Eidos is on a roll this year. First they brought the Tomb Raider franchise back from the dead and now Hitman gets a much needed facelift. Blood Money has all of the things that made the Hitman series great to begin with but makes everything more accessible, gives you a lot more to do, and coats everything with a very nice looking layer of graphical goodness. The beauty of it all is that you can play however you want, so stealth and action fans alike will find a lot to love here.
Quick Hits
- Title: Hitman: Blood Money
- Platform: Xbox, Xbox 360
- Publisher: Eidos
- Developer: IO Interactive
- ESRB Rating: “M” for Mature
- Genre: Stealth, third/first person shooter
- Pros: Lots of variety, great level design, nice graphics and sound, high replay value
- Cons: Can be frustrating, can be too easy if you just go “Rambo”, no multiplayer
Story
If you aren’t familiar with the Hitman series, here is the scoop. You are the ultimate assassin, a clone known only as Agent 47. In Blood Money, while you are dispatching your marks with a mix of stealth and style, 47 himself is also being hunted by a rival organization. The story is surprisingly good and well executed so it is absolutely worth watching every second of each cutscene.
Gameplay
Eidos
The story will hook you, but the gameplay in Hitman: Blood Money will leave you absolutely addicted. Hitman is a third-person shooter but you can also switch the first-person mode with a click of the right stick. Both modes work well, but I stuck with third-person most of the time. Actions such as picking up objects or opening doors are context sensitive and when you can interact with something it will pop up in the upper left corner next to the button you push to do it. This keeps things nice and simple and lets you focus on more important things. When you have to fight, you have a lot of options here as well. Weapon combat is fairly straightforward, but when you don’t have a weapon you can punch and head butt enemies to knock them out and you can also disarm enemies and use their own weapon against them. There are a ton of different guns in the game and each one can be upgraded multiple times. You’ll also use other things such as fiberwire and poisons to dispatch your foes. The controls are good, for the most part, but the camera control is kind of wonky and takes a little while to get used to.
At its heart, this is a stealth game, but the beauty of it all is that you can still win even if you aren’t 100% stealthy. You get better rewards if you sneak around and only kill your mark, but if you want to just run around and kill everyone you can do that too. You have so many options in every single situation you find yourself in which is what makes the game so good. Each level is filled with different paths to your target and everything is entirely up to you. Do you knock out a guard and steal his uniform and just walk right through the front door or do you climb up the drain pipe and sneak through the open second story window? Do you kill your mark with a gun, poison, explosive, or do you simply push them off of the balcony? Each level is like a puzzle with a dozen ways to solve it.
Of course, if you make too big of a mess you have to pay for it. Your actions are regulated by notoriety and economy systems. The more you use stealth, the lower your notoriety. If you kill too many people or leave your suit or guns in a level, you have to pay for them to be “cleaned up” which leaves you with less money to buy upgrades or intel. It is a brilliant way of keeping your actions in check while still keeping things fun.
