Hitman: Blood Money has been out for a long time, however it is still able to compete with games today. For a game of its time, it has great graphics, refined gameplay and varied missions. For a Hitman fan it's a definite buy. For newcomers of the series it's still a great game to jump into as well.
This installment of the series sees Agent 47 going to a number of unique locations to peform hits on many unsuspecting victims. What is great about this game in comparison to previous titles is that the mission locations are a lot more varied. At one point you're in an action packed Mardi Gras festival and then you'll be in a quiet American suburb where people are peacefully cutting their hedges. This is one aspect of the game that really stood out for me because the previous Hitman games didn't seem as widespread in their mission locations. Because of this, the missions in
Blood Money feel a lot more memorable.
There is a story of sorts in the game but in my opinion, before
Absolution Hitman didn't put emphasis on story progression. Instead, it focused on gameplay and how you are able to take down your target.
Blood Money scored high marks in this department because it improves on the mechanics of the last three games. For one, you're able to turn the camera a full 360 degrees so you can see 47's face. It may not be a completely groundbreaking feature, but I welcomed the addition regardless. This installment also introduces accidental kills. This is where you manipulate the environment to perform a kill. You may push someone off a ledge to make it look like they've fallen, blown a chandelier off its rails to make it look like a fatal coincidence, and the list goes on. It makes killing targets a lot more fun as it adds more ways of doing so. The focus is of course on stealth and how well you can complete the mission without getting spotted. The disguises work pretty well in this (unlike
Absolution) and so with them you can access places you originally couldn't if you were wearing your suit. Act too much out of the ordinary (or have someone witness your kill) and you will become suspicious and more than likely get shot at. If you prefer, you can go in guns blazing but it will obviously affect your rating. The game has added a variety of new weapons and an upgrade system so that firefights are a lot more fun. Spend the money you earn on missions for upgraded lock picking speed, extended barrels/silencers for your weapons and so forth. However don't expect a walk in the park once you start gunning everyone down. Hitman has been designed to go in stealthily and so preferably should be played as such.
Another new addition to
Blood Money is the notoriety system. At the end of a mission it will show how violent you have been and how much noise you made. It will say if there were any witnesses, if you were caught on camera, how many people you killed and so on. If you did a lot of non-stealthy actions then your notoriety will increase. With the money you make from missions you have the choice of bribing people/gaining a new identity so that your notoriety will decrease. If you chose not to do this however, the next mission may be harder because you are more known in the world and may get spotted regardless of what you're doing. If you get the rating all the way to 100 then you will basically be the world's most wanted and so stand no chance of being stealthy whatever you do. In relation to this, at the end of each mission the game presents you with a newspaper with a headline of your target being killed. It explains how the targets have died and whether or not people know who the killer is. If you were very stealthy the newspaper will say that no one knows who it could be, and if you were getting spotted left, right and centre, then there will be sketch of what people think 47 might look like. The higher your notoriety, the more accurate the sketch will become. I thought it was rather clever the way the game did this. Eventually the novelty will wear off but it is still fun.
The achievements in the game aren't numerous. There are only 24 and it is a pretty standard list with not too much creativity. There are some achievements that are quite interesting like 'Get a special rating', or 'Complete a mission with precisely 47 kills,' but apart from ones like these it's your usual complete this, do that and collect these kind of list. It mirrors how much there is to do in the game, though. There are a total of 13 missions in the game (2 of these being a tutorial mission and a small epilogue mission) so it's not a huge game. Your first time through may take a while when trying to figure out how to kill your targets, but once you know each of the locations and what to do, it can be done very quickly. Until now Hitman has never been known for its long length and the amount of hours you can sink into it. On the plus side there is a lot of replayability with this one due to how many ways you can go about each mission. There are achievements regarding each difficulty (and they don't stack) so you're going to need quite a few playthroughs to bag the 1000 points. I'm not finding it too tedious but it can be rather frustrating if you're trying to quickly get through a mission and you constantly get spotted.
This game may be old, but by no means is it out of date. If you fancy a new experience than your mainstream shooter, then give this a go. In my opinion you don't really need to have played any other Hitman game to enjoy this. Just jump right in! While feeling a lot different than its predecessor and having new features added to it, it still remains faithful to its routes and a great part of the Hitman franchise. You'll be able to find it for a cheap price too, or you can grab the more recently released HD collection and play it from that. For a game of this age the graphics are very good and the controls are smooth. If you're wanting a game to sink a lot of time into or you're a one playthrough only type of person, then don't expect too much from this. Length aside, it is a fun game and is still worth your money after all these years.
4.5