Hitman: Blood Money

aka: Hitman 4, Hitman: Argent de sang, Hitman: Krwawa Forsa
Moby ID: 22576
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Agent 47 the assassin returns in the 4th installment of the Hitman series. This time he goes on a trip around America, undertaking missions in major cities such as Las Vegas, New Orleans, Los Angeles and other exotic locations. This time, he better watch his back, as his long-time employer, the International Contract Agency, is threatened by a mysterious rival.

Gameplay in Hitman: Blood Money is generally similar to the previous installments. Once again, your job will be to complete several assassination missions. You can sneak around in disguise to avoid the suspicious guards, or you can instead open fire on everyone you see. When you complete your mission, you're given a rating - from "Mass Murderer" up to the coveted "Silent Assassin".

Blood Money introduces a lot of new features, however. A new notoriety system will track every single one of your moves, which in turn will demand utmost calculation in order to successfully accomplish your objectives. For those of you who are tired of a direct approach, you will be given the opportunity to stage accidents and should you be suspected, bribes and "other" accidents will always be at hand. Blood Money also gives the player the opportunity to customize weapons.

Spellings

  • Hitman. Кровавые деньги - Russian spelling
  • 杀手:血钱 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

368 People (356 developers, 12 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 64 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 119 ratings with 5 reviews)

Easily the gem of the series.

The Good
This game is awesome, I have played the previous Hitman incarnations and even though I did enjoy them, for some reason they just didn't seem like they were making a major impact on me, so I was a little leery when I came across Blood Money. I originally bought this game in a bargain bin for $9.99 new so my first thought was "Oh crap, bad game", but boredom was overtaking me so I picked it up and popped this in and let me tell you....I was floored.

The graphics are gorgeous, the tropical scenery, the dark shadows and mood of some of the locations throughout the game really give it an atmosphere and I love the many variations of locations (Chile, Paris, a suburb, casino, etc.). The detail was immense and the way you can take out your target by any means with no real linear objective, just eliminate and escape really does this game justice, not including the newspaper at the end of a mission giving you details (a nice little touch that I really loved).

The story was very enjoyable, I didn't really get into the previous Hitman storylines, but this one was really enjoyable through past missions that you play leading up to the present day and the acting and AI is incredible. The weapon upgrades are very useful, including the standard equipment and the variety of weapons really does this game justice, anything from fiber wire, to kitchen knives, the trusty Silver Baller and Assault Rifles to even a nail gun. And the easy accessibility of items and map screen really make it another plus.

To put it bluntly there is a lot to love about this game.

The Bad
Well, there were a few little hiccups and a major (to me) hiccup. One of them is just a lack of inconsistency when it comes do damaging objects and shooting people. For example: you can shoot someone in the stomach, the bend over like they just ate a bad hot dog from Dairy Queen, but then again shoot them in the leg and the same reaction. I would love to see them try to limp off when shot, giving a bit more realism, but I guess now with the technology it can be done. Another one is some glass items can be destroyed but others can't, example: in A New Life, you can shoot the mirrors and glass doors in the house and they will shatter, but you can shoot a bottle, nothing, a bullet hole and a glass shatter sound, kinda like Goldeneye 007. Just a minor quibble I guess, but something that does bother me.

There is one glitch I did see, or hear, in the casino mission if you run through the casino floor shooting at people with an assault rifle, the sound will decrease dramatically, you can still hear the shooting and people screaming, but it sounds like your listening to the game with your fingers in your ear.

There is one more, to me Agent 47 just seems....weak. His only moves really are to shove from behind, headbutt and grab a gun from his enemies. Now I have to admit that grabbing the gun is very useful, but half the time the gun goes off trying to grab it and grabs the attention of nearby enemies, so it seems useless sometimes. It seems like he relies more on just shooting, it would be nice to have some counter moves like grabbing and arm and breaking it or a roundhouse kick, something else besides a schoolyard bully shove. Plus I can't figure out why he can only drag and not pick up and carry bodies like in Metal Gear Solid, with his speed and stance when he is dragging, you could take out the dead body and he would look like a zombie walking.

