PS3 Review: Hitman: Blood Money (2006)

I'm filing this review of Blood Money under PS3 because I own the Hitman HD Trilogy, which also includes Silent Assassin and Contracts. Of the three, Blood Money's HD version is by far the purtiest. Definitely pick the collection up if you don't already own the games for PS2. Nevertheless, this review still applies to the PS2 version.

Blood Money fixes virtually all of the issues I had with Silent Assassin and Contracts. Don't get me wrong, I love Silent Assassin, but it had some problems, specifically: uneven difficulty, too much trial-and-error progression (especially on the higher difficulties), guards with an often preternatural ability to see through disguises, and concomitantly, somewhat wonky stealth that works about as often as it doesn't. Blood Money fixes just about everything, though.

Unlike Contracts, which presented missions in a more episodic manner, Blood Money returns the series to a more straightforward, linear narrative. Missions are presented as flashbacks, introduced by cut scenes from the present that follow a reporter's investigation into the alleged death of Agent 47. These flashbacks do an excellent job of introducing each mission without interfering with or inhibiting a player's freedom to complete the job as desired, not as dictated by the plot (this is my main gripe with Absolution; more on that in a later review). Blood Money rarely requires you to go about the mission in any specific manner. Now, this is not to suggest that there is total freedom; there's certainly an optimum way to skin these cats, but it's rarely clear from the start, and as a result finding that optimum path feels organic rather than forced. The game is also more forgiving than the others in the series as there's a considerable margin for error, even on the higher difficulty settings, just in case everything doesn't go exactly the way you planned. Your creativity and skill, rather than your patience and memorization, win you those coveted "Silent Assassin" rankings. This is an especially nice touch given the long, involved missions in the latter half of the game.

For instance, consider "A New Life," one of my favorite missions. In this one, 47 is tasked with taking out a former mafia boss currently hiding out in suburbia with his family. You can complete the mission in numerous ways: you can tranquilize the guard dog from a neighbor's tree house, sneak into the backyard, and set the barbecue on fire; you can steal the outfit of a clown and infiltrate the birthday party; you can poison the donuts of the FBI, turn off the outside security cameras, sneak inside the house through the basement, and push the mafia boss as he's walking down the stairs; you can use a surveillance van to prank call the mafia boss, and when the poor guy picks up the phone, you can snipe him from a neighbor's garden; you get the idea. Each method has positive and negative aspects, and while some will undoubtedly score better than the others, the real replay value is in finding new and increasingly weird ways to off you targets.

This replay value is only furthered by an inventory system in which the money you earn from each mission can be used to upgrade your weapons, adding silencers, laser sights, larger clips, and so on. It's not as effective or integral as it could be, as the missions rarely demand that you constantly upgrade your tools. Still, though, it's a welcome addition if not a totally necessary one. But my only real complaint about Blood Money is the poorly implemented "Notoriety" system. As you play through the game, your actions in each mission attract a certain amount of attention: going in silent and eliminating only your targets keeps you a shadow, while additional casualties and gunfire raise your profile considerably. At the end of each mission you can bribe witnesses/police to keep your notoriety low. The problem is that you always have more than enough dough to pay these people off and reset your notoriety rating, thereby rendering the whole idea relatively pointless. The consequences of your actions in one mission, then, rarely affect your behavior in the next, unless you accidentally skip through the menu too fast or you spend an obscene amount of money on upgrading your inventory. The whole idea is more innocuous than anything else, but it could have added an interesting dimension to the game.

Overall, however, Blood Money is one of the best; it's easily the best game in the series, and certainly one of the best games on PS2. For a game without a multiplayer option, Blood Money has amazing replay value. Too bad Absolution failed to match it. More on that soon.

PS2 Review: Hitman: Contracts (2004)

Some think of Hitman: Contracts as the weakest of the trilogy (Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Contracts, and Blood Money). In a way, they might be correct. However, this is more a testament to the strength of the series, as Contracts is not at all a bad game. I think what people have in mind when they consider it to be the weakest link of the series is the story; while Silent Assassin and Blood Money have interesting narratives that culminate in confronting the worthy adversary of Agent 47, Contracts is told in the form of flashback missions that don't come together to make a story. It is somewhat comparable to 007: Legends, where as Daniel Craig sinks after being shot off the train by Moneypenny in Skyfall, he takes time to reflect on favorite memories such as Goldfinger, OHMSS, and Moonraker. These do nothing to tell the story of Skyfall, just as the old assassinations have little to do with advancing the story in Contracts. They are little more than a bit of character development and tying in some continuity between the original Hitman: Codename 47 and the trilogy.

Fortunately, the weak points would appear to end here. The gameplay resembles Silent Assassin closely and offers the familiar, open-ended style of missions, only now with greater autonomy in deciding how to complete missions. This was probably the weakest point in SA, where several missions appear to only have one way to complete them properly (by which I mean attain the mission-rating of “Silent Assassin,” which pretty much requires perfection; no alerts, no blowing cover, no dead civilians, no missed shots, etc.). Contracts is also more forgiving (at least on the easier difficulties), whereas guards in Silent Assassin seemed ready to shoot at you if you looked at them funny. This created what I thought to be a slightly more playable game. Several times in SA I saw no easy way to complete a mission other than precisely by the book or shooting my way through; there were no other options. In this respect, Contracts received less credit than it deserved.

