Game Review: Hitman: Blood Money : Executive Overview

02:48 - Thursday 27 July 2006 by THG Reporting Team
Source: THG – Keywords: hitman, blood, money, uk

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Hitman: Blood Money
Genre Action Adventure
The plot/hook Clever, open-ended assassination game with the trademarked open-ended missions
Graphics Updated from the previous two iterations. Mr. 47 and NPCs look a lot crisper, lighting is much improved for daylight missions, and the textures are a lot more lavish.
Sound & Voice Acting Sound is exquisite, from gunfire to the crunching of snow underfoot, as we've come to expect. Another fine soundtrack from Jesper Kyd rounds things out.
Controls The usual intuitive W, A, S, D serves in both first and third person views, with no complaints about the camera in third person view. Right-clicking the mouse brings up the intuitive inventory. No jumping, except in pre-defined areas.
Interface Same as before: health, weapon and alert status indicators and nothing else. Alert status indicator is a lot less twitchy than in previous iterations, with a corresponding AI stabilization.
Learning curve None for those familiar to the series; a minor one for new players. The game is forgiving on easier difficulty levels, and one can shoot through missions if going stealth doesn't work out.
Mechanics Same as with most action adventure games, except puzzles are replaced with ingenious ways of killing people: for example, a bomb on the chandelier, or a sabotaged gas cooker.
AI Still dodgy when you get up close and pay careful attention. Civilians and belligerent NPCs still act a bit funny, and guards will often run one after the other towards bodies-and if you're still waiting behind cover, right into your guns.
Game Play A dozen levels in different settings and scenarios, such as a hospital, jungle villa, and suburban neighbourhood. Weapons range from knives to pistols to poison that can be inserted into food. You can rescue people, kill people, and retrieve items. At the end of each mission, you see a rather tacked-on newspaper report that highlights how you did, alongside the traditional scoresheet.
Replay Value Huge replay value-every mission can be played through multiple times, and often one is inspired to do so even before moving on to the next mission.
Multiplayer None
Summary A rehash of a fairly tied down formula, still with some minor blemishes of the series unresolved, but overall the best game currently on the market for dishing out carefully considered death.
Score 4.5/5.0

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