The Bottom Line
All in all, this is a great game despite is small quibbles and Agent 47's lack of personality and weakness. If you haven't got a chance to play this game, play it now, it is one of the best games I've played in a while. Hopefully the next-gen Hitman will be a bit stronger next time, nothing major like a Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal upgrade and maybe even a bit more ways to take out your targets like making it look like a suicide or stranger ways like throwing a hairdryer in a bathtub. But enough rambling, three words....Play it now!

PlayStation 2 · by Big John WV (26954) · 2008

More evolution than revolution, but still a worthy contender.

The Good
When I approached the original Hitman codename 47 game, I was completely burnt out on everything I was playing at the time, and was looking for a fresh and unique game experience, and needless to say, it delivered in spades.

For me the game evoked a mix of Bond, The Jackal, and Mission Impossible all rolled into one, and here you could actually take part, and be at the centre of the virtual intrigue, and it made for some truly compulsive gaming. The title protagonist would also prove something of an enigma, of whom story and background would be developed throughout the course of the game and its subsequent sequels, and this entry in the series continues, and expands upon the ongoing story.

The game-play here is, like previous games’ in the series, for evolution rather than revolution. So, all the same classic mechanics which made the original so great are still present, the only changes in this regard are tweaks and updates in various areas.

Of course, the game engine has been further improved upon, and for example here the New Orleans Mardi Gras environment has a phenomenal amount of character models on screen without dropping a frame. It is quite an amazing sight to behold in action.

Something of note here which has been expanded on in this instance is the narration, which has been given a much stronger focus this time around. There are two sides to this, the first is in the form of cut-scenes which develop the story in which is told, sort of retrospectively, as an account being divulged to a journalist, in between each mission, and the second being part of the new mission evaluation system in the form of a front-page newspaper spread, which allows you to read of your exploits, and also of other news, some of it just for fun, and other bits might flesh out aspects the story further.

Probably the biggest new game-play facet brought forward is in the form of accidents. If you have ever watched a murder mystery TV show like, ‘Murder She Wrote’ or ‘Columbo’, you can probably imagine the types of scenarios that can be accomplished here. I don’t want to give away any of the more elaborate schemes, but a basic example is like for instance say you’re on a cruise ship, and you’re alone with one other person on a high deck, you could nudge them off the railings. Now this presents an interesting AI element, if you went down to where he fell, and lurched over the body, some third party might come and say something like “What happened here?” in a concerned, rather than accusative tone, and like an innocent bystander you can walk away from the scene acting natural. So in turn, unless the act is witnessed, it is chalked up as an accident.

Overall, the AI has been further tweaked, and the bugs, I suppose you can call them, that were problematic in the past have been ironed out. For example, the first two games had quite twitchy enemies, where as even when you were in disguise, if you were seen at close proximity, your threat metre would go through the roof, and your cover would be blown, and this would happen in a sort of haphazard random way which was quite disconcerting. Also, your cover could be blown if you did something completely silently in a similarly isolated place, your cover would be blown without provocation. So to clarify, these types of things are no longer a problem.

Before commencing a mission, you are given the opportunity to use funds gained from previous jobs to buy or upgrade equipment, such as silencers, scopes, remote detonator mines, more advanced faster lock-picks, undetectable rifle cases that will pass by security systems, and some other useful accessories. The sorts of things on offer here lean in either stealth or more of a commando direction, so you’ll find depending on how YOU play the game will determine your ultimate preferences.

In terms of controls, the layout works very well. This is the first Hitman game I have played on Xbox, having played all previous outings on the PC, and in this instance, I didn’t have any quibbles with using the control pad. The analogue sensitivity seemed just right, and also the game prompts you as you go with the controls throughout the game, such as what button to press at any given instance, and it’s not obtrusive, instead just infinitely helpful. The vibration feedback (which is disabled by default), is also used to very good effect, e.g. when you use a sniper rifle, 47's heavy breathing will be translated into strong rhythmic feedback, and it does add something extra to the proceedings.

