Quick Look: Hitman HD Enhanced Collection

The fact that Dan didn’t check out the wardrobe makes me so sad. He would have loved the terminator/guns n roses reference. It would have made him so happy.

Come on Dan, you love Stardew Valley - you've definitely heard of trellis!

“It’s not prostate cancer?!” Famous last words lol.

im glad the new games didnt carry on with the weird racism

Listen Abby, there's nothing straighter than being cray cray for penis penis, alright? Stop straight-shaming my kink for penis.

Blood Money is what really drove home and solidified my enjoyment of Hitman as a weird stealth murder puzzle game. Really great levels with lots of interesting kills, from giving an actor a real gun (or becoming the actor yourself!) to feeding people to alligators at a Southern wedding, to stopping the assassination of the President of the United States by killing the Vice President, there's a lot of wacky, fun stuff going on in Blood Money and its nice to see it get talked about again. Also cool that they figured out a way to get out of the really awful writing and characterizations in this game and find a better spot to put their stealth murder puzzle game.

Blood Money was my favorite game for a decade. So glad 2016-gen-2 Hitman got a chance to take off w/2 great games. Barely remember Absolution. It was a rebuilding season for IOI.

Yeah I agree with what others said, this QL feels lazily made. Playing the most uninteresting, tutorial levels. Also Dan not playing in a way that showcases the game at all which is always weird. Ofcourse don't care how Dan plays games, just for a video that is meant to show people the game, Dan ignoring all the structure does a poor job at telling me if its actually fun to play...

Fun video still, just that I agree with Alex's tone by the end

I like Dan but he was an odd choice to be on the sticks for this one. Brad would have done this more justice IMO. There are not a lot of fundamental differences between Blood Money and the new Hitman games, the controls and movement are different but the principals are the same. I find that some of the missions in Blood Money felt very open with seemingly countless ways to get at your targets.

"The best story ever told" includes masturbation in a locker... that's Dan for ya

Yeah, I have to echo the sentiments of some of the commenters here, especially @humanity regarding the... quality of this quick look. I respect the hell out of the ethos of the site basically being the staff does whatever the hell they think is interesting and fun, and it has made for some incredible content over the years that I've thoroughly enjoyed. It's why I've been a consistent premium subscriber for quite some time!

Maybe I've just lost the point of Quick Looks though since I don't watch a lot of them anymore, but I remember them being at the very least an attempt at showing what a game is like and how it works.

This Quick Look doesn't really accomplish any of that apart from showing how the HD remastering looks. If that was really the only intent, then okay! Mission accomplished for sure. These remasters mostly look nice.

But yeah, I just don't know about having a Quick Look completely misrepresent the core mechanics of a game. I'm absolutely fine with Dan running amok in Hitsmas and other premium features where comedic hijinks are what we look for, just to be clear!

I've only played the very first Hitman game a long time ago, and my love for the last two in the series has made me want to check out the earlier ones. This collection certainly has my interest. I would have appreciated a Quick Look that put more effort into demonstrating what these two games are actually about. I don't even expect "Silent Assassin, Suit Only" level of gameplay. Just a more honest attempt at showing the mechanics and systems. I can imagine a Quick Look of a dialogue-heavy adventure game where y'all just button through the dialogue would be equally frustrating.

Again, maybe I just don't get the purpose of these QLs anymore. Maybe this is just a one-off with Dan being peak Dan. Whatever the case, this particular video is not great!

Blood Money looks surprisingly aliased. The game's over a decade old. Why wouldn't they slap some good AA on it?

The light reflecting off of 47's dome in Absolution is really good.

Hitman Absolution had a good sleaze-glitzy visual style and all of the moody lighting. The start of that hotel level probably still looks really good. And Absolution introduced some of the stuff that was brought forward and improved upon in HITMAN, like Contracts, and general control stuffs.

I think most everyone also didn't mind that it was more storydriven. It's not a problem if that takes up more space, it's just that it's not required. The problem was that it's a bad Hitman.

As far as level design and being a murderous puzzle sandbox, it failed miserably. Might as well have been Splinter Cell: Absolution. Was mostly about sitting behind cover and never being seen. It feeling like Hitman was rare. I only recall the one small town level.

