Seven years seems like an eternity if you're a fan of the Hitman series, because that's exactly how long it took Eidos and Io Interactive to continue the story about the infamous silent assassin, Agent 47.

The sheer amount of options when dealing with enemies; a lot of weapons on offer; the game is generally entertaining for both action fans and those who prefer stealth-based gameplay; great music and solid visuals

AI glitches spoil the challenge and the fun; squandered potential when it comes to the story; gets repetitive after a while

Absolution – the freeing of blame or guilt, removing consequences and obligations. An interesting title for a game that scores you on how you kill people. Hitman: Absolution may aim to provide depth to its sub-heading through its firmly guided story, but on a meta level it removes consequences and...

Between speed runs, marathon sessions, completionist efforts, and miscellaneous extracurricular activity, "time" is a powerfully associative element to our gaming habit. If an adventure is too short or too long we feel cheated or exploited, regardless of the content therein.

IO Interactive tapped into something unique in 2000 when Hitman: Codename 47 was released. There's always been this vision in popular entertainment of the well-dressed, urbane contract killer, and 47 emobodied that vision perfectly.

Elaborate environments overflow with murderous possibilities; Huge amount of content; One of the best-looking games of this generation; Contracts forces you to approach the same locales from different perspectives

Too-limited field of view when hiding inside of containers; Contracts would be stronger with more specific kill requirement possibilities

Hitman: Blood Money was released more than six years ago, but I feel that it aged better than many games of its time, and this only made fans of this assassination series by IO Interactive more antsy as the developers spent years away from the franchise that made them famous.

Killing someone is easy. You can shoot him in the head, stab him with a knife, or push him off a ledge. But if writers didn't think out of the box and wow audiences with creative displays of bloodshed, movies wouldn't be so exciting.

The long-awaited fifth entry to the Hitman franchise succeeds in some respects. It looks beautiful, the stealth is well-developed and Contracts mode...

Beautiful graphics; Instinct Mode is well implemented; Contracts has a lot of potential

Small levels; Linear sections; Weak story and characterisation

Decisions, decisions. What's the best way to kill a well-guarded man in a crowded public square? Should we sprinkle his sushi with fugu poison? Quickly push him down a convenient open shaft when no one's looking? Taint the drugs in his apartment?

+ Exotically executed sandbox scenarios give you plenty of tools to make a killing; + A lengthy single-player story with a surprising emotional center

? How can Agent 47 see through walls without fancy gadgets or X-ray vision

Feels like 'proper' Hitman, mixed with new ideas of varying quality. Crucially, it's great fun, and you'll want to play Absolution through more than once

Brilliant ideas; densely packed; Brutal kills married to IO's trademark humour; One of this generation's finest stealth games; The premise of Contracts mode..

..; is slightly better than the execution, Smaller, more linear sandboxes, Save system

I know that's probably a sin within the hardcore hitman community, but I absolutely love this game. It so much fun. I wouldn't say it's on par with my favorite hitman game, blood money, but it changes the formula up enough to make this game unique and amusing.