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The return of the po-faced killer
By Koworld
Hitman: Blood Money does a terrific job of creating atmosphere and tension, and it fills each level with bustle, activity and opportunity. If this is what 'next gen' means then IO have delivered. There is a seriousness of intent here that permeates every pore of the experience - characters are convincing and colourful, environments are full of detail and plots deep and engrossing.
IO want us to believe in Agent 47 and his story. They want us to draw our Hitman enjoyment from the depth and detail. And that's where we, as players, lose the plot entirely.
Here's what happens: We're presented with wonderfully acted and genuinely engaging cut-scenes in which a shady goverment mastermind provides a journalist with an incredible back-story about the myth that is Agent 47. The gruff old man describes a lithe, silent legend. The legend of an unstoppable killer characterised by uncommon grace, lethality and untraceability. He describes the man with no identity - no face, no live witnesses. And the climax of each cut scene is one in which the old man introduces the next level you're about to play and he does so with awe and with great respect in his voice.
Them.
I then proceed to play those levels like a rubber-headed spastic - falling off stuff, getting stuck in corners, accidently blowing up civillians and getting clocked by literally tens of witnesses. My guns jam, I die over-and-over again, I fail to open cupboard doors and I make so much noise that the guards almost seem to be laughing when they kill me having found me stuck behind a crate failing to pick up a gun that's right there in front of me.
And us.
But, wonderfully, it's great fun all this getting the thing utterly arse about face. At one point the game, everso subtly, places a hammer there for you to do some silent killing with. The worker whose clothes you need stands obligingly waiting for you to tonk him on the back of the head. And of course it goes wrong and the result sees you go charging out into broad daylight with this hammer swishing around, like you've got arm-Parkinsons, to face twelve machine-gun toting guards.
Almost every level I play finishes exactly as life did for Butch and Sundance.
I'm really sorry IO and Eidos for playing your game wrong but here's the thing - I fucking love it. Each comedy fuck-up, panic and desperate dead-end is funny, thrilling and silly. Hitman: Blood Money is hugely entertaining. It's what these things are supposed to be.
August 2006
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