Get your Fiber Wire ready!
There are some improvements to this game and not only graphical wise. One of the most notable changes they made is that they threw out the old clunky choice system with the little window and choices to make when there are some, now its context sensitive button presses. The E button is considered the action button and the Space button applies to picking things up. While the G button is the drop button, where you can either drop a dragging body or whatever you happen to be holding at the time. Another change is that he’s no longer in foreign countries, now all of Agent 47's targets are in good ol' USA, with notable locations such as Louisianan during Marti Gra celebration. They also add a neat newspaper headline about your mission when you’re done with it. It’s pretty neat to read how they wrote about your performance, and its pretty cool to read the other things in there, like a small preview of your next mission, a small funny quote from president bush, or whose winning the current presidential election.
Gameplay: 810
The gameplay has definitely improved since Contracts, however its not perfect. the major problem I have with the gameplay is the AI. As far as comparing to other AI in games its up there, but sometimes it just leaves you going. "How did he know i was here?" or "how did he NOT see me?" I’ve experienced the AI see me dragging a body while he was turned around and so far away I could barely see him, not only that, i was on a balcony so it would have easily covered the view of his body... The new context sensitive interface makes things much easier then that drop down menu window in Contracts. although some problems still arise when you have multiple bodies/weapons/items overlapping each other and you need to place yourself in the exact right spot to pick up what you want, this can take too much time do to when you are trying to dispose of a body before a guard comes around. They also added the ability to upgrade the basic weapons you get in every mission, as well as standard equipment. (Like a Kevlar vest, painkillers, etc) You purchase these upgrades with your Blood Money that you get from completing the mission, you get more money the better you do, and you lose money for things like damage control, and leaving your suit behind. They also added the notoriety system for Normal difficulty and higher. This means that if you are either caught on video and don’t retrieve the video, or there are witnesses. The police/guards/FBI agents can also see you and start shooting too, which will give you a lot of notoriety, but i usually restart if something like that happens. At the end of the level you can spend some of your earned money to get rid of the notoriety (which will make future levels harder because people will know what you look like) but it’s not necessary, and honestly i never get more then 10 on a level and that’s cheap to get rid of.
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics in this game are much better then in contracts, but you can clearly tell it was made for consoles in mind, seeing as how the textures aren’t too special and the lighting effects are "ok" to say the least. Although it looks better than on the Xbox 360 if you have a good enough card to run all the AA and AF at a high resolution. The character face models are much better then Contracts but not nearly as good as something like GRAW.
Sound: 7/10
The music in this game is nothing special, in fact its mostly just whatever the party is playing. The menu music and opening scene though, I think, is really good and usually I listen to it every time i start the game. The sound effects are really good though, I don’t think they were sampled from real weapons so the quality of them is really good, all things considered. When you put a silencer on your Silverballers and you get the dualies, the sound of them shooting just gives you a tingly feeling up your spine and makes you want to shoot it again. Not to mention when you syringe people, that injection sound just makes you want to hold your neck and be glad its not you. Other than that there really isn’t much sound effects, in fact sometimes I cant even tell if i have my sound on, seems like they are missing a lot of sound effects.
Value: 9/10
For $40 bucks compared to the 360 price of $60 and the ps2 price of $50 why wouldn’t you get it for the PC? While there’s no online capability it still seems like the control scheme is better for the pc as opposed to the game pad. And really since there is NO online capability it’s a good thing it is priced for $40 instead of 50 or 60. The replay value is fairly high seeing as how there’s so many different ways to complete each mission, and i believe when you beat the game you can go through all the previous missions with all the weapons you collected, so that adds to the fun factor since maybe the second time around you might play it as a shooter instead of a stealth game. While there are only a dozen or so missions, they will probably take you a while to complete, the complexity in them is great, and not to mention the fact that you have to choose which path you want to follow.
Tilt: 10/10
No other game can come close to the feeling that getting a Silent Assassin ranking gives you. The SA ranking is the prestige among all rankings and requires you to perform perfectly on the level and not make a single slip up. Not to mention the sentimental value of the Fiber Wire. While it may be better to just sedate somebody, it’s hard to pass up Fiber Wiring a guard to take his uniform.
Overall: 8.7/10
All in all, if you’re a fan of the Hitman series then this is definitely the best one to pick up. If you’re a first timer to the series, then you will definitely enjoy the complexity of the levels and different choices to make. It’s also worth noting that this game can be very frustrating, but it’s meant to be that way, because if it wasn’t, it would be a fairly easy game. Besides, most of the time that you screw up it’s because you know that you made the mistake, very rarely is it some BS game mechanic issue.