Hitman Absolution - Beautiful graphics, environment, and sound. Better AI and portrayal of women would have made it excellent

I just spent far too many hours playing Hitman Absolution. For the greater part, the game was fun.
When AI, Artificial Intelligence, is too good, the game is far too difficult to be fun. This game made me think that I am glad to not have aspired to become a police officer, fail in training, and default to become a security guard. These pawns were entirely disposable.

Other things that made little sense is the change into the uniform at each level. I understand that it is the character's distinctive look, but entering new environments, a disguise, even as a woman, would improve chances of success.
With regard to change of scenes or environments, were guards to be on high alert, opening a door seems to block them from moving all along to the next phase. Communication withing and between these teams seemed rather poor. I also would not like to be a guard, thinking how the disappearance of someone just spoken to has no influence on regular rounds. I somehow feel like the firefights killed the game which had so much potential.
 
I was quite frustrated with how the story was about the rescue of a girl.  I am not female, but the portrayal of women was not exactly balanced: all the police officers, miners, security guards were men. The few female characters were like concubines or attachées.
Some were well endowed femme fatales: the Saints, hypersexualized assassins dressed as nuns who received no character development, of course; Jade, an operator of the Agency; Layla, the wife of a manical weapon manufacturer.


Seeing that the writers of the game were all male, it is not a surprise that character development was not a strong point.

Does a higher frame rate (FPS) make a game any better?

I was torn between better experiences upgrading my computer for gaming and other processing tasks and being content with my trusty old ThinkPad T61p.

Building a computer is not complicated at all. What is difficult is determining how you will be using it. If building a computer is on your list of things to do, all you need to do is look at the CPU which you want to use, then choose a motherboard and RAM that will go with it. With regard to the video card, it may be the make or break of your system if you are going to be doing any gaming. When I say "gaming", I mean 3D games which are taxing on you CPU. A good number of casual games, such as Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Plants vs Zombies etc. even some MMORPGs run well on Pentium 4 CPUs even without a dedicated graphics card. However games that are designed to offer realistic imagery, landscapes or even material physics ( ie. reflections on the water, cloth in the wind or even the reflection of objects in somebody's eyes).

I was amazed with the Bioware productions Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Both offered reasonably good graphics, but the most interesting parts of the game were the dialogues and story line.

So would the games be any more fun with better graphics? Maybe. I know for a racing game, graphics make a huge difference in the simulation experience. Personally, I would never try driving at 200km/h, but it is nice to imagine what it would be like.

Depending on the type of game you are playing, a higher frame rate or FPS can make all the difference, from the game being playable to unplayable.

A frivolous computer build - Gaming with an AMD A10-5800k - Power consumption and Capital Costs

I had no reason to get a new computer. My main motivation was to quit wasting time comparing prices, looking at benchmarks etc. The 5 year old ThinkPad T61p that I am using now is great. I can play modern games on lower settings, my screen is WUXGA and I can't think of a better keyboard. However, feeling down from a groin injury, I caved into my desire to get a new machine and shopped online.



At first, I was considering a full pre-built system from HP. Although a built system has its advantages as it will work out of the box, it is not what I wanted. The tweaking and is what I take a little pleasure in. Ecologically, a pre-built system is far better than retail, however purchasing boxed individual products is part of the marketing and packaging. Compared to food products, the packaging that will come with individual components is not really a concern. 

I won't deny that I am partial to AMD for the underdog position that it has in the market. It is also true that I am not willing to spend 300$ on a CPU, such as the i7-2600k, which offers no better performance over the A10. The AMD A10 APU definitely looks good when it comes to real world applications. The AMD A10-5800k does not offer the fastest performance across the board, so you may want to look into specific options if you know what you will be doing ( video encoding, 3D modelling etc.). In fact, it appears that the Trinity APU may be all over the map when it comes to synthetic benchmarks.  I will be doing some gaming, photo editing, and some light video work.

So why did I take the plunge and splurge? My goal was to get some pleasure of building a computer, which I find to a very easy and enjoyable task. As far as I can remember, potential problems are not that frequent, but still enjoyable to solve. Mind you, having to send back defective hardware would be a total pain. I will be conservative when overclocking.

The Build

I really should be spending my time programming rather playing games, however there is a an appeal of using a new system.


(personal note - insert photo )

Here is the breakdown :


MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 mATX Motherboard  $60
AMD A10-5800K APU Quad Core Processor Socket FM2 3.8GHZ $120
G.SKILL Ripjaws X F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL 8GB DDR3-2133 Kit $53
ASUS BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray Writer 12X BD-R 16X DVD+R SATA Black Retail $60
Microsoft Comfort Curve 3000 Keyboard & Mouse Combo USB $10
TP-Link TL-WN350G Wireless Network Adapter 2.4GHZ 802.11B/G 54MBPS PCI $10
Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB SATA 6GB/S 3.5IN 12MS 5900RPM 64MB Hard Drive $70
Case iMicro CA-816BK45 450W  ATX Tower  $41
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink 120mm $23
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6670 800MHZ 1GB 1.6GHZ DDR3 Video Card $45
Card Reader $5
SATA cables $6 ( not necessary as they are included in with the motherboard but good to have nonetheless) 
Total :  $500

I think this is quite a nice build too!



There are a few items that I could have skipped or acquired for cheaper :
iGPU only -> -45$
Blu-ray writer -> DVD drive -$45
DDR3 2133 -> DDR3 1600 -$20
PCI Wifi -> (ethernet cable) -$10
Card Reader (use camera / phone bluetooth or cable) -> -$5
Use the stock CPU fan/cooler  ->-$23 ( I read the stock cooler is relative noisy, so I am going with this review about the Cooler Master 212 Plus Touch)
Total : $355

What items are missing? An OS like Windows 8. I may install Linux to see if there is anything worthwhile for me to make the switch again, however I like to stick to the most common operating system as it gives me the opportunity to assist others if they need help. Then again, Windows 7 has been so solid that I have a hard time imagining people having problems with it.

So will we see budget AMD A10-5800k systems coming out before the Holiday Season ?


Shortly, I will have some photos, benchmark results and screenshots using FRAPS.