No smoochin in the wine cellar!

@meierthered: Agree I liked Absolution aslso. Sure it had some linear a to b levels but it also had some good open sandbox levels

Yeah, I've got to agree with the majority, this wasn't a very good quick look for showing off the game. The Hitman games have absolutely always been like what they are in 2016 and Hitman 2, just more limited in scope due to the technology. The only ones that weren't really like that all the time were the first one (it has some action focused levels) and Absolution (way more linear).

Showing off the bayou wedding level or the opera house level would have been a good look at what Blood Money was really doing way back when. It's not even a nostalgia thing, they're fantastic levels in their own right and absolutely just as puzzle focused as ever.

The way Dan played this QL is kind of disappointing. Hitman 2016 took a lot of DNA from Blood Money. What was the point in blowing through 3 levels on Easy difficulty like a generic 3rd person shooter? Hitman 2016 brought you a lot of views through a couple holiday specials. Maybe you should treat the original series with a modicum of respect, and not just blast your way through it like gears of war.

I get the idea of a "Quick Look", but maybe you should spend a little more time on the games before you hit the record button. This was a mess. This was insulting.

EDIT: How much traffic have you gotten from the Hitman series? And yet you did what you did to the QL? So fucking lazy. Believe it or not, you do influence people on which games to buy. How about you do better?

What are you even doing? What is this website? I spend way more time on GBI than new content. (as in I've opted out of the last few UPF's to watch GBI)

The old games were just as puzzly and stealth as the new ones. A lot of loose talk about the series on this one that was very off. Vinny is watching Dan stumble through the completely one off tutorial that makes you shoot through a lot of it and saying how the whole series played was action and shootery but you didn't play the series...

Then Dan said disguises are an afterthought before the new games.

I don't get why they say things like that sometimes on Giant Bomb if they don't know.

I find the new games more actiony I would say because you do have lots of ways to take guys out, like throwing countless in level objects. For sure the games have not become more stealthy than they started. I would say it certainly is easier now to stealth than it used to be with such limited feedback and things.

Went to go buy this but it's not on pc?

@maxplatypus: what weird racism?

@deadstar: just buy blood money on steam

But yeah I agree with the general sentiment here, can we get a playdate with someone else driving the sticks? Or a new QL?

What an awful representation of these games...

Scanning the barcode from the new Hitman trailer with RedLaser reveals "Drawstring Double Dong Dildo Bag in Starry Night Blue". Seriously.

Playing on easy and running around shooting everyone. The laziest quick look I have ever seen.

this was pretty terrible to watch dan play

As someone who had and continues to have zero investment in the franchise as a whole, Hitman Absolution was one of my most memorable video game experiences in recent years. At the time I described the game as an "inner Skyrim", a densely layered universe you could get lost in for weeks and months. HITMAN 1-2's emphasis on mechanical interactivity and grim slapstick comedy is not what I wanted from the series going forward, but I can certainly admire it from a distance.

Future Hitman Quick Look

Have Brad play it.

Honestly I'm just picturing someone at IO seeing this and getting excited, since Giant Bomb has been such a vocal supporter of Hitman to such a large audience.

And then becoming very sad about lost sales.

4k and not even a glimpse of anti aliasing... fxaa would even be enough at 4k... man

People love to quote the 'rising cost of game development' despite still being $60 games. What you forget is the playing audience is way bigger than it used to be.

What a load of hyperbole. Almost zero densely layered about Absolution. It's a linear shooting cover game.

@thefizz said:

Same. Always feel compelled to holla for Absolution when the usual comments are repeated. It was the first one I liked. There was a smoothness to the movement I liked which was stiffened back up in the recent games. That even put me off Hitman 2016 for a while. Not that that aspect of the game has changed much in H 2018, but I guess I've warmed to it since I've played significantly more of that one, including replaying all of the 2016 content on the new platform. But I'll always have a soft spot for Absolution.

man, i've been playing through some hitman, and watching this is making me so much more excited for HM3. 2 more days baby!