‘Hitman HD Enhanced Collection’ Announced For PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World feels like the perfect source material for an M. Night Shyamalan film. The story of an isolated cabin housing an apocalyptic choice seems well-suited for a director who has built his name with intimate stories that shake the foundations of everything we know.
Tremblay’s novel follows Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff), a couple vacationing with their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) at a Pennsylvania lake house when a knock at their door pits their family’s survival against the continuation of humanity. Four strangers, Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint) have come to present them with a choice: choose and kill a member of their family or unleash the apocalypse.
A significant amount of marketing for Shyamalan’s adaptation of the book, titled Knock at the Cabin, has been built around this decision with audiences commanded to “make the choice” in the movie’s tagline. Tremblay’s novel ends on an ambiguous note and an afterword describes the story as an “empathy test” for the reader. He references William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in which a dominant majority sacrifices a group of othered survivors to maintain control of the community and appease a monstrous deity who turns out to be a mirage. Shyamalan puts his thumbs on the scales and dramatically changes Tremblay’s conclusion, shifting the story’s empathetic core and telling the audience in no uncertain terms who should be sacrificed and who should be saved.
Faithful to the Source
The first two acts of Shyamalan’s adaptation are remarkably faithful to Tremblay’s novel. Shyamalan captures the rustic isolation of the cabin as well as the slowly building tension and shocking acts of violence described in the text.
Each performance closely mirrors their literary counterpart with Bautista in particular bringing the gentle giant Leonard to life. Grint may falter a bit with a Massachusetts accent, but his Redmond evokes the same seething hostility as Tremblay’s version of the character.
The novel fleshes out the story’s details with a shifting point of view that amplifies the horrific choice Eric and Andrew face. We not only learn about the vicious hate crime Andrew survived (before he met Eric in the novel), but we experience the couple’s first chance encounter with each other as well as their trip to China to adopt Wen. More troubling memories include Wen’s obsession with looking at pictures of herself as an infant, Andrew’s decision to buy a gun, and their ominous conversation when educating Wen about the dangerous weapon hidden in their house. Shyamalan perfectly captures the essence of these stories, presenting a cinematic family that feels similar to our own.
Watching the End of the World
While not particularly different from the source material, Shyamalan uses the cinematic medium to his advantage when depicting the apocalypse.
Eyewitness footage adds empathy to Leonard’s vague warnings of disaster. Tremblay’s novel effectively describes a massive tsunami washing over a crowded beach, but Shyamalan puts us there with footage presumably recorded on a cell phone. We join other beachgoers in marveling at the massive wave before turning to run from the wall of water rushing towards us. The footage ends as the camera is submerged by the tide giving us the horrifying experience of perishing because of Eric’s and Andrew’s refusal to choose.
Shyamalan uses a similar technique to show the third disaster: the shattered and falling sky. We pan through disaster footage of planes lying in burning heaps on the ground then move to a crowded balcony where someone is recording the disaster. One by one we watch as planes plummet to the earth, accompanied by thousands of screams coming from all around us. While the graphics of this destruction are a bit uneven, there’s no question that the experience of watching this unprecedented event is powerful.
Shyamalan wisely chooses not to linger on footage of a deadly pandemic, trusting that we’ve already seen enough videos of hospitals jammed with dying patients to last a lifetime. Just the mention of a deadly virus sweeping through the country is enough to impart the horror of the second plague.
The power of this footage amplifies the necessity of the choice with which Eric and Andrew are presented. While reading Tremblay’s book, it’s possible to believe Andrew’s assertions that these tragedies are some sort of group delusion or horrifying coincidence, but seeing them with our own eyes removes all doubt. Rather than a prediction driven by fear, Shyamalan is clearly saying that the world will indeed end if Eric, Andrew, or Wen do not choose to die. By using an intimate point of view and tapping into the horrors we’ve all recently seen with our own eyes, Shyamalan makes us feel as if the family’s refusal to sacrifice themselves puts our own lives in danger as well.
The Sacrifices
Each time Eric and Andrew refuse to make a choice, one of the four invaders must take their place.
Shyamalan captures the brutality of these deaths as described in the novel with the intended victim placing a white mask over their face before the remaining messengers beat them to death with their makeshift weapons. However, Shyamalan adds dialogue to what Tremblay describes as a mostly silent death by adding a ritualistic phrase seconds before each attack. While Tremblay’s Redmond merely says “thank you” before becoming the first to die for his cause, Shyamalan’s Redmond screams at Eric and Andrew, demanding that they watch every second of his demise. This dialogue specifically places his blood on the hands of Eric and Andrew, two men who want nothing at all to do with the horrors unfolding before them. Though it is the invaders themselves who are carrying out this horrific murder, Shyamalan takes the choice to kill Redmond away from the people holding the weapons and places it squarely on the actions of two men tied to chairs. In his afterword, Tremblay mentions the allure of abdicating responsibility for one’s own actions.
