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Hitman: Absolution's Sniper Challenge – is this the best pre-order bonus ever?
10:56, 18th May 2012
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These days, you can't move for pre-order bonuses when expressing an interest in an upcoming game. It's always 'day one DLC' this and 'exclusive costume' that, usually spiced up with an art book or soundtrack CD that you're going to look at once and then file away in a drawer, never to see it again. Hardly innovative, is it? Thankfully, the folks over at IO Interactive have taken a slightly different approach with Hitman: Absolution, offering pre-orderers something that they can actually make use of now while they're waiting for the finished game to arrive. And the best news? It's a hell of a lot of fun to boot.
Labelled the Sniper Challenge, it's a standalone level that tests your skills as Agent 47 from a long-distance perspective: there's just you, a sniper rifle, a case of bullets and 16 people to kill amid a rooftop celebration. The main hit, Richard Strong, is the head of a major arms manufacturer targeted for elimination by your client, although you've also been instructed to wipe out his 15-strong entourage of guards as well, just to make a point. So far, so simple… you just blast anything that moves, right? Well, no; as this is a Hitman-themed experience, there's a bit more to it than that.
You see, wading it with your shots only leads to trouble – you'll take out a couple of guards, sure, and maybe even Strong himself, but seeing their own getting gunned down from nowhere will send everyone else into a panic and you'll find yourself with half the guards escaping before you can get them all. Instead, it's about watching and waiting for the right moment, observing everyone's movements and then taking them out at just the right time. Guy leaning over a balcony? One headshot later and he's falling to the pavement below, meaning no-one will ever find the body (well, no-one at the party anyway). Man standing near an ornate koi carp pond? Blam, he's sleeping with fishes (literally) while everyone else parties on oblivious to his disappearance. Even Strong himself offers up a number of opportunities to make him vanish without a trace, although it's up to you to spot which will leave you the best opening to take out everyone else too.
There are even tricks you can pull, from dropping barrels on an unsuspecting guard's head to sending one down the elevator shaft, or even arming some bizarrely placed rooftop mines (mines? At a party?) and then having guards walk near them to cause all kinds of havoc. Not that you'll get the Silent Assassin bonus for taking out everyone without alerting a single person that way, of course, but it's an option nonetheless.
That IO Interactive thought to load a simple pre-order bonus with global leaderboards that track how well your sniping skills shape up against the rest of the world is pretty special in itself, but it's also loaded with extra unlockables that, if you do well enough to earn them, then carry over into Hitman: Absolution. They're all sniping related, of course – extra bullets, faster reloading, less time between shots or extended 'hair trigger' time that let you steady your aim and slow down the action for a few brief moments – but all are useful, especially when trying to better your score in the challenge itself. Add to that a bevy of sub-challenges that you can complete to earn a score multiplier (including shooting rubber ducks, murdering pigeons or smashing invading gnomes) and you've got so much replay value that you'll almost forget that you're getting this free for pre-ordering a game.
Fact is though, that's exactly what it is and IO Interactive should be applauded for offering something more than the usual free tat that most other games use to tempt people in. Right now, our high-score stands at nearly 1.5 million – hardly top-of-the-leaderboard material, but still pretty decent. Don't even think about trying to better it, though; if you do, you might be the one getting a bullet in the back of the head. Well, a Nerf gun pellet, anyway.
Labelled the Sniper Challenge, it's a standalone level that tests your skills as Agent 47 from a long-distance perspective: there's just you, a sniper rifle, a case of bullets and 16 people to kill amid a rooftop celebration. The main hit, Richard Strong, is the head of a major arms manufacturer targeted for elimination by your client, although you've also been instructed to wipe out his 15-strong entourage of guards as well, just to make a point. So far, so simple… you just blast anything that moves, right? Well, no; as this is a Hitman-themed experience, there's a bit more to it than that.
You see, wading it with your shots only leads to trouble – you'll take out a couple of guards, sure, and maybe even Strong himself, but seeing their own getting gunned down from nowhere will send everyone else into a panic and you'll find yourself with half the guards escaping before you can get them all. Instead, it's about watching and waiting for the right moment, observing everyone's movements and then taking them out at just the right time. Guy leaning over a balcony? One headshot later and he's falling to the pavement below, meaning no-one will ever find the body (well, no-one at the party anyway). Man standing near an ornate koi carp pond? Blam, he's sleeping with fishes (literally) while everyone else parties on oblivious to his disappearance. Even Strong himself offers up a number of opportunities to make him vanish without a trace, although it's up to you to spot which will leave you the best opening to take out everyone else too.
There are even tricks you can pull, from dropping barrels on an unsuspecting guard's head to sending one down the elevator shaft, or even arming some bizarrely placed rooftop mines (mines? At a party?) and then having guards walk near them to cause all kinds of havoc. Not that you'll get the Silent Assassin bonus for taking out everyone without alerting a single person that way, of course, but it's an option nonetheless.
That IO Interactive thought to load a simple pre-order bonus with global leaderboards that track how well your sniping skills shape up against the rest of the world is pretty special in itself, but it's also loaded with extra unlockables that, if you do well enough to earn them, then carry over into Hitman: Absolution. They're all sniping related, of course – extra bullets, faster reloading, less time between shots or extended 'hair trigger' time that let you steady your aim and slow down the action for a few brief moments – but all are useful, especially when trying to better your score in the challenge itself. Add to that a bevy of sub-challenges that you can complete to earn a score multiplier (including shooting rubber ducks, murdering pigeons or smashing invading gnomes) and you've got so much replay value that you'll almost forget that you're getting this free for pre-ordering a game.
Fact is though, that's exactly what it is and IO Interactive should be applauded for offering something more than the usual free tat that most other games use to tempt people in. Right now, our high-score stands at nearly 1.5 million – hardly top-of-the-leaderboard material, but still pretty decent. Don't even think about trying to better it, though; if you do, you might be the one getting a bullet in the back of the head. Well, a Nerf gun pellet, anyway.
