CJRavey always gets his man – or that's what they say in his local 'fun bar' – and he's got his big weapon out for Hitman.
You've never had it so good – it's official. If you're looking for the thinking man's action games, then this winter will see you counting every penny and making some hard decisions about which games you'll be spending those long evenings with. Conflict Desert Storm, Splinter Cell – both will provide late nights of chin stroking, bursts of action and well executed strategies – and so too will this latest Hitman game.
Hitman 2 Silent Assassin is a nicely executed stealth-em-up where you take the role of No 47; a killer for hire who is brought out of his reclusive new life for 'one more job.' On the surface you couldn't get a more clichéd plot, but this is a game – and benefits from strong, simple plots and objectives to get the gamer hooked – and what's more, as the game develops, there's a lot more than meets the eye going on… In actual fact it's the kidnapping of 47's only chum – bizarrely, a padre – from his new hideaway, that gets the game kicked off.
You are introduced to 'your home', which is, um, a garden shed. There's just time for a quick explore around the grounds, to get used to the fairly simple movement methods, and it's off to confess to the Padre. No sooner have you spilt your guts about all the men you've killed ('ah well', says the Padre, 'you DO look after the garden well enough') then two mafia thugs have run off with Padre Vittoria. Now it's time for revenge.
Fortunately there's a trapdoor in your unassuming shed, which leads to shed loads (ah ha ha, ah ha) of fancy equipment – and a direct line to the Agency. In return for info on Padre Vittoria's whereabouts, you agree to do a job…
Between each mission you come back to the church, and can explore increasing areas of this 'hub level' – including practising your silent killing methods on a strangely animated scarecrow…
Ah, killing. Never has a game offered so many ways to off your foes. Be it a kitchen knife, sniper rifle, crossbow, fibre wire, shotgun – be they the intended targets, goons or just innocent passer bys, it's all up for grabs. There are numerous ways to complete each levels and make 'the hit', whether you spare every life but the target's, or just mass-murder your way into the building.
Kill someone and a corpse is left – forever (or until someone shifts it). This isn't old style 'fading corpses' gaming – if you don't want anyone to discover it, you have to shift it. Neat rag doll physics mean that the bodies realistically slide and bump along as you drag them. Pardon our morbid excitement, but it's fairly impressive. Sadly when you kill a French maid you can't steal her costume, but you can drag the body. No literal 'drag' then, oo er.
Before you do dump the corpse in an out of the way spot, you may want to steal its clothes – a disguise that will work until you're quite close to an enemy guard.
The method used to swap between weapons, and perform actions, takes some getting used to – but stick with it. The worst thing at first is that the B button (on Xbox) drops whatever weapon you're carrying it. It's especially annoying when you have to sniper someone and you discover you accidentally left the sniper rifle three streets back.
As for the actions, generally each object that you can interact with offers you a quick onscreen menu, which you can scroll down. The simplest example is a door – do you want to open it, or peer through the keyhole? It's little touches like peering through keyholes that makes this game great, tense immersive fun.
There's a few details lacking – you leave no footprints in the snow, (and it would be nice to bury your enemies bodies there as you do in Eidos' other sneaky-kill-a-thon Commandos 2) but this game is more about action, tension and the experience of being a Hitman than the oft-long winded and extremely difficult Commandos…
Another nagging detail is the map screen – the game doesn't pause whilst you stop to plan your route. Whilst this can be great to monitor movements of enemies; which appear on the map, sometimes it would be nice to get your bearings without the clock ticking away (especially on timed missions). You do get a peek at the map before you start though…
The game's save method is great – a lovely middle ground between the 'save when you want' tension killer and the 'find a typewriter thingy before you save' annoy-a-thon of Resident Evil. You have a finite number of saves within a level – and how and when you use them is up to you. Depending on the size and difficulty of the level this will vary…
To sum up Hitman, you really ought to buy it – so I can finish off writing this review and get back to playing it. It's taken me three hours to get this close to a Japanese crime lord, and he really MUST die.
To sum it up another way, I was running low on ammo, the room in front of me was filled with enemy troops operating some monitors with a general (or some bigwig) stood with his back to the door. Pulling the left trigger to enter into stealth mode, I opened the door, pulled my fibre wire around his neck and pulled him back through the door – he died as I did so. Before anyone in the room (who were intently studying their screens) had noticed, I re-entered dressed as the general and calmly began to walk across the room. On the other side of the door, the general's body was being discovered. The alarm was raised, and half way across the room, I span round and blasted the living daylights out of the unsuspecting baddies as they turned. Then, I pegged it as fast as I could. Thrilling stuff.
Each level has multiple routes, and to a degree you can play the game how you want – with most levels offering fairly large amounts of replayability. Now leave me alone, I have someone I need to kill.