Hitman: Blood Money

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.