What We Played #86: Hitman: Absolution, Infinity Blade, ZombiU

Happy New Year! Right, with that perfunctory greeting over with let’s get straight to the games shall we? Josh has been busy playing Xmas goodies bought for or by himself. Assassin’s Creed: Liberation was completed in a matter of days and he’s tagged it as his personal GotY and best AC game since Brotherhood.

There’s nothing like raining arrows down from the rooftops for the first time apparently.

He bought Hitman: Absorption (as I heard it described at EGX) and is really enjoying it, and based on that enjoyment is considering picking up the upcoming HD trilogy.

”My one complaint”, he adds lest we think it’s all roses in the garden of bald-headed, barcoded hitmen, “is that a couple of the missions so far have had scripted endings, and it’s kinda cheap when you’ve spent an hour perfectly creeping round to your objective just for the game to go to a cutscene where you bust into a room noisily and get discovered”.

Sounds like a Mass Effect 3 Ending-style protest should be called for or has “teh internetz” done that already so it’s boring?

Aside from that Josh has been doing a bit of mixing and resampling of some of Rockstar’s biggest hits,GTA III, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, “switching whenever I’m up to an annoying mission in each game”. He notes that that makes “the upgrades in IV really stand out compared to the PS2 games playing them back to back”. And he now feels he should get around to playing the Episodes DLC before GTAV comes out. Before or after the Hitman trilogy Josh?

Jim’s ushering the new year with a couple of changes to his gaming habits. ”First off I’ve become somewhat enamoured with my newly-purchased iPad Mini.” While his iPod Touch and iPad 2 never quite made it to gaming essential status his Mini is getting there:

Its slightly scaled-down size makes it the perfect fit for games I’ve often struggled with in the past. Infinity Blade, for example, requires two-thumb control; on the iPod such a control scheme would result in blotting out half of the screen with my podgy digits. The iPad fared a little better though I often found myself straining to hold it in comfortable position for too long. The iPad Mini, however, establishes an optimum middle ground. Other titles I’ve been playing on the device include Bastion, RAD Soldiers, Pudding Monsters and Spider HD, all of which speak to the diversity of the iTunes catalogue.

Having almost given up on the game he’s delved back into SMITE. “Developed by the same guys behind the superb Tribes: Ascend, this MOBA pits two teams of real-world ancient deities against one another whilst adopting a nifty third person camera.” Anyone else having trouble with the concept of “real world deities”? Nope, just me then. ”It’s far from blasphemous”, Jim continues, “in fact, I’d even say its the best DOTA clone on the market”.

He’s also had a crack at Hitman: Absolution. Though he admits to imperfect recollection he says that “this latest instalment definitely feels rather different in comparison to Blood Money, Contracts, etc.”. He notes that each mission’s slow start, with you having to recon the area first, can be a bit of a bore but “once you’ve devised the perfect kill, Absolution really comes into its own”.

The Walking Dead may well describe the state of many on New Year’s Day but it’s also how Aran decided to see out 2012. It seems to have made something of an impact on him too as he says it’s one of the best gaming experiences he’s ever had. He cites the strength of the story, how it made him care for the safety of a character and how that emotional attachment became the game’s key motivator.

“The whole thing was an emotional roller coaster and I dare anyone who plays to not be moved to tears in the final scenes.” If you know anyone without tear ducts there’s an easy dare for them there. Let us know how you get on.

Like many of you I suspect, he hopes it’s not the last we hear from Telltale and The Walking Dead. There are plenty more stories to be told in that world the key will be making them all stand on their own merits.

He’s also spent time with the “pretty addictive” Far Cry 3, though like others has found the the game’s many diversions more interesting. “I spent an hour just playing the poker mini game. I haven’t really bothered with the main story. I’m happy just hunting and taking over outposts.” While he knows Mass Effect’s story he’s finding it “nice” to be back in that universe again. And similar to Far Cry 3 he’s mostly just “wasting time” exploring the galaxy and doing the various little side missions.

Tuffcub has finished Need For Speed:The Run which he found “very enjoyable”. Perhaps unusually for a racing game he “really liked the story” and says that it is a shame that a sequel never made it to the shelves. Reportedly he’s also been “sliding about on [his] rocket powered arse in Vanquish, trying not to stab the annoying voice over bloke in Big Sky: Infinity on PS Vita” and when the rigours of gaming become too much, “staring at [his] new Kylie calender”. Now there’s a thought, aren’t calendars on sale at knock down prices at this time of year…

As he’s taking a well-earned break from work, Peter has yet to start looking for new excuses to procrastinate! With his wife still off too he’s finding that his game playing time “continues to be a bit limited”. Using young relatives as an excuse is allowing him to get some gaming in though so “some more New Super Mario Bros U and a little bit of NSMB on the DS with my 3 year old nephew” have featured. “He really only lets me play until I get the mushroom to make Mario into the giant Mario and then the DS is snatched from my hands so that my nephew can stomp around smashing things up.”

All the fun with none of the work, sounds like Peter’s nephew has got it sorted.

I’ve also played a very small bit of ZombiU, which seems really excellent. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to tell you about playing all the games I’ve bought in the Steam winter sale… I’m scared to look at the list of games I’ve bought so far.

I’ve managed to escape the seasonal perils of Steam’s winter sale by the simple expedient of not having time to look. How have you fared? Are you too busy buying cheap games to actually play them?