With this small change, Shyamalan is painting Redmond as a victim and inviting the audience to ignore the fact that he dies because of his own choices.
Shyamalan does this again with the second sacrifice. Tremblay only shows us one of these ritual murders as the rest of the invaders die in the fray of the family’s struggle to escape. Adriane is the second to complete this barbaric ritual, but before her companions bludgeon her she gives her own persuasive speech. In begging Eric and Andrew to sacrifice their lives for her own, she reveals that she has a young son. She has joined this mission in hopes of stopping the vision of him burning alive that repeats in her head. If Tremblay’s Adriane has a son, she never reveals it and dies with an errant shot from Andrew’s gun without ever getting the opportunity to plead her case. This small change puts her in direct comparison to Eric and Andrew, whose choice is largely framed around the desire to create a better future for their own daughter.
She is also telling Eric and Andrew that the survival of their non-traditional family puts her own child in danger.
Shyamalan makes one more addition to these scenes with the statement that “a portion of humanity has been judged.” This sentence, not present in Tremblay’s novel, further blames Eric and Andrew for their choice not to die. By adding this ominous assertion, Shyamalan is specifically placing responsibility for the apocalypse on the heads of the family being targeted. By refusing to sacrifice themselves, they are judging their own family as more important than the continuation of humanity and casting their own survival as more valuable than anyone else. Eric and Andrew simply don’t want to die, but Shyamalan paints this decision as selfish. By adding this simple sentence, he is giving control of the entire situation to Eric and Andrew and framing their decision to murder a member of their own family as the only compassionate choice.
A Child Shall Lead Them
Shyamalan’s version of the story begins to change with the death of Adriane before radically veering away from the source material in the final act.
Tremblay’s Sabrina changes her mind about the actions she is taking and vows to help Eric and Andrew escape regardless of the consequences. Shyamalan does not give her the opportunity for this change of heart and instead has her die as she charges towards Andrew while he holds a gun. But her death is not the only dramatic change to Tremblay’s novel. The second act concludes with Andrew and Leonard struggling for control of the gun. While in both of their hands, a stray shot fires and hits Wen directly in the face, killing her instantly. Andrew and Eric are understandably inconsolable at the loss of their daughter, but Leonard has a life-changing reaction as well. He feels intense guilt for his actions, especially considering his promise that she will not be harmed in the story’s opening scene. When he dies in another struggle he is relieved to finally escape the crushing force of his sorrow.
Wen’s horrific death has another important effect on the original story; it removes her as a factor in her fathers’ decision to sacrifice themselves.
Shyamalan’s ending sees Eric beg Andrew to shoot him specifically so that Wen, who survives the film, can have a better life. Not only does her literary death show that future generations will suffer because of this illogical desire for sacrifice, but it allows Eric and Andrew to choose to live simply for their own benefit. They just don’t want to die and Tremblay allows them to make this choice without considering any other factors. Wen’s survival in the film means that she will die in the coming apocalypse as well. By putting another child in danger, Shyamalan again paints her fathers’ choice to protect themselves as selfish.
At the End of the World
The final act of Tremblay’s novel ends with Sabrina accompanying Eric and Andrew then shooting herself while lost in one of her visions. She warns the couple that they will have only a few minutes to make a final sacrifice before the world begins to end. Shyamalan gives this death to Leonard, who delivers a similar warning.
He slashes his own throat on the back porch of the cabin and bleeds to death in an intensely effective and heartbreaking sequence. Both versions of the story conclude with Eric and Andrew frantically deciding whether they should choose to die, but the outcomes of these conversations differ dramatically. Shyamalan’s Eric insists that Andrew kill him. He tells a beautiful story of an adult Wen who has a close relationship with her surviving father and has found someone to love her the way Eric and Andrew love each other. After screaming that the world does not deserve this sacrifice, Andrew reluctantly agrees. He shoots and kills his husband then goes to comfort his daughter who is waiting in a nearby treehouse. Wen asks if Eric saved everyone and the two emerge from the woods to find out.
At a roadside diner, they join a group of patrons gathered around a TV showing footage of the world dramatically getting better. A father describes the miraculous receding of waters that seemed certain to drown his two daughters and a relieved anchor reports that the remaining planes have landed safely.
All thanks to Eric’s death. Couples in the diner call their own loved ones while Andrew and Wen watch, knowing they will never again be able to do the same. While some have framed this ending as a selfless sacrifice by a queer couple for a world that hates them, there’s no escaping the fact that we watch as the clouds part and the earth itself becomes safer due to the death of a queer character. Shyamalan is known for his twist endings, but the conclusion of Knock at the Cabin is unfortunately predictable. It depicts a world that constantly asks othered communities to sacrifice their happiness for the comfort of the majority.
