Hitman: Blood Money

As is more often than not true for my reviews of VGs, this is based on the PC version. This title is generally met with positive response. That is well-deserved. In almost every way, this is the greatest since the first, and in many, it's even better. This is incredibly smooth, every aspect of it, it's unbelievable how much effort was put into it, and how well and clearly it all has paid off. This is probably the best of the whole series. The freedom is quite simply extreme. If you think you can do it, it makes sense to do in the context of what your goals are, and you have or can obtain the means... you are enormously likely to be able to. This allows you to be creative with your main limitation being your own imagination. You can spend literally countless hours trying out and finding the just about infinite different methods of successfully taking out your targets, with varying degrees of secrecy. Unprecedented, at least for these. Talk about your re-playability value. Things that occurred in the others are considerably more available here. They manage to keep them from becoming flat and dull. I'd say it's because they have multiple applications, and are, honestly, darned fun to work with. Examples, you ask? How about the possibility of making your hit look like an accident? They do happen, you know. Barbecues malfunction. Heavy objects drop at inopportune times, for those that are under them as they do. Less attention can help a professional killer. That brings me to the notoriety. If you get seen or make yourself too noticeable... mass murderers tend to be... then you will, in fact, be tracked down. Your picture might get in the paper. Civilians can recognize you. That's gonna make a mess of your next assignment. Either you plan and sneak, eliminate them spot-on, without anyone knowing you were there, or you spend a hefty chunk of your reward... which also depends on your rating, the stealthier, the more... buying the trouble away. Furthermore, you always get to carry a tactical explosive with you. Sabotage or a crude... but deliciously effective, and usually untraceable... instrument to render members of the opposition, and that includes the ones you're specifically hired to remove, deceased. The choice is yours. You now always have a syringe of poison, and one that will sedate, and mostly two uses of each. They can taint foods, or you can go for the direct approach. This combination is good, and the next step for that. In this are intricately detailed briefings, more so than the others in the franchise, except for perhaps Codename: 47, as well. This makes hiding easier, both for yourself and for bodies. Someone pointed out that this does get a tad obvious... with containers big enough to hold a corpse found in a bunch of areas. The closets for the clone himself are somewhat inconspicuous. There are negatives in this... they're minuscule and seldom impact the entertainment, but not entirely nonexistent. The training bit has been brought up before, too. While it does, indeed, introduce a lot of what you can do in this, leaving little of it unrevealed, it fails in setting the tone, by not only suggesting you mow down the majority of all you meet, but largely forcing you to do so. Unwise. From then on out, every mission does let you attain the coveted SA, or Silent Assassin, if you do it right. The several marks in all of them, among other things, help ensure that this offers plenty of challenge, and to all, on account of the four difficulty settings, that are rather well defined, and you get to read precisely what each has and hasn't got, prior to any second of trying it. This has a profile system... for every completion, you can store your progress, although you aren't required to, if, for example, you weren't happy with how well you did. Note that you can't load what you've saved if you exit, if you stop playing, you have to start that one, over. The weapons of this are nice and cool, and you have a couple that you can upgrade... the iconic Silverballers, the nifty Spas 12, an M4, a Heckler & Koch MP5 and the infamous Walther 2000. We're talking, silencers, alternate ammo, accuracy, speed to name a few. The money for those would be another reason to go for "clean" play-throughs. You can now purchase "intel", hints. The level design is solid. The map leaves little, if anything, to be desired, as with most else in this. The interface is magnificent. The camera is now "loose", with 360 degrees of freedom. And without losing the solid control of 47. You can, as the developers put it, stage the attacks, view it from the angle you want as you go into action. The cinematic style of this is excellent. The cut-scenes are amazing, and, seemingly, in spite of the LOD on them, invariably in-engine. They're part of the source of pure, unadulterated awesomeness of this. The plot is intriguing and well-told, with a climactic and satisfying twist. The graphics are immense and masterfully done. This tops as far as the realistic movement goes, and the rag-doll physics. This supports a huge group of characters at an occasion, and the NPCs always have their own life. You can watch it play out if you don't affect them. The AI is astounding. The music... wow. I wouldn't rule out that it's more enticing and fitting than in the other three. Jesper Kyd outdoes himself. With one exception, this takes place in the US... and nowhere else. That doesn't have to preclude it from having interesting and diverse locations, and it doesn't. There are some stereotypes in this, along with language, particularly in aforementioned intro, that can get harsh, and strong, at times pervasive, sexuality, albeit no nudity. I recommend this to any fan of the others, and/or open games. 9/10