921st played so far
Genre: Stealth
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
I have had a difficult time with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. I had heard a lot about the later iterations and their freedom, but the difficulty of the game meant that I never got that far in. Still, I enjoyed the options and I was looking forward to finding more than that.
Hitman: Blood Money is a later entry in the series and it certainly feels like that should have allowed for further improvements to the series. I hope that it will pay off.
Our Thoughts
I feel like the first level of Hitman: Blood Money is one of those perfect odd settings for a game like this: an abandoned fairground area, with theatres and broken down rides, now inhabited by thugs. It looks a bit unsettling and while it seems a bit more dense in buildings than I would expect from a pier like this, it’s a good place for a setting with some good back office set up. As a tutorial, it also gives you a good set of puzzles – your journey can be handled room by room and area by area, each with a solution that teaches you a system. The other options are fine and accepted too – I’m sure I could have experimented more – but it worked here too. It shows an amazing range of options in the game and works well to do that much.
It shows off the fluent controls, which feel really good – it doesn’t get in the way and it’s good to follow along. The game reacts appropriately to everything that happens, with an AI that’ll often end up chasing you, but it can also give you those other options if you do it well.
The first proper level, which of course features a lovely mansion in a warm climate (Chile this time) sets you loose and you have to go through. There are some straightforward first steps – outfits you can get easily, with weapons you’re allowed to carry around – and some tempting targets like a sleeping guard you could get to more easily. There are a lot of options, and that’s the one thing I feel the tutorial doesn’t prepare you for – there is so much you can do, and I feel that paralysis and struggle to pick a solution. Even when I do, it’s trickier to experiment. There’s a big issue here with the length of time I put in a game, as I can see myself get into a four hour bout of trying different options, creating several save games and working out the paths. I could follow that with a proper speed run, but it’s a world you need to keep experimenting with, then moving on to the next step.
Final Thoughts
There is a lot in these Hitman levels – more, I think than I saw in Hitman 2. To be honest, this is the sort of game I expected from a Hitman game: big open world, lots of options, having to structure your run and plan ahead while improvising. There is a lot in there and I feel I could play for quite some time to figure it out. So much of this is what I wanted to play, and it feels like it’ll stay a great challenge.