Tremblay’s novel ends as Eric and Andrew stumble out of the woods. A storm is brewing overhead, but he makes sure to note that it could be an apocalyptic disaster or simply a summer storm soon to pass. The reader is left to decide if the world will indeed end because of a family’s decision to keep living. Shyamalan removes all ambiguity by making it explicitly clear that the God worshiped by the four strangers who knock at the cabin has demanded that Eric and Andrew sacrifice themselves.
With subtle changes to the source material, he paints his characters as selfish for choosing not to die rather than exploring the possibility that the four invaders are wrong for demanding innocent blood.
In his afterword, Tremblay repeatedly asserts that he does not intend for the reader to sympathize with the invaders. His story concludes with a sentence he describes as a thesis statement for the novel: ”we go on.” His Eric and Andrew have chosen the sanctity of their love for each other over fear that their existence will cause the end of the world. He invites the reader to decide whether the world will actually end because of this choice, but declines to give a definitive answer. Shyamalan takes the decision out of our hands by tipping the scales against Eric and Andrew. Yes, he presents their love as real and valuable, but also expendable. Their misery is the cost of everyone else’s survival. By allowing the demands of a fearful majority to win, he explicitly shows us that life as we know it cannot continue without the destruction of a non-traditional family.
Review: Hitman’s HD Collection proves nostalgia is not our ally
DISCLAIMER: A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Platform: Xbox One (reviewed) and PS4
Developers: IO Interactive
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
MSRP: $59.99
Hitman is one of my favorite gaming franchises, one that has evolved into something incredible from its infancy. It started rather as very clunky, very linear series, slowly expanding into something larger as time went on. Around Hitman: Blood Money, it hit its stride.
Blood Money was one of the first big significant titles on Xbox 360 when it releases about half a year into the console’s lifespan. It provided players with small sandboxes (in comparison to what we have today) that allowed them to find creative ways to get to a target and kill them as discreetly as possible.
Hitman: Absolution then took it back a bit by focusing heavily on story and making levels more linear again.
While there was still sandbox-y elements, it wasn’t the game many fell in love with six years prior. So, with IO Interactive having rebooted the series to great success, how do these games hold up in the new HD Enhanced Collection?
Hitman: Blood Money
Truthfully, if you’re a newcomer to the series, you’ll be better off sticking to the new games and if you’re a longtime fan you may not want to taint your fond memories of these games. This collection doesn’t particularly do anything to ruin the games, they’re mostly in their original state (which may be a problem in of itself) but they’re relics of a bygone generation.
This is going to be very disheartening to hear as it was for me to realize when playing through it again but Blood Money is super clunky and lacking in really enjoyable gameplay. Maybe that’s because we’ve been very spoiled with Hitman content that we can invest dozens upon dozens of hours in within the last three years alone. Maybe it’s because game design itself has evolved so radically or at the very least built upon what Blood Money did to the point where you can’t even see the foundation laid beneath what we have now.
I frequently found myself trying to do things that I knew could be done but there was a level of jank preventing me from doing it, causing the whole mission to be flubbed. This wasn’t just the main game, this happened in the tutorial as well. I tried to grab someone as a human shield, 47 just punched the guy. I tried to push someone over a railing, 47 just headbutted the guy.
Hitman: Blood Money
There are even instinctual concepts that have seeped into my brain with the new Hitman games that are noticeably lacking in Blood Money. Like clockwork, I’d kill someone and try to hide the body and then realize that if I’m not hiding them in a closet or container, I pretty much had to drag them out of sight with a few exceptions like a garbage truck. Still, I couldn’t toss them into a body of water and other places that feel like no-brainers, it kind of breaks your brain.
That’s not to say that it’s totally lacking, you still have some clever assassinations like sabotaging someone’s grill at a party, causing them to catch on fire when they go to use it but it definitely lacks the pizazz of today’s Hitman.
The assassinations in current Hitman are much more complex, there are many layers to them, in Blood Money, you’re usually poisoning, sniping, strangling, or dropping something on someone’s head. As stated, there are exceptions but they’re not as frequent or layered as many might be striving for.
I can feel some people rolling their eyes as they read this, I’m criticizing a game from 2006 not having the intricacies of one from 2016 or 2018. I get it, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s not totally fair but it’s something people might want to be aware of before shelling out $60 for this collection.
Hitman: Absolution
Absolution does feel much smoother in comparison to Blood Money, it has better controls but it’s far more guided than both Blood Money and modern Hitman, making it an odd filling for the canonical Hitman sandwich. More handholding, more story-based, it’s not exactly what Hitman fans like which is why it’s considered the black sheep of the series.
