The Hitman thread

[NokkonWud]

Both Chinatown levels, the Terminus Hotel and the Streets of Hope are pretty good in terms of exploration, freedom of movement and the largest number of hit options. But, yeah, Blood Money is a masterclass in level design for sandbox environments. Silent Assassin too, but that's quite tough to go back to after Blood Money.

I'm hoping it has been polished suitably (along with Contracts) for the Hitman HD collection that's coming out. *fingers crossed*

[James]

It's all on the Glacier engine, so hopefully a few tweaks here and there are possible. That said, the Steam versions still don't work for a lot of people with no word from IO on any attempts to fix the issues, so they might just be upscaled ports. We'll have to see.

[TomFum]

I got sent a copy of this over dropbox the other day, i havent got round to installing it yet, but having never really played a hitman game before i look forward to trying it out.

[Alex79]

I'm really enjoying it so far. I came to it with no expectations whatsoever, the only Hitman I've ever played being the second game on PC for about an hour many years ago. Enjoying the way there are lots of different ways to kill your target (although there is a lot more poison lying around the world than is realistic haha). But yeah, very pretty, fun, just wish I ever had more than an hour at a time to get stuck in to it. What I really need is to contract some sort of non life-threatening condition which kept me off work for a month so I can sort out my pile of shame. Maybe I need to get myself pregnant, which actually thinking about it would be quite a remarkable feat and unlikely to lead to the quiet life I crave...

[Alex79]

Would the 360 version of Blood Money be the best one to get (on console, at least). Don't think it was released on PS3 was it?

[James]

Would the 360 version of Blood Money be the best one to get (on console, at least). Don't think it was released on PS3 was it?

You're absolutely right that it is currently only available on PC (incl. Steam), PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360. The 360 version is excellent and the controls have been fitted to a controller very well, though I slightly prefer the PC version.

That said, you've got two real options for playing Blood Money on console.

1 - Pick it up on Xbox 360 for pennies at this point.

2 - Wait for the Hitman HD Collection to come out (rumoured to be next year), which comprises Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Contracts and Hitman: Blood Money. That's going to be available for 360 and PS3, giving you 3 excellent games and a choice of systems to play them on.

Let us know what you decide to do. Always good to hear about newcomers experiences with the Hitman series.

[NokkonWud]

James beat me to it re: HD collection. That said, Blood Money is (rightfully so) regarded as the pinnacle of the series and you'll be able to get it for less than £5 I'd have thought. It's brilliant. The only issue is the control scheme, it's not great, but manageable and in spite of it, I still adore that game.

[James]

In case anyone reading this thread hasn't seen the site front page, my Hitman: Absolution review is ready for your perusal. Have a read; any thoughts or comments will be gratefully received here, or in the article comments.
http://caneandrinse.com/hitman-absolution/

[AndyKurosaki]

This is so getting traded when I finish it. Utter shit, a total ball ache to play. IO, I'm officially done with you. Good luck with Kane and fucking Lynch 3.

[Alex79]

I dunno, I like it. My only gripe is the checkpoints. They are too few and far between, and it's not that the game is hard but they don't really allow for much experimentation. Fun game though.

[DarthCuddles]

Im enjoying it but it's not blood money 2 which is what I really wanted. I see a lot of people say it's terrible but I don't understand what is terrible, the story is meh and the disguise system can be pointless but there is still enough of the hitman i love in there to quench my thirst

[Alex79]

I'm definitely looking forward to the HD collection now, whereas before I played Absolution I was never really that interested in the series.

[AndyKurosaki]

The story is indeed awful, but it's the checkpoint system that ruins this for me. In the previous games, depending on your difficulty, you had a number of saves so you could experiment. Here, you have to reach Checkpoints. Which wouldn't be so bad, if the disguise system wasn't so fucking awful. In seconds, guards get suspicious and kick off at me, and i'm damned if I know why. A few levels in, I got sick and tired of going through a level, planning a hit only for one guard to get pissed off and me and initiate a fire-fight. So I thought "fuck this" and blazed my way through the rest of the game, killing every fucking guard I saw.
And the moment it gave me Silent Assassin for killing my target in broad daylight, with a packed crowd watching, was just a fucking joke.

