Wasn’t the biggest fan of this batch. A bit too much tedium but I have found the community contracts for H3 to be pretty high quality thus far. I did enjoy Flour Power.
5 Likes
I feel like this batch is a very hot-topic lot so I better rank them best to worst while I voice my own thoughts on the matter. I know exactly how to do Bangkok but haven’t gotten round to it just yet and I haven’t finished Ambrose on account of my likely rant further down.
Lilac Fields Forever by GlogolZ
Great contract, some real nerve wracking target choices (will the other one turn around?) the shotgun’s plenty of fun and the fiber wire having a longer kill animation than… guns makes it feel very balanced. Contract has flowers in the briefing (as well as a very strange final line) and flowers in the gameplay.
Flour Power by The_Elite_Institute
It was quite difficult to pick a 2nd place, but this one wins for being balanced in length. I’ll echo what a said on discord: I got around three minutes. That contract was really a lesson on not judging a book by it’s cover as the forced molotov seemed annoying but was actually really fun to time and work around the consumed poison, great work for what is possibly the first switch FC? Nice out of the box theme link as well, I like that.
Roses in the Sky by Caestros
Another #2nd place contender. This is a very quick one given the panic-room double kill but I like how it uses a function most players usually don’t interact with. This ties the theme to both briefing and gameplay without compromising the fun. My only grievance is probably how awkward car-explosion accidents are, but I didn’t try to get a car explosion so I don’t mind personally too much.
Vegan Birthday Cake by Canucklehead
oh you!! bashin’ vegans for wantin to eat cake!!
Also a nice link to the theme with flower=plant=plant-based food. Gameplay wise, that timer is a troll that makes me rush too much (“I’d never take 10 minutes on this, but what if I do!”) and the no pacifications feels unnecessary as it forces the kitchen start instead of getting it off the chef target. I personally see no problem with using Cross (for he is a main mission target and some hate that) and the targets make a lot of sense both plot and gameplay-wise. Flows well, very neat contract.
Withering of the Fallen Sakura by WINNODD
I understand this to be a controversial one given the sniper antics in encourages, but I didn’t want to go for that. It has a nice blend of difficulty with the targets (although most players don’t know what a peekaboo is and would likely struggle on the restaurant patient without an angry man writing an angry guide about how WINNODD’s actually making him work for his money. If this had no pacifications I’d absolutely hate it but it doesn’t, so it isn’t too bad if you bring a snail for the break room.
Terminator Exterminator by mkSolas
Now, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t 2nd to last because it’s bad, not at all. Edit: I now understand why it fits the theme and I think that’s pretty cool, still a good contract but I don’t know if I can compare a bonus contract to the other 6 
Spencer is the only one with the shotgun in question so I feel as if the exterminator disguise spells the solution out in bold, and the run from the shotgun to target is a bit long given how simple his kill is (ko the other two guards, take the exit right next to him). It’s a very good bonus contract but if this was only 6 contracts maybe I’d be a bit annoyed about it.
The Durian of Dorian Gray by GreekAgent
I wrote A LOT here but thought it was getting a bit too rude. To politely summarise:
- Too long - this makes it difficult due to endurance
- Use of main targets with these conditions make it unfriendly to many players
- Targets feel crammed: hippie is the main target and the guard is the clue but the rest have little correlation
- On the bright side it fits the theme very well and it has gameplay links to the theme through the garden fork and forcing the durian (which is near Farah who requires it)
- My opinion may improve once I finish it, strangely many PS contracts (except those made by great contract creators like @Switcher who I believe is PS right?) have this issue with being very overwhelming lol
- It didn’t improve
TLDR
Best to worst:
Doza is great
Chongqing didn’t look good with 5 targets and a forced molotov but once I hit play I had a lot of fun
HB got use of a special feature and fits theme well doing it
Bangkok forces cook but the targets are well placed ignoring the forced start
Hokkaido wants you to use fancy tricks, but I don’t need them to have fun
WC has no theme link but is a good bonus
Ambrose is bad for being too long
10 Likes
Man I definitely thought you were sending the hippie sick to the water, shooting him in the leg and making him fall in. I was very disappointed to find that this way doesn’t actually count as drowning.
I eventually had to come watch this video. Nice contract, very well done
Fair criticism of my contract! My thought process was that if the player didnt care about going fast, they’d just use the propane. If the player wants to speedrun, then they’d have the added challenge of figuring out how to kill with the truck. Although I do get how frustrating vehicle explosions can be lol. I always appreciate when people take the time to write out long reviews like these on FCs, they’re very fun to read!
2 Likes
Honestly, I don’t really have any issues with the contracts.
But it really shows that the contract mode need more features. In this case a keywords / categories feature. A list of preselected themes you could either select at creation or vote at play. Easily visible and as easily filtered.
Would improve the mode.
1 Like
I was actually able to do the ninja one without a sniper or peekaboo.
The target eating can be made sick with a Sieker shot or emetic grenade and will walk downstairs to the bathroom where you can shoot and drop one of the hanging lights onto her.
As far as the target inside the bathroom what I did was grab the propane tank by the snow mobiles at the beginning and sneak through the morgue. Knock out the roaming guard on the catwalk and walk towards the helicopter. You can shoot the fire alarm and panic the target into the break room right next to the door close to the employee showers. Toss the propane tank and boom. Helicopter exit.
I really enjoyed trying to figure out this contract. I can post a vod if you’d like
heyheyhey I said no names which means no defamation is happening!!
