Assassination has never been so fun!
Each mission you are able to review the objectives and any other information, and choose your weapons for task at hand. You can also upgrade your equipment heavily, however, more powerful items for purchase are unlocked as you progress through the storyline, so you will only obtain the best gear at the very end of the game, a common problem with many FPS games.
However you are free to repeat missions at any time if you like, which while unrealistic, is surprisingly fun. There are alot of ways to kill people, and many players might find it fun to accomplish a mission with maximum or minimum body count. So feel free to bring your new silencer and extended mag to that newbie mission!
Difficulty is basically making the AI more suspicious of you (detecting disguises faster), and reducing the number of times you can save the game during the mission. On normal mode, you get a ridiculous 7 saves, whereas on pro (the hardest) you get none, which can be quite challenging.
The graphics are beautiful. The scenery of each level is very well done. There are lots of complex shadows and other lighting effects such as fog and bloom. The system requirements are pretty decent. I'm running an AMD 64 3700 with a ATI x700 pcix and 1GB of RAM and I get about 30-40 FPS in most areas.
The AI in the game is both good and bad. Good from a perspective that everyone seems to have some scripted behaviors that they perform. For instance in an opera house, security is walking around checking on different areas or perhaps heading into a security control room to watch some monitors for a while, repair and maintenance men are walking around doing different things or maybe stopping at the john for a wiz. I'm not a big fan of heavy scripting, but with all the different things going on it seems almost seemless. For this reason the AI is very good. But then the action starts...
When people hear gunfire they react in different ways. Some will run towards guards and notify them. Some will cower in fear. Some will run towards the source of the shot to investigate. Security personell will attempt to find the source of the shot and, if you are detected, will start shooting at you. The problem is they will approach often from the same direction, allowing you to create a choke point as they all run in to their imminent headshot doom. I can't really think of any other way to do this with today's technology, so it's forgiven, but boy does it look silly.
A cool hitman AI experience is clearing an area with silenced pistols and having some unknowing security guy come waltzing in later to discover the problem but still be unaware since he didn't "see" it happen.
A bad hitman AI experience is sniping someone with a silenced sniper rifle about 200 yards away and having the 50+ people surrounding him instantly RUN DIRECTLY AT YOU. (I killed em all :P)
It's a give and take I guess. Ultimately, the game is a lot of fun. Part of the fun is exploiting the wackiness of the AI sometimes too. For instance planting bombs in suitcases of unknowing tourists and setting them off when they reach an area of dense population, watching everyone go haywire... priceless.
One of your tools is your ability to dress in the outfits of your victims. You may suit up as a security guard for access to a specific area for instance. Basically you approach a body and change suits and your character bends over the body momentarily and instantly switches "skins" to the new clothing. Though this is a bit herky jerky, I don't want to have to wait for my character to strip down to his skivvies, fasten buttons, tie shoelaces, etc.
The sound of the game is awesome. Tons of voice multilingual voice talent for the characters, lots of cool weapon sounds, etc. The music is also quite nice, changing as different circumstances come about.
Replayability is really dependent on the person. I've beat the game twice (once on normal, once on pro) and have enjoyed both times through. I've also played through a few of my favorite missions a few more times just for kicks. Ultimately I'm about done with the game though, I'd say I've invested about 20 hours in it.
Hitman really brings the cold-blooded assassin motif up very nicely. If you want to whack some people, this is the game for you.
Gameplay - 9 - Playing through each mission how you want is very open ended, making the game alot of fun to play.
Graphics - 9 - They are superb.
Sound - 9 - Nice music, great sound effects, fantastic voice acting.
Value - 8 - Decent long game with some replay value in there. High quality game over all with very few bugs.
Reviewer's Tilt - 9 - Though I'm a bit Hitman'd out having played through twice and then some, I'm sure I will be back when the urge for killin' calls again.