I have been playing the Hitman: Absolution game the past month and just finished the story mode today. I've been a fan of the series since it began; I've played every single game, several times for some of them.

The first time I saw Hitman: Codename 47 it was the last disc the store had on stock. It was for display purposes since the game was already scratched. I had a choice between buying this or Thief: Gold; at the time I was looking for a new game to play and had fallen in love with the idea of stealth games. I would play Thief later on.

There is something about stealth games for me. I suppose at first it was being a cool character temporarily, being able to wield amazing toys and being scarily competent with them. The first stealth games were quite influenced by the standard first-person shooters, but had this twist - you had to figure out the line of sight of the target, get into a good position, not be detected, etc. It made for frustrating trial-and-error, especially later on when statistics got to be added to the mix. At that point "perfection" became of paramount importance.

I just wanted to play Hitman: Silent Assassin on a lark, just to see how things changed from the original. The missions were more interesting, the story was quite engaging enough to make me want to keep playing on. That game was what got me thoroughly hooked. In contrast, Hitman: Contracts was a slight letdown; I've only played it one-and-a-half times. Hitman: Blood Money was a joy - and that is all I have to say about that, it's just that good.

I've gotten so old, haha... the concept of Downloadable Content is so new to me. Hitman: Absolution is a different experience for me as well. Agent 47 moves so fluidly now, hiding behind things was so awkward before. He makes you feel even more like an elite operative. You can see where the development team tweaked the features that made Blood Money what it was - throwing things is not a hit-or-miss operation now, and NPC's reaction  to sounds are more natural (as well as easier to base strategies around). The whole thing has shades of the cinematic, and the range of what 47 can do has become so great. The HUD and player prompts have also been upgraded, but still betray their connection to Blood Money.

Far from its FPS roots, Hitman games have become more exercises in puzzle-solving. You explore the world and notice elements, evaluate them and figure out the proper execution of events to do something like get that final piece of evidence or get the body to that storage container at the other end of the level... There's minimalism involved as well - how to do it in the least time, without hurting or pacifying anyone other than the target, while affecting the environment only in the slightest. Hitman: Absolution surprised me in that there's a bit of improvisation involved - sometimes NPC's don't behave the way you expect them too, or they behave too erratically and you have to adjust. Maintaining cover against hunting enemies could be a minigame in itself.

There's a lot to master and do in the game, and I look forward to playing it over and over in the coming months. It's certainly given me an interest in learning about actual escape and evasion tactics.