Ah I thought about the sieker but couldn’t get a good angle. I wish I thought of the emetic grenade though, that’s a good solution.
and I always appreciate to hear what the contract artist has to say about their work! Very cool to hear how you considered both options 
2 Likes
Come on Linux we all know who were on about here. There’s no denying. 
1 Like
What I actually did was toss a coin in the corner to get her to stand up and move to an angle I could shoot her. I honestly didn’t think about an emetic grenade either until I wrote the comment
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I did consider the propane as an easier solution, but the “thematically intended” route is to lure the guard next to the truck. Then shooting the flares blows up the truck AND puts the other targets in lockdown in a nice chain reaction. One thing I didn’t intend was that people would start on the beach and throw a duck. When I was testing I would always start in the office and plant a C4 in the saferoom, then exit through the garage. Its so cool to see people make improvements that I never considered.
1 Like
It looks like MrFreeze deleted his community post? Interesting. It always seems like every time theres a FC batch, people complain about it. Either its too difficult, or its too easy, or it doesnt fit the theme, or the theme isnt good, etc etc. I feel like IOI doesnt get enough appreciation for doing this and interacting with the community. I can imagine how exhausting it must be to spend so much time playing so many contracts, putting in honest effort into curating the contracts for the community to enjoy, and every time just getting yelled at. I do think its good to give constructive criticism, but it seems like a lot of people get really angry at IOI every time they release FCs.
7 Likes
I pretty much disregard my contract from the original batch since the reference to mine is very vague but it’s there. It was honestly nice as a small bonus but if anyone still doesn’t get it here is the scene in question:
(2:40 in the video also WARNING Terminator 2 scene)
https://youtu.be/bhL8WlDHKaY?t=160
(Yes, 6 seconds for just a small reference.)
5 Likes
What makes it more painful is that Clemens used the same reference when he announced the submissions. No offence of course.
2 Likes
Yeah, I even said on my original submission post that I took the idea (unless I didn’t). In end, I couldn’t believe I got away with it.
2 Likes
I haven’t played any new fc’s as im busy but yours seems… interesting. Only one target, bold i like it!
3 Likes
Never even occurred to me to blow them up in the safe room. I blew them up in the bed and then hid both bodies before the guards could get there.
1 Like
Yeah ive been watching some runs on Youtube and there have been a few different strategies. Ive seen some people wait to go to bed, ive seen some people emetic them and kill them in the bathroom, and ive seen people just KO them in the foyer and kill them there. Ive always thought Hawkes Bay doesnt get enough love for being a fantastic tutorial map. When i first bought hitman, i spent hours just stalking them through the house and waiting to strike.
2 Likes
Review Time! Ranking them Best to Worst, surprisingly, the order in here is completely different from @linux_penguin 's review so yall would be surprised:
BEST: Withering of the Fallen Sakura: okokokokokok I’d get why anyone would get this contract really low, it was hard to figure out, but I mean it was a literal accident figuring out how to get the lady to investigate the floor underneath, but solving this one with a sniper was sooooo satisfying. btw as soon as I saw WINNOD I knew it was a sniper contract, just a really challenging target. 8/10.
2ND PLACE: Terminator Exterminator: Simplicity is key with this one, it was simple but fun to solve, and whoever says that a loud shotgun is annoying, come on, tranq 2 NPCs near him and you are good to go, this was fun, simple, and challenging. 8/10.
3RD PLACE: Lilac Fields Forever: I saw Glogolz, I knew it’s a good contract 
, but for real the only reason it’s third place is because of how easy this contract actually is, the doza fields are very easy to sus lure, so these 4 were very easy to kill, but it was lots of fun routing and the kills were satisfying. 7/10.
4TH PLACE: Flour Power: Forced molo / Restriced Loadout (molo + consumed poison) is always a minus and targets were awfully linear, thank god for how IOI placed the exits in this map so we could route it in different ways to the exits, other than that, it’s quite similar between each run, not too much way to go around, buy hey, it’s linear fun 
Also there was no excuse for that complication, not that it mattered, but it was unnecessary. 6/10.
5TH PLACE: Roses In The Sky: I don’t like main mission targets in contracts, and it brought down the quality for me in each of the last places here, obvs here the targets were Alma, Orson, and some random guard, I know both Alma and Orson at this point and siekering them both to bathrooms isn’t that much of a challenge, that guard kill was nice tho, 5/10.
6TH PLACE: Vegan Birthday Cake?: yeah, this was uninteresting, as I said, Main Mission Targets in contracts is a nono, I know Dexy better than I’d wish to sadly, other 2 randoms were easy and boring, and there was no excuse for a 10min time limit and the never spotted complications, complications are meant to benefit a contract (imo) and here the timer was unnecesary and the never spotted was annoying, also forced cook sucks, 3/10.
WORST: The Durian of Dorian Gray: sheesh this was a mess, so I’ll sum it up with points -
- Main Mission Targets are a nono in contracts
- Farah sucked
- Restricted Loadout isn’t fun
- Aggresively Long
- Hippie Puzzle is the only aspect that worked.
This whole contract would be 10 times better with a single NPC replacing Farah, Akka, and Crest, 1/10.
Yes linux I’m on PS
So many been telling me I’m a quality creator someone should contact IOI to get them to let me curate a batch 
11 Likes
Fair! I originally chose them to connect to the theme and to tell a story with the briefing. In retrospect, maybe it wasnt the best move prioritizing the briefing over the gameplay. While you can kill Alma and Orson in a bunch of different places, they pretty much self-issolate for their entire cycle making it pretty easy. I agree that the guard is the more interesting part of the contract. I’m always happy to take criticism and improve my contract making, which is why i love when people give longer reviews of FCs like this!
3 Likes