Yes, this game has some problems. The plot is gibberish, story is atrocious, the themes are either dissonant or nonexistent, the levels are tiny, the mechanics are shallow, the environments are boring, the characters are schlock, the dialog is verbose and clunky, the cutscenes are torture, the save system is a crime, the ladies are all pandering fanservice, the fanservice is creepy sophomoric milquetoast, the puzzles are insultingly shallow, the voice acting is wooden, the character designs are ugly and cliche, the missions don’t fit with the franchise, and the gameplay is a mess. On the other hand, if we rate Absolution on the completely objective scale of “number of people you can push to their deaths”, then it ranks as one of the greatest videogames ever made.

Unrelated: There’s a balcony on my apartment that has a two-story drop to a concrete walkway. And nobody ever comes to visit.

Also, Rutskarn requested that I link to The Hole.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Behold! The first-ever episode of Spoiler Warning you can watch in glorious 60fps. To be honest, it looks the same to me. But people with younger eyes and faster brains will probably appreciate it. This is probably the biggest step up in quality since we moved to HD during the Fallout 3 season. Thanks to everyone who is supporting Spoiler Warning on Patreon. That money goes to Josh, and he spent it on the PC upgrades to make this happen. So we all win, really.

Or would be, if we weren’t playing this game.

I know we’ve been faulting this Hitman game for not having enough man-hitting, but the game isn’t very strong even when it finally stops screwing around and allows for the hitting of various mans. It’s been a while since I played the other games (and as I’ve said before, I’ve never finished any of them) but the hits in this game come off as infantile and patronizing. Just wander around and pull all the levers you find, move all the objects, and sabotage all the things. Your targets will kill themselves without you needing to think or plan.

But savor these hits, because it’s going to be a long time before we get any targets again. (And longer still before we get to interact with anyone germane to the plot.)

On the upside, this game is a lot more fun to mock than it is to play.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.