I don’t like to consider the Overachievers side-story as canon. Yes, it’s considered canon because IOI sanctioned it, even though it’s really just fanfiction, and also some of the characters mentioned in it appear in H3 missions and describe some of its events. However, IOI has accepted supplemental material as “canon” before, and then altered it to suit the story - the Enemy Within novel being a good example, even though its events as described are now impossible thanks to WoA, but 47 remembering that he killed clone 6 was still kept as part of the lore in a different context thanks to the Birth of the Hitman comic. So the events of Overachievers can easily be dissected for the parts that can stay and the parts that can go.
My reason for not wanting to consider it canon is simple; whoever wrote this story decided to present the assassination of Jasper Knight via jet ejector seat in 47’s Final Test mission as the way in which Eric Soders took him out. Not only does this change the context of that mission, as Diana makes it seem like it’s a spur-of-the-moment idea that she and 47 simultaneously hit upon after hearing NPC dialogue and the actors were just supposed to go along with it, not knowing it would result in an actual death, but it also takes away from the idea that 47 so impressed everyone watching with taking out the target in such a clever and blame-free way that Soders had no choice but to clear him for agent status. It was meant to imply that 47 did it better than Soders did, not just because he got past tighter security, but that he pulled it off as an accident that no one expected. Soders, canonically, should have simply completed the mission in a more traditional fashion, with a garrote or a suppressed pistol. Overachievers having Soders pull that same maneuver cheapens 47’s trial to become ICA’s best before he’s even sent on a real mission.
As such, at least the comments between Diana and Soders that refer to Soders having performed that same kill, I dismiss as pure fanfiction.
Yeah, after the fact. That it comes from someone involved with the series doesn’t change anything. In a way that’s worse because then it means that the whole point of those initial two missions in WoA was sullied by someone who helped cook it up in the first place, and instead of leaving it alone, they created supplemental material that takes away from its impact.
Man it’s funny because as soon as Arti started talking about this Overachievers side story in today’s stream, I was like “ooooh boy Heisenberg’s gonna have feelings about this!”
Honestly, I had no idea that had happened until after I made that post. I didn’t know anything even related to Overachievers was being discussed anywhere, the thought of the story and my feelings about it just popped into my head, I posted, an hour later I came back to the forum and there it was, part of today’s discussion. But the two were honestly unrelated. If I’m lying, I’m crying, and I ain’t shed a tear.
I like all the maps of WOA and prefer them over most, if not all, maps from the previous games. Atmosphere wise I definitely prefer the classic maps, but gameplay and sandbox wise WOA beats them by a wide margin.
Question though, C47 and H2SA had transition maps too iirc. Especially the Colombia levels and Rotterdam in C47, and Hidden Valley in H2SA. Even if the maps had targets some of them still feels linear or at the very least restrictive, like Tubeway Torpedo. So why was Absolution’s transitions as badly received by the classic fans?
Transition maps were very much a thing of the era that Codename 47 was made in.
Technology had just allowed us to get huge maps, a moderate amount of voice acting and special effects, etc so games wanted to experiment with the idea of storytelling through levels with like multiple acts per mission, and each act having a map. Remember briefings in C47 were walls of text.
Then technology got a little better, and we started getting to cram in more storytelling through voice acting and better graphics, etc. By the time Blood Money came out, they’d basically dumped transition levels because they felt they could do the whole story in 1 level with extra stuff in the text files for sickos who wanted to know 100% of the content.
Ironically when C47 came out, Traditions of the Trade was a big topic of conversation because it was the whole story in one tight level. The transition levels were just sort of accepted as a thing we would get as part of that size of story.
Absolution’s don’t hit the same because it wasn’t designed around having transition levels, but rather they had to break up levels in order to make it perform properly across PC and consoles. Also Absolution very clearly had Editing Hell where elements were chopped out, remixed etc right up until the end. C47 just had a few levels re-arranged.
I was thinking about this again today, and tested a few foods besides the muffin and cheeseburger. Meaty bone gets a reaction, but possibly that’s because it spawns a muffin rather than any sort of meat. Pretzel also gets a reaction.
Apple, banana, and fish get no reaction until the third item. Then all of a sudden the apple or whatever contained gluten.
Also of note is that he drinks from a bottle of beer as part of his loop. Most beer contains gluten.
I think the main issue I have with the pen kill is that it’s so overt. You see that pen on a desk and you’re guaranteed to have a pen kill in that mission somehow. For everything else (poisons, chandeliers, suspicious puddles, that sort of thing), it’s anyone’s guess who might be taken out that way but if you see a pen on a desk, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the target will get near it eventually.
Same goes for seemingly every target taking a sip from a solidarity and otherwise unattended wine glass every once in a while. I could be wrong but I swear every level in H2016 had that trope at least once (along with some of the elusives like Congressman Troutt)
To be fair, it was one of the three kill opportunities that had a challenge associated with it. The option to take him out via the DJ booth, poisoning his cheeseburger, trapping him between the growing boxes, etc. are also “special” kill opportunities but just don’t have challenges assigned to them.
