Hitman: Blood Money masterfully puts you in the shoes of a government contract killer.
However, every once in a while, due to who's knows what, we gamers get a great game. A game that raises the bar slightley for all games, and raises it much more for games in it's respective genre. For the stealth/action genre, that game is Hitman: Blood Money.
The basic premise of the game is that you, agent 47, are a government-made assassin that has been genetically engineered to carry out any mision given to you - in the most efficient way possible. What the most efficient way possible is, is entirely up to you. Each of the game's levels is intricately designed so that you have many, many, different ways to complete your objective. And the best part of all, is that, being a contract killer, your objective is always to kill one or more people in any way you see fit. You can enter the level, guns-a-blazing, killing everyone in your path until one of them is the actual person you were supposed to kill, or you could be creative and kill without a trace. Being a true silent assassin, leaving the authorities puzzled. In between these two "extremes" lies whatever your imagination can come up with, and believe me when I tell you: the levels make it not only easy to use your own techniques, they provide plenty of situations you may not have thought of. For example: in every level, there are various kinds of people. Security guards, doctors, VIP guests, etc, which can be killed or left unconcious (of course). But what is most impressive, is that you have the ability to change clothes with them, effectively taking on their role. So, if you switched clothes with a VIP guest, you might get access to a room that you couldn't as just an ordinary guy, but if you take the security guard's clothes, you might get access to many more areas not accessable by the guest. Of course, changing clothes is always good if the local authorities start to get suspicious of you as it will make your suspicion go down (because they are looking for 'someone else'). Just don't get caught changing, and don't let them find the bodies, because it will give you away.
Now, while Hitman does an excellent job of making each contract unique and ultimately player-customizeable within an extremely detailed level, it does even more. In between missions, you are able to choose your weapon(s), which can be one or two of the ones you have by default, or one or two of the weapons you may find in any given level (Both catagories can also be mixed and matched but you can only have one of each type: side arm, SMG, etc). This adds a whole new level of customizability. Not being bound by stupid level-exclusive weapons, you can go into a sniper friendly level with a sidearm if you so choose. Furthermore, the weapons you have by default can be upgraded by using your money you make from contracts. Each weapon has basic upgrades (Increased ammo clips, laser sight, less recoil, etc) while some weapons can be silenced and equipped with laser sights.
Another interesting aspect of the game is it's 'debriefing screen', which is basically a newspaper article summing up the hit. Which is pretty cool to read the first few times. If you get to the point where you just don't care, you can always skip it.
The graphics in Blood Money are quite good, and do well to immerse you in the atmosphere the game has made for you. The lighting is great, and the guns, which is probably the main focus of the game, look good too. Each weapon fires it's own distinct sound, and the ragdoll physics certainly do well to make each kill enjoyable.
When you consider that this game is a new installment of a series that didn't start out too well, it's about time. But I, for one, am glad that the series has made some sizeable changes to it's formula. Ultimately producing what I believe to be one of the best games to ever grace the X-Box.