Hitman: HD Trilogy

The Good
The 'Hitman' series has always been one of my favorites ever since playing the first game on my PC. From the first one, it seems like each release got better and better. 'Absolution,' the newest entry in the series, has since ruined this. But that's a whole other story. And in case you're unsure, this HD trilogy comes with parts 2 through 4. This review is for the HD remasters, not the games themselves.

'Silent Assassin' (a.k.a. 'Hitman 2') is the earliest entry in this trilogy. The HD remaster for this installment is rather refreshing as it really livens up the colors of environments and smooths out model textures. In all honesty, I didn't feel that the remastering made much of a difference, but after I played it on my GameCube recently, I noticed that the game had an overall murky look to it. This 'murky' effect was most definitely present in the levels with snow - the skies were gray and the snow was somewhat green. However, in this new HD version, the skies look a bit more blue-ish and the snow actually looks white. As far as sound goes, 'Hitman 2' has always had good sound quality, but the sound on the HD version sounds a bit deeper and perhaps even a little more acoustic, which in my opinion is a good thing. Overall this remastered version is great, but there seems to be a new problem that I did not encounter in the original version. I'll elaborate on this in the 'Bad' section.

'Contracts' (a.k.a. 'Hitman 3') is the next entry in this trilogy. Now perhaps it's just my eyes but it doesn't really seem like they've done much HD remastering on this entry. Refer to the 'Bad' section below for my review. On a side note, everything in the game sounded good to me, so I guess that the audio quality is good enough.

'Blood Money' (a.k.a. Hitman 4) looks touched up, and is, in my opinion, the best looking game in this trilogy. This installment has always looked good, even on its original port for the PlayStation 2 and the XBox. Ultimately, 'Blood Money,' looks a bit smoother, but I really can't say much else about this HD remaster. I've always thought this entry has looked good, especially because it's only from 2006, which wasn't too bad of a year for graphics. Of course with great picture quality comes great sound. Again, everything sounded the same to me. So since this remaster looks and sounds good, I'll leave it in the 'Good' section.

The Bad
This is a great series and am delighted to see it re-released in HD, but there are some flaws I noticed.

In 'Silent Assassin,' there's this bizarre glitch that pertains to the binoculars. The player can select the binoculars to use but cannot zoom in or out. To fix this, the player must pause and then unpause, which sometimes doesn't work the first time, so you will have to fiddle with it at moments when you need it. I know this is a bit dumb to point out, but I know that myself, along with a handful of other players, need the binoculars to complete certain parts in the game.

Earlier I said that I didn't notice too much touch ups in 'Contracts.' I played this game quite frequently on both my PlayStation 2 and my PC a few years back, and I have to say that those previous releases look as good as this new HD remaster. It's not like this game looks ugly, the graphics always met my standards, but still... At least with 'Silent Assassin' and 'Blood Money' they look like they spent some time working on the remasters. But with 'Contracts,' it just appears to me as a mere copy and paste. Character models don't look as smooth as parts 2 and 4, and the colors are still rather dark as in earlier releases.

The Bottom Line
So aside from the small glitch in 'Hitman 2' and the more or less HD remaster of 'Contracts,' this trilogy is a must have for any fans of the series or stealth games. Basically you're getting these three games remastered in HD - there is no new content or anything like that added to these games. However, it does come with three trailers for the abomination known as 'Hitman: Absolution,' which is more or less of a good or bad thing.