Patience is a virtue. It is, unfortunately, not one I was blessed with. I tend to play a lot of “action” games, games where you get thrown right into the thick of things and you’re forced to rely on your reflexes and your skill to survive. Then there are the “waiting” games. Instead of the usual skill set you are required to rely on careful planning, perfect timing, and flawless execution. And I have to admit, when everything comes together perfectly, it’s extremely rewarding.Hitman: Blood Money is the epitome of the waiting game. The latest in Eidos’s Hitman series, you play as Agent 47 in a 3rd person over the shoulder stealth game. As the infamous Agent 47 you eliminate high profile targets given to you by your contact. It’s nothing personal, just business. At least until Agent 47 becomes the target himself. The story follows the conflict between Agent 47 and a rival agency. It quickly becomes a matter of kill or be killed.
Disposing of the bodies afterwards is important as well. Foolishly leaving a body out in the open to be discovered by a guard is another sure way to ruin a job. You can drag bodies around and conceal them in out of the way places. It is better to “dispose” of them in things like dumpsters and freezers. These places guarantee that a body will remain hidden, and will not raise any sort of alarm.
Achieving the perfect hit is important. Your jobs do not occur in a vacuum. Newspapers report on the incidents, and the more of a spectacle you make the more accurate the reports will be, increasing your notoriety. The higher your notoriety the easier it is for guards to recognize you, making it almost impossible to successfully accomplish your mission. One thing I did find amusing is that the papers will publish a sketch of what you look like. Since I was doing a pretty good job of remaining undetected the picture looked absolutely nothing like me.
Hitman: Blood Money is loaded with ranged weapons. The other people in the levels carry a variety of special weapons. By collecting the weapons throughout the levels and sneaking them out or keeping them in special storage boxes they are stored in your hideout, allowing you to use them for target practice and also to complete your collection. There are also a number of specialist weapons that you can bring with you on your missions. Each of these weapons is fully customizable, including a number of sights, ammunition, and other components. While these weapons are all very cool, they are unfortunately not used very often. You can go through the levels without ever using the specialist weapons, and most of the time they are too unwieldy to sneak in to the levels. It seems like a shame to create all of these fancy weapons and then make it completely unnecessary to use them.
The main reason these weapons don’t get used is the nature of being a professional hitman. The mark of a true professional is the ability to get right up next to your target before taking them out. There are a variety of melee weapons you can use to assassinate your target. You always come equipped with 2 syringes of poison and your fiber wire. By sneaking up on your target you can take them out quickly and quietly without raising any kind of alarm. Even without weapons Agent 47 is a deadly man. Accidents can be arranged quite easily. People can be pushed over ledges, gas ovens can be sabotaged, food can be poisoned, and mines can be used to bring down pieces of scenery on the heads of unsuspecting targets.
One thing I really liked is that the game is not purely focused on violence and killing. You are actually rewarded for not being violent. While you will have to kill at least one target per level, they are the only victims. You are better off sedating or knocking out bystanders rather than just thoughtlessly killing them. In a game that could easily have focused on nothing but death and murder, this is an interesting route to have taken.
The thing that amazed me the most about this game is the sheer number of ways that your goals can be accomplished. I would routinely pick up items with the intention of using them, but never find the opportunity to do so. For example, in one level I came across lighter fluid, ether, and a tranquilizer gun. I could have used the lighter fluid to rig the grill to explode, use the ether to booby trap an article of clothing to knock out a guard, and the tranquilizer gun to knock out their dog. However, when I played the level I poisoned the targets drink instead, avoided the guard, and never even saw the dog. This type of expansive variety is shown in all the levels.
Hitman: Blood Money is an intense and disturbing stealth game, and is best played by those blessed with patience. It certainly won’t be for everyone, as it has a lot of violence and requires frequent reloading. But accomplishing the perfect hit is extremely rewarding.
If you have the patience.
I’ve always loved video games. I don’t know why, but they’ve always fascinated me. When I was younger, if I visited someone who had an Atari, that was all I wanted to do. It was a glorious day when I finally got my very own Nintendo.
I like a wide variety of games. I’m great at action and rpg games. I tend to be too much of a perfectionist with first person shooters and stealth games. I’ll spend 20 minutes in a level, only to reset it the first time a guard sees me. Platformers aren’t really my thing, I think the technology has better things to offer than that now. And I don’t do sports games.
I love games with a good story. I’ll play for hours just trying to get to the next plot twist. In a perfect world, I’d be writing my own video games someday