So, what is IO Interactive doing to try and sell this bad boy for full retail price? Besides capitalizing on nostalgia, both Absolution and Blood Money are in glorious 4K/60FPS this time with Blood Money looking clearly better but you may find yourself thinking “Well, this is just exactly how I remember it looking.
” It probably is but our memory does that for older games, that said, Blood Money does look nice as well as Absolution.
They’d probably have a tougher time holding their own against many games by today’s standards but they have been given a nice touch-up, however noticeable it may be to someone who has played it before. This collection also boasts refined controls but as far as I can tell, they’re not very different and if they are, they’re not helping a game like Blood Money.
Hitman: Absolution
The Verdict:
These games are not bad games, that should be made clear, they’re just games of their time. Holding them up to the light reveals many flaws, especially when held up next to their current iterations in the series. IO Interactive hasn’t done enough to make these games worth revisiting in their current state, had they given Blood Money the full remake treatment, there is extreme potential for this collection… but alas, they have not.
While Absolution holds up far better than Blood Money and both are technically quite smooth, they’re not worth $60 especially when you can play both through Xbox’s backward compatibility feature for far less or get them on PC for even cheaper.
Should they drop in price drastically, maybe you can justify it for the silky smooth frame rate and resolution.
Hitman HD Enhanced Collection — Blood Money and Absolution Remastered Collection Announced for Xbox One and PlayStation 4
Platforms:
PS4
ONE
Categories:
Interesting
Industry
Announcements
Tags:
IO Interactive
Hitman HD Enhanced Collection
Source
Games in material
- Comments
- Forum
WB Games and IO Interactive have officially announced plans to release Hitman HD Enhanced Collection on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 , which will include updated versions of two old parts of the series — Blood6 Money and Absolution .
With the «move» to the current generation of consoles, both projects will get support 4K at 60fps , as well as other modern features including supersampling and updated controls for a smoother gaming experience. In terms of visuals, gamers are waiting for tightened textures with increased resolution, improved rendering of shadows, reflections and better lighting.
Hitman HD Enhanced Collection is currently confirmed for consoles only. The collection will be available for purchase in digital format already January 11th .
See also : The second stage of the New Year sale has started in the PS Store .
Subscribe to our Telegram channel, where we publish what does not fall into the news feed, and follow us online:
Telegram channel
Google News
Yandex
News
Yandex Zen
Latest news
-
02/08/2023
Forspoken developers are preparing updates to improve performance -
02/08/2023
Sony came up with a system for classifying PlayStation owners by behavior in games — and wants to make recommendations based on it -
02/08/2023
Frictional Games has announced work on horror in the spirit of SOMA — players are waiting for a large-scale project with philosophical overtones -
02/08/2023
Danganronpa creator explains why his new game Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a Nintendo Switch exclusive -
02/08/2023
Filming begins on ‘A Quiet Place’ horror prequel starring ‘Black Panther’ star -
02/08/2023
Journalists began to receive PlayStation VR 2 — the first photos of the boxes appeared
Hitman HD Enhanced Collection for PS4 and Xbox One review — what’s new?
Home » Game Reviews » Hitman HD Enhanced Collection PS4 and Xbox One Review – What’s New?
01/12/2019 GNB-Gamer 0 Comments
CategoriesGames Reviews
The reissue of the two best parts ( Blood Money and Absolution ) about the adventures of a bald assassin was announced for the New Year.
Many gamers have missed these games due to the outdated (currently) graphics and the inability to launch the release on modern home consoles. Thankfully now studio IO Interactive fixed this issue.
I present to you a brief review of Hitman HD Enhanced Collection for PS4 and Xbox One , which does not contain gameplay and story nuances. Let’s focus on the technical aspects and key differences with the original source. The publisher answered most of the related questions on the official website, but the FAQ itself is posted in English.
First of all, the length of both parts is exactly preserved. There are no cut elements, third-party microtransactions and other aspects of modern releases that require a minimum of content for full price.
Taking into account the outdated visual engine, cosmetically modified for modern hardware, even on the base Xbox One , the resolution is 1920 × 1080 pixels.
The Xbox One X version draws the picture at 3200×1800 , while the PS4 and PlayStation 4 Pro render something in between.
- A 4K TV is optional as it is intelligently scaled based on the actual screen resolution. In other words, at Full HD same detail possible but with improved image smoothing;
- Updated versions will not appear on the PC, as third-party modifications there allow you to improve the quality of the render without buying a special collection;
- The frame rate is 60 FPS . Given the low dynamics of what is happening, gamers may not notice this;
- Reworked lighting, reflections and shadow maps. Depending on the time of day, the objects sparkled with new colors, which affected the atmosphere of what was happening;
- There is no fundamental redrawing of character models, weapons and environmental objects, only revision based on the source material.