As per usual, the audio side of things is of a high standard again here. Voice acting is very good, particularly from the key actors that have more substantial roles, and character’s from previous entry’s reprise their roles, so there is that comfortable familiarity. The music score from Jesper Kyd and the Budapest symphony orchestra in particular is again here very fitting and works well, and other incidental tracks also mesh nicely with the scheme of things.

Visuals for this version of the game are solid, and I think wouldn’t differ too much from the PS-2 version in most regards, but the frame rate is consistently high, and with full scene anti aliasing everything looks as it should, and the level of overall detail is quite good, the usual suspects like skeletal animation and rag-doll physics take pride of place, and there are no genuine problems in this area. On a side note, there is support for 480p high definition (PAL Version) but I wasn’t able to test this, but I would imagine the increase in picture quality would bring the visuals closer to the Xbox 360 version of the game.

The Bad
One thing I found quite disheartening about this entry in the series, is how IO felt that they had to appeal towards the GTA crowd. Specifically in the first introductory mission, which is rife with obscenities and course language, which in turn seems quite uncharacteristic in comparison to the sort of atmosphere generated in previous outings. This is but an isolated instance, however, and merely serves as an initial hook to adhere to a specific purpose.

The tutorial section is crafted in such a way as to suggest, or hint at playing the game in more of an action oriented way I felt, rather than as a pure stealth affair, and even puts the player in circumstances where violence cannot be avoided, admittedly in order to explore all possible facets of the game, but in doing this, I think could conceivably give a decidedly one-dimensional first impression, primarily to those who are new to world of Hit man, which moreover I think is perhaps a bit too heavy handed in its execution.

This brings me to the notoriety system, which is another unique addition to this game. Basically, what this is for is, if you are violent, e.g. shooting guards and innocents, or whatever, you are given notoriety points, and the more overly violent you are, the more points are tallied. At the end of a mission, you have the opportunity to bribe civilians, police, or even acquire a new identity, to clear your points, given that you have earned enough money to do so. If you go into the next mission with notoriety points, it is supposed to make the mission more difficult, such as tighter security etc. There is nothing genuinely bad about this addition, but for me personally, it seemed a bit needless, because I didn’t approach it as an action game. This is totally subjective, of course.

Something newly added here, is the ability to throw coins in order to distract, draw attention etc. While in theory this is a solid inclusion, and something similar had been previously employed in such games as Splinter Cell and Manhunt to good effect. In this instance, unfortunately, it isn’t so well done, and I found in practise using the coin to draw any kind of reaction, a lengthy hit and miss affair, and more often than not the latter, and proved so ineffectual to the point of being useless. One of the main problems is you have to be so close by the individual(s) to get any kind of reaction if you’re lucky, it more or less nullifies the whole purpose of what you want to achieve. Put simply, poor implementation.

All the missions take place in the US, and while there is nothing really wrong with this, in all previous entries in the series, the locations you undertook your missions were from all different parts of the globe, from the dense snow of Russia, sneaking around the back-alleys of China, to traversing the lush Mayan jungle, and I liked this kind of exotic variety, which is notably absent here.

This is most likely fixed in higher revisions of the game, but I bought a first run copy the same day it came out, and I had some trouble with the game crashing. It only happened about three times, which isn’t too bad, but it was very annoying when you lose all your progress, because save games are only temporary.

The Bottom Line
I was very excited about Hitman Blood Money, and as I mentioned pounced on it when released, and did enjoy it, but I must admit wasn’t quite as enchanted this time around, I guess having played all previous games in the series I was expecting something a bit more, I don’t know, more substantially different, for lack of better words, and that perhaps IO rested on their laurels just a bit, and were perhaps relying on people new to the game style to get a fresh exciting experience, and for anyone else a couple of new things, but more or less the formula hasn’t changed, great as it is, and what you see is basically what you get. The new accident system was a good idea, but I still found it easy to fall back into past habits, and soon discovered my old tricks still worked most of the time. So, I suppose I was a bit disillusioned by this outing, and I would be lying if I said some of the magic wasn’t gone by this point in the series. That said, it is still a very good game, and certainly still worth checking out, if you haven’t done so already.

