Hitman: Blood Money

Firstly, we received our brief, we were told what our objectives were and what we needed to do. Once arriving at the scene, we sneaked around the back of the building where we found a guard just standing there, admiring the scenery. We crept up behind, and unfortunately for him, that scenery was the last thing he saw. After changing into his clothes to disguise ourselves we made our way through the lovely mansion, making our way to the reason why we were there, to execute the guy who ran all this - we were silent, but deadly. Who would have thought that being a Hitman would be this cool?

Hitman: Blood Money is the first Hitman game to arrive on the Xbox 360. For those who haven’t experienced the Hitman series before, you play as Agent .47 whose job is to take out, and we don’t mean to a restaurant or a drink in a bar, we mean ‘take out’ those of whom he is asked – for a handsome fee of course. How are we going to take them out you ask, well that’s half the fun…

Throughout the 12 missions of the game, you have the opportunity to complete ‘objectives’ in which you are required to take people out in a variety of ways in order to progress. Throughout the game, you have the chance to allow chandeliers to drop on unsuspecting victims, cause an ‘accidental’ explosion, poison, or even just take them out with a plain old shot to the head. There are generally multiple ways of completing your objective so to speak, which adds a lot to the game, helping to keep you on edge at all times.

The story is quite an interesting one, and really pushes you to play that next level in order to find out what happens next in the story. There isn’t much dialogue with only the occasional opportunities to talk to those around you, although characters do respond at times to how you are dressed. Hitman: Blood Money really encourages you use disguises to fool those around you, which is both extremely fun, and extremely amusing. We found that much of the challenge of the game is to configure whom you should take out and disguise yourself as. This can mean watching out for a security guard, staff or even a patient’s patterns of movement in order to find the perfect opportunity to kill or knock them so you can steal their clothes. Once disguised the characters around you will react depending on what you are wearing, so if you’re disguised as a waiter, then you’re not going to be allowed into any restricted areas, you can try, but you will certainly suffer the consequences.

There are a few things that bug us about the disguises though. Not only were we once shot for trying to enter a bar dressed as a red chicken (don’t ask), but don’t some of these security guards notice something is up? For example, what if ‘Fred’, had worked as a security guard at the Opera house for over 15 years, and suddenly vanished half way through his shift, then in his replacement comes some new guy who no-one has ever heard of, and starts wondering aimlessly, and no-one is suspicious! Jokes aside, if they do eventually find Fred sedated and half-naked in the toilet they do act more cautiously, which really adds to the drama you will experience throughout the game.

We should say now that we did find the game immensely difficult on occasions, it’s probably just our lack of patience, but we prefer to think that the non-linear style of the game not only gives more opportunities, but also increases the difficulty - a good thing in this case. A game like Hitman needs to be played on a higher difficulty level, it adds so much to the tension of the game, and is all the better for it.

Generally, the non-linear style gameplay really enhances the experience, offering the opportunity of numerous playing styles, great for both those who those who are shadows of the night as well as (to some extent) the sneakily challenged.

Some of the levels were certainly better than others; a few of the levels really offered some great moments of tension and suspense, others seeming to be more maze-like in comparison. The levels integrated well however, and amalgamate into an excellent concoction overall. At the end of the levels you are treated to a nice newspaper report, which details some of the events that transpired. One time the newspaper reported how we killed a security guard to gain access to a restricted area, they went on to quote the chief of security as saying “We hope the person who did this will die” – charming!