It's blatantly obvious that the talent in IO doesn't exsist anymore. Done.

[JaySevenZero]

The story is indeed awful...

To be honest and despite owning all the console games before Absolution, I've always thought the story behind all the games was a load of contrived bollocks, rarely ever making sense as to what the motivation behind all the many assassinations was meant to be.

[Alex79]

Ok, I just finished this game. Thoughts? Well, I really don't know...

I enjoyed it. Yeah, that's fair to say. I enjoyed the game. I finished it, and if I'm not enjoying a game I never force myself to push on, I am of the opinion that there are so many brilliant games out there, why waste time playing bad ones. So yeah, it was enjoyable. The thing is, I came from a position of both not paying for the game, and not ever having really played a Hitman game before, and whilst I enjoyed it, I can see how it might have frustrated long time fans of the series.

The missions ranged from the brilliant (Streets Of Hope, Chinatown Market, Diana's House, Courtroom) to the annoying (the wrestling match one, the cornfields one) to the downright 'might as well have been a Max Payne game (the prison and the epilogue). The ending was a bit of an anti climax, and the story was utterly woeful. I don't think I ever really had any idea why I was killing the people I was killing (and had to consult the in game notebook at the start of every level to even work out where I was, or why I was there). The checkpoint system was a disaster, and prevented exploration and experimentation because of the huge parts you'd need to re-do after making a fuck up.

But, in it's favour, the game was one of the best looking games I've played for a while, the audio and soundtrack was excellent, and the good missions were awesome. I've not played a game like this before, and as a rule I'm really not a fan of the stealth genre - I don't like the MGS series (apart from the first game), I don't really like Splinter Cell or Thief, and I thought Dishonored was boring too. But the stealth in this I liked, don't know why, but the good levels really highlighted the contrast between the good and the bad in this game.

From what I've read about the Hitman games over the years it always seems a case of so near, but yet so far. I've not been interested in the series before, but as I said earlier, I'll definitely be picking up the forthcoming HD collection. Thanks to C&R for the copy of the game, I think I'll dive in to the Contracts mode for a bit now, and maybe try my hand at creating a level.

[Alex79]

The HD collection has snuk on to the PSN store this week with no fanfare whatsoever. I didn't even realise it was out yet! Anyone played it? The £19.99 price tag is quite attractive - especially on a digital game which is usually higher. It's only the fact I've got a lot of other games to get through that's stopped me buying it.

[DarthCuddles]

The HD collection has snuk on to the PSN store this week with no fanfare whatsoever. I didn't even realise it was out yet! Anyone played it? The £19.99 price tag is quite attractive - especially on a digital game which is usually higher. It's only the fact I've got a lot of other games to get through that's stopped me buying it.

I bought it on Shopto, but only found out it was released but accident, but it includes blood money so was an insta buy

[JaySevenZero]

I've been giving Hitman: Absolution a rinse over the past couple of days and thoroughly enjoying it. However, as the free Plus version also comes with The Sniper Challenges I decided to have a looksee last night what this was about and ended up being rather distracted by it too. On the surface it seems a little throwaway (even if it's 834Mb) but when you start to look into the actual challenges, I quickly realised there is a surprising amount of depth in it. My only criticism is that there is only one map and mission, they've missed a trick by not creating some more of this kind of thing.

[Alex79]

Sounds interesting, do you know if you can just install the sniper challenges without the main game? I notice they come as separate downloads from the PSN store when you click 'download' on the main game - is it fully stand alone?

[JaySevenZero]

Sounds interesting, do you know if you can just install the sniper challenges without the main game? I notice they come as separate downloads from the PSN store when you click 'download' on the main game - is it fully stand alone?

It is a stand alone - I believe it was released prior to the release of Absolution as a pre-order bonus of sorts.