Xbox · by Nick Drew (397) · 2007

My goodness, that railing looks dangerous...

The Good
Blood Money adds a new gameplay feature to the Hitman series - accidents. In addition to using your trusty fiber wire, you can now shove people over railings, push them down stairs, poison their food, drop pianos on them, and cause all other kinds of "accidents". The coolest thing about accidents is that they don't actually count as a "kill", so if you're really big on getting that Silent Assassin rating, you can potentially take out all of your targets with your Kill counter at 0.

There are a number of other new features as well:

  • Inventory - Your standard inventory is now a lot more useful. In every mission, you start out with your fiber wire, a remote mine and detonator, a deadly poison syringe, and a sedative syringe. The syringes have two uses each, and can be used on people, drinks, or food. None of these items can be picked up by a metal detector, so unless you're bringing actual firearms through a mission, you never have to worry about being searched.

  • Weapons - As usual, there's a large collection of firearms available in the game, and more can be collected from various levels. Certain guns can be upgraded - as you progress through the levels, you unlock more upgrades for your guns. I've only needed to use a weapon once, so I didn't get much use out of this feature, but I've still fully upgraded my Silverballer into a FrankenGun(tm) just because I could. I never took it off the shelf in my hideout, but hey, it looks pretty cool hanging on the wall.

  • Notoriety - If you're not completely stealthy during your missions, there may be witnesses, or worse, sometimes you might get caught by a CCTV camera. If you don't "deal with" these problems during the mission, your Notoriety rating will increase. After each level, you're presented with a newspaper page where the main story is about the results of your last mission. As your Notoriety increases, the police start to put together descriptions of you from witnesses and camera footage. If your Notoriety gets too high, people may start to recognize you. If you didn't take care of witnesses during a mission, you're given the chance to shell out cash to lower your notoriety - ranging from bribing witnesses to obtaining a whole new identity.

  • Crowds - Some levels have hundreds of people wandering around. I never realised just how empty the levels were in the previous Hitman games until now. The levels feel a lot more realistic in this game.

    The Bad
    It was pretty short, and only took me a few days to complete. It seemed almost "too easy".

Also, the saving system was just bizarre. Your difficulty level determines how many times you can save your game during a level. However, these saved games don't persist between sessions. So if you play a mission for a while, then quit (or worse, the game or your computer crashes), your saved games vanish. You'll have to restart the mission from scratch. Seriously, who's bright idea was that?

Also, there was an overall storyline here, but I can't help but feel that I "missed something". You overhear bits and pieces of the plot from radios, TVs, and NPCs having conversations; I'm pretty certain I didn't hear all of it the first time through. But it doesn't matter too much to me; it's all about the missions.

The Bottom Line
Just as Hitman 2 was a lot more fun than the original, Blood Money is a lot more fun than Hitman 2. All the basic gameplay is the same, but all the new features add a whole lot of options.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2006

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Hitman: Blood Money appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

References

  • Each mission is followed by a report on your actions in the newspaper, usually detailing the circumstances surrounding your target's demise. The contents of the articles depends on your actions. Also, the newspapers have other headlines that can be read in detail as well. Now, the first paper you see include a small headline about two killers escaping from prison. This is actually an extremely obscure and subtle allusion to the Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, also developed by IO Interactive A/S.
  • Engine programmer David Guldbrandsen is inscripted as dead into a gravestone in the game with the years 1998 - 2004 which is his time he worked with IOI till Hitman: Blood Money was released.

Information also contributed by Fjonan

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Game added by Killy.

Browser added by CrankyStorming. OnLive added by firefang9212.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, DarkDante, COBRA-COBRETTI, Deleted, Brandon Burk, Mark Ennis, DreinIX, SGruber, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, DemonikD, FatherJack.

Game added May 28, 2006. Last modified January 29, 2024.