Hitman: Codename 47

aka: Hitman: Pagato per Uccidere, Hitman: Tueur à gages
Moby ID: 2797
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Description official descriptions

A third-person shooter that emphasizes stealth and tactical thinking, Hitman: Codename 47 is a mixture of action and puzzle gaming.

You play the mysterious, nameless Hitman, whose perfectly lean body and UPC-stamped head indicate a somewhat unnatural childhood. Waking up one day in a cell, you escape your imprisonment and are shortly contacted by the Agency, an organization as mysterious as yourself. Offering a job in what you do best (delivering death), you embark on a career as an assassin. But the shadow of your past creeps up on you...and the last thing an assassin needs is something creeping on him.

A 3D game done nearly entirely from the third person (first person is used for aiming certain weapons), Hitman may initially draw comparisons to the Tomb Raider series. Although you can play in such a mode, there is also another mode where the mouse is more free to roam. Reflections, muzzle flashes, bodies that obey physics and slump and fall when necessary, and impressive shadows attempt to make the world feel realistic.

A wide array of weaponry are available, from knives and piano wire to silenced pistols to sub-machine guns and even heavy machine guns. Although such weapons are available, stealth will be your friend. The A.I. reacts to shouts, gunfire, and other odd occurrences, sometimes even getting suspicious if you're running around and so silence and sneakiness are your two best allies. Take down lone guards, hide their bodies and steal their uniforms. Then move in closer to your kill. Multiple methods of completing most of the levels are available, although one or two are the most efficient and therefore earn you the most money.

Spellings

  • Hitman: Агент 47 - Russian spelling
  • 终极刺客: 代号47 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

110 People (98 developers, 12 thanks) · View all

Product Marketing Lead
Product Manager
Creative Manager
PR
Localisation Manager
QA-Manager
Tester
Translation
Special Thanks
  • Aloha Hermann! Thanks for your support!
Programming
Additional Programming
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 47 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 10 reviews)

Bitchin'!

The Good
Though it isn't perfect it is a great game! The array of weapons is nice, many different "killing toys" to choose from. The reality of the sniper scope is... well... realistic. The scope bobs up and down, it doesn't stay perfectly still, this not only makes the feel more real but adds to the difficulty. The story behind the game plays out very nicely and ties in very well once you complete the game. Hitman is very addictive, i began my game and played for a while... four hours later i decided it was wise to take a break (it seemed like an hour passed at best). The graphics are sweet, as one reviewer noted, on high res mode you can nearly read the numbers tattooed on the back of his head, sweet! Another reviewer was complaining about the separate run button... why? The separate button makes it very convenient to change from running to sneaking up on a dude and cuttin' his throat. i found that assigning the 0 / Ins key on the numpad makes it very easy to toggle between the two.

The Bad
The AI can be too smart at times, it seems that if one guard knows i'm "not on the level" then nearly all of them do.... but it doesn't happen that way every time. The cut scenes aren't half bad but i find myself cranking the volume up to hear what the hell they say and most of the time i can't understand them anyway due to the foreign accents. The voice overs are... "without enthusiasm" a bit of feeling would have improved this aspect but it's not that big of a deal. Again with the AI, sometimes enemies will walk through doors or they will be near a wall, i'll fire away and they'll fall through the wall. The game runs smoothly... until loads of guards etc., hunt you down or the area you are in becomes cluttered w/ crap, the game slows badly and gets quite annoying. However don't let this all discourage you, it's still a killer game!

The Bottom Line
Being 4 years old now you can probably pick this one up very cheap, by all means grab it!

Windows · by MrSuperGod (54) · 2004

Challenging, yet replayable

The Good
Some good points about this game is the variety of weapons you can choose for this game. Also, if you have already beaten the game you can just go in to levels and have a shootout just for fun.

The Bad
Some of the levels were too narrow. You had to do things a certain way. And some of the levels toward the end were almost too challenging, taking the fun out of the game.

The Bottom Line
A fun, yet challenging game with the ability to do many things.

Windows · by Madrox (1) · 2002

Stealth and deception are your most useful weapons.

The Good
While there is a wide range of weapons available to you in this game, it's hardly a "shooter" - your path to success is paved with stealth, sharp observation, and careful planning. It's even more of a "sneaker" than the Thief series.

Enemies will watch you constantly, and if they study you long enough, they will remember you. If you do anything suspicious while they're watching (like, simply drawing a weapon, or killing someone) they will attack you, or run off to alert other enemies. The alert will spread like wildfire, so if you are caught, you have a short amount of time to take out the runner, before he can get to another enemy. Learning their behavior and patrol routes becomes vital; simply killing everyone will more than likely result in you failing your mission due to excessive "clean-up" costs. Besides, you'll almost always lose in a straight-out gunfight. Not only can you not dodge effectively, but you can't even jump. When drawing a gun is required, you must choose your targets wisely.

