PlayStation 2

Hitman: Contracts

In this captivating outing, 47 revisits the past while modernizing the nagging flaws of his previous games, making for his best trail of assassinations yet.

Welcome Agent 47..........We're glad to see you back in action. And I see you still don't know the meaning of the word toupee. Just joking Agent 47, please put the gun down. You're here for business and nothing more. Do your job well and you get paid well. But if you don't, and you are killed, we have never heard of you. That is the way the agency works Agent 47. So off you go. And by the way............it's good to see you again.

After playing Contracts, I can easily say that looking into Silent Assassin is worth it. I tend to play series backwards, which might seem strange to many, but reviewing so many games, well, it happens that way sometimes. Timing in at about ten hours isn't much for a game that isn't budget, but for a rent, your money won't be missed, but instead Contracts will, once you return it.

Stealth games are a dime a dozen nowadays. Between Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, Manhunt, and everything else, almost every action/adventure game nowadays has to have some stealth elements (at the very least) or it’s just not a finished product. Few, however, take the more direct route that the Hitman series takes. Instead of hiding in shadows, avoiding guards & cameras, Hitman instead makes you be stealthy out in the open, using disguises and other forms of open-daylight tactics to achieve your goal – that goal, of course, being to prematurely end the life of a very mean individual who’s got what’s coming to them.

Insidious. Deadly. Stealthy. Hmm… How about stealthy and deadly? While the plot borders insidious, the defining characteristics of Eidos Interactive and IO Interactive’s latest excursion into the universe of Agent 47 is stealth. You cannot gun your way through everything you see. Strangling the lone foe is one thing (if he or she is not moving; if they are moving, forget the garrote), but when they are coming at you in droves, discretion can be the key to survival.

With everyone's focus on implementing online functionality and making games bigger and more movie-like, the once-burgeoning stealth sub-genre has become a little more than a footnote in today's games. Sure, it's mentioned, as in, "Uh yes, we have stealth, yes we do. You can um, sneak around stuff. Just after the flame-thrower and rocket launcher levels you can tip-toe out of the nuclear reactor-hailstorm nail-gun-cyborg monster boss throwdown. …You got the part about flame-throwers, right?"

For those of you who have been in a coma for the past few years (or perhaps a political prisoner in some remote third world nation), “47” is the name of the baddest, baldest, barcode tattoo-sporting clone this pantywaist planet has ever seen. If you need some backstory, check out my review of the previous game.

Unless you've been living as a mango picker in Guatemala as part of the witness relocation program for the last six months, chances are you've been bombarded with Hitman: Contracts previews (check this out if you are one of the painfully uninformed). Thus, I'll dispense with the game summary and get to my impressions and opinions. Dig?

Everyone's favorite bald-headed assassin is back for his third outing in Hitman: Contracts, a game that's especially recommendable to fans of 2002's Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, because the gameplay and a lot of the visuals simply haven't changed in this latest installment. Danish developer Io Interactive created a memorable character and some impressive technology with its original Hitman game, but not till the sequel did the gameplay live up to the graphics.

Contracts repose sur les bases de Hitman 2, voilà ce qui lui procure excellentes qualités, à savoir le trip tueur à gage, la très grande liberté d'action et les multiples méthodes d'assassinat de chaque cible etc. Malheureusement, nous étions en droit d'attendre de réelles améliorations de la part de IO, tant au niveau du moteur 3D que (et surtout) de l'IA. A bien y regarder, Contracts fait partie de ces suites qui font trop penser à des extensions. Il reste malgré tout un très bon titre, mais qui sera fortement concurrencé par Dark Project : Deadly Shadows (Thief 3).

In this sequel, Hitman feels less like a great stealth title than a mediocre shooter with a few cool gadgets and abilities.

Finalement, Hitman Contracts a beau avoir changé pour le scénario et la mise en scène, sur nos points techniques, on est un peu dans le flou. Il n’innove pas vraiment avec ses défauts par ci par là un peu trop fâcheux. Hitman 3 est un jeu attirant, toujours plaisant à jouer, qui trouve dans ce nouvel opus une ambiance formidable (la tension : on aime ça), mais le jeu reste pas franchement révolutionnaire.

Despite having recently completed the last Tenchu game, my thirst for assassinations is still unsatiated. Lucky for me, everyone’s favorite contract killer, Codename 47, is back, once again sporting the shiniest pate in the business - complete with signature barcode.

Without being coerced into using a specific technique, you just feel lost in Contracts’ massive levels. You’ll often find yourself wandering aimlessly looking for the needle in the haystack that will complete the next objective. There really aren’t any tense situations, calculated hits, or elements of surprise this time around. Making the gameplay less linear really threw a kink in the chemistry that worked so well in the first two games. All told, Contracts is an ambitious release for IO, but the end result is a garbled mess of a game that has lost its way.

Why be good when you can be bad? Such is the trend in the video game industry these days, and the latest title from Eidos is no exception. "Hitman: Contracts" is the third chapter in a four-year-old series that lets gamers explore the world of a genetically engineered über-assassin, Agent 47.