But it's funny. If you've followed CRN for awhile, you might know that I tend to discount the importance of story-telling in games. The Timesplitters series is easily one of the best FPS franchises ever, yet story-telling was not one of its strong suits. This suited me just fine; with its quirkiness and oddball style of characters, it didn't really seem to need that. However, other series have led me to consider the narratives told in games to be more important. This is quite clear in my treatment ofSplinter Cell: Blacklist, where I felt that the character and spirit of Sam Fisher had been sold out (as had the stealth gameplay). And I think the same goes for Hitman in the sense that the story-telling is important. Without it, Contracts feels more like an expansion pack that offers many playable levels rather than a story of its own.

Bottom line is that Contracts is a must-have if one enjoys the Hitman series. One cannot like the rest without liking this one. It doesn't quite reach the standard set by Blood Money, and it doesn't add much to the Hitman mythos, but it is a solid entry in the series.

PS2 Review: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002)

My first exposure to the Hitman franchise came through the form of a demo disc that I got through a demo copy of the official Playstation magazine. In the beginning it was an experience not unlike learning to play Splinter Cell, where you gun down many enemies because to this point in your gaming career, you never learned how to be stealthy. Unlike Splinter Cell, this was a viable option in Hitman 2, at least on the easier difficulties, as Agent 47 tends to be much better armed than Sam Fisher. But this gaming experience was obviously quite different than the stealth tactics of SC: you are out in the open, wearing disguises to pass security. Also, Hitman 2 offers much more of an open-ended gameplay than the early SC titles.

This demo of the first mission of the game offered so many options of how to infiltrate the Mafia Don's Italian villa: did you want to take the clothing of the flower delivery man? How about the grocery delivery boy (which allows you to smuggle your weapons in the grocery crates)? Or you can sneak in as a bodyguard, though you'll be the only one whose bald with a bar code tattooed on his head. What then? Did you try to get to the Don's bedroom to off him with a golf club? Strangle him in his office? Snipe him with the rifle in the garage? Out of all the demos I've played, this might have been the one I played the most because of all its opportunity for experimentation.

Does the full version live up to the demo? Yes and no. Without a doubt, there are other missions in the game that have an open-ended character, where there is more than one way to skin that cat, but many of them don't. The latter group seem to have very few options, if there was, in fact, more than one, and they would be very specific and difficult to figure out. If you lack the patience to figure it out (or have too much pride to look it up online), you'll often find yourself getting a "Mass Murderer" rating for your performance (which is another issue: it often seems like there is but one method to achieve the coveted "Silent Assassin" rating for each mission). It was also disappointing that the demo offered features that didn't appear in the full version. One was actual names for the guns in the game ("Beretta" became "9mm pistol" and "Desert Eagle" became "Deagle"). Another was that 47 could punch people, which needed refinement, but was tossed out in the final release. Hand-to-hand combat skills seem like something necessary for an elite assassin, but they didn't find their way into the game until Hitman: Blood Money.

This isn't to say that Hitman 2 isn't a great game; far from it. It is a solid action game that offers an exceptionally high amount of replay value for this genre and also requires a relatively higher amount of patience to master (the very first FAQ offered on GameFAQs.com for this game literally advises the player to "Kill everyone in site [sic]."). But if the player takes the time to learn how to play the game as Agent 47 would do things, it can be a rewarding experience.

The Hitman franchise features an iconic character who isn't just a generic action star who blows up every vehicle he gets into and causes the ladies to swoon. As far as video game characters go, he is unique and one of the most recognizable with his bald head, black suit, red tie, leather gloves, and twin silver .45 pistols. He is an antihero, but one we can feel justified in supporting.

Thus, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin seems to be a complete package: an intense and interesting character, the uber-interesting world of global assassins, widely varied and open-ended gameplay, the option for 1st or 3rd person perspective, high replay value, a masterpiece of a soundtrack by Jesper Kyd, and an engaging story (if you can manage to follow it). It is a classic and deserves one of Code Redd Net's highest recommendations.

Highlights from E3: Hitman: Absolution

It's been a long time since a Hitman game has been released. I like what I see. Here is an entire level play-through which shows many of the new features and abilities of Agent 47:



One of the things I found very interesting about this second video is how it seems more like Splinter Cell than the new Blacklist does, particularly at 6:55. 47 has increased his acrobatic skills, apparently. Also, it looks like there is the ability to anticipate the paths of patrolling guards (as well as a sonar-like ability to spot them through walls). But what I really like about it is that it makes some elements of the series more realistic, such as disguises not simply being immunity from scrutiny (not that they ever were, but it is cool how even with the disguise, 47 will still attempt to hide his face). He still has the uncanny ability to change his clothes unhumanly quickly.

One of the things missing from the earlier Hitman games, until Blood Money came around, was that 47 lacked hand-to-hand combat options, something that seems necessary for any elite assassin to have (though my demo of Hitman 2 did give the player the ability to punch, but I'm not sure why it didn't make it into the final version, at least not without a cheat code). Absolution seems to contain plenty of it, as well as the ability to use objects in the environment as tools and weapons.

Overall, I think it's very promising, though I hope the "silent assassin" concept continues to thrive, as neither of these videos has guaranteed it. Maybe my anxiety comes from Splinter Cell's seeming abandonment of the concept of stealth, but I can rationally hope that Hitman doesn't go down the same path. I also hope that it continues to reward discretion in who is killed, as I believe the earlier games would not award a "Silent Assassin" rating if civilian casualties occurred (you can read about my angst with Splinter Cell: Conviction for not giving the option for non-lethal takedowns). But Hitman looks as good as ever. I hope you are as excited as I am! Expect to see it November 20th later this year.