There is a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when you complete a mission in the cleanest possible manner (such as - not only sparing any innocent bystanders, but never being detected at all). It's possible to take out your target, and casually stroll away, past confused and alarmed enemies.

Another option for deception is stealing the uniform of a slain guard. The type of uniform you're wearing determines the areas you can enter in certain missions. Some of the uniforms available in the Hong Kong missions are amusing - "I am a Red Dragon Triad elite guard. Ignore, for the moment, that I'm a six-foot Westerner with a barcode tatooed on my head. Oh, and these aren't bullet-holes in my uniform, they're... um... cigarette burns."

But with that bit of humor aside, the ability to change your clothing is not only very useful, but also required. Not only do uniforms determine what areas you can enter in some missions, but they also determine what weapons you can wield openly (some weapons, like the AK-47 assault rifle, are too large to conceal). Studying your enemies' weapons is worthwhile - if a bunch of guards are wielding AK-47s, you can too. But you wouldn't want to run around in their uniform with, say, an Uzi equipped. That will certainly look suspicious.

The physics engine is also very well-implemented. Bodies are affected by gravity, so if you kill someone and decide to dispose of the body in a storm drain, you just need to dangle it over the edge, and it will slump into the hole. Dragging a body through a doorway, or around a corner, can sometimes be tricky - their feet may get stuck on a corner, and they slip out of your hands, costing you precious seconds. Hanging banners, and even Hitman's necktie are affected by wind, and your own movements.

If you're big on surges of adrenaline, there are more "close calls" in this game than I can count. Killing a guard, and dragging his body away to conceal it, and quickly putting on his uniform and holstering your weapon just before another guard wanders into sight is only one of many heart-pounding situations to be had in this game.

The Bad
The graphics seemed somewhat dated and blocky, even though the animation was very smooth.

The interface is very non-intuative, and you may end up redefining a number of keys. To start with, "R" is not Reload, as one may initially guess - it holsters your weapon. "1" is actually reload. The right-mouse button or spacebar brings up the "use" menu, and to select different options, the "G" and "T" keys are used to scroll up and down in menus (the manual says that you should use your mouse-wheel to select different options, but I don't have that type of mouse. It took random experimentation to figure out how to select different options). The manual is, unfortunately, very vague and unhelpful all-around.

Also, there is a high frustration factor. Whenever you fail a mission, you must start over from the very beginning; there is no save feature. While I suppose this could be chalked up to "realism", the game quickly starts losing its fun-factor when you're replaying the same mission from scratch for the Nth time - especially when you were just about to complete it the previous time (some of them are fairly long and involved).

I also wish it were possible to set additional challenges for myself. For example, when you purchase weapons and ammo at the start of each mission, you can decline to purchase any excess weaponry if you desire, and enter the mission with minimal equipment. On the missions where a gun was actually required, I would have liked the ability to purchase only one round per target, eliminating any margin for error. But, ammo is sold in entire clips only. One can't have everything, I suppose.

The Bottom Line
I would recommend this game to the "Thief-powergamer". You know, the type of person who plays Thief on the highest difficulty setting. Hitman is essentially the same experience, but I feel that it's more rewarding. A casual gamer (such as myself), on the other hand, may become a little frustrated at the need to restart lengthy missions from the beginning, whenever you fail.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2001

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Guards' room in "Traditions of the Trade"? Daniel Saner (3503) Feb 15, 2013
Music in Windows Vista Daniel Saner (3503) Oct 2, 2008

Trivia

BPjS/BPjM index

On April 28, 2001, Hitman: Codename 47 was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

Trivia originally contributed by Xoleras on 18.12.2005.

References

  • Pablo's line "Say hello to my little friend" is an obvious reference to the movie Scarface.
  • The entire setup of the third mission, "The Massacre at Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant", is extremely similar to a scene of The Godfather, with both the setup (negotiation in a restaurant with gangsters and police), as well as the execution (hiding a gun in the bathroom).

Trivia originally contributed by EboMike on 18.12.2003 and 08.06.2004.

Naked strippers

An earlier beta of the game featured the strippers found in the game with no clothes.

Trivia originally contributed by Zovni on 13.02.2001.

Real-world locations

In an interview with fansite HitmanHQ, lead animator Jens Peter Kurup of Io Interactive stated: "The different locations were either constructed with picture reference or by actually visiting the different places to get the atmosphere right. [...] The Hotel in Budapest actually exists [...], and some of the guys checked it out in details. Then it's modified to fit the gameplay."

The game's Thermal Bath Hotel Gallàrd in Budapest mentioned in the interview, as visited in the mission Traditions of the Trade, is inspired by real-world Danubius Hotel Gellért, also in Budapest.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Ray Soderlund.

Additional contributors: Zovni, Daniel Saner, tarmo888, Sciere, Stratege, CaesarZX.

Game added December 15, 2000. Last modified March 14, 2024.