I dig it. Thanks for that.
Someone in Facebook is telling me to go play the older games like Blood Money and Contracts. Are they worth going back to?
I’d maybe consider blocking that person on Facebook.
(Seriously, don’t even think about going back to the older games until you’ve wrung out all the fun you can out of the new games. Blood Money was great for its time and it’s what the superfans love, but it is old and clunky).
Blood Money has been considered the best Hitman for a good number of years. It was the first one that used more original scenarios, like the Opera level, the detoxification clinic, the Mardi Grass level or the luxury Heaven & Hell party, with custom accident opportunities for the targets and more unique design, then add it refined the formula used in three previous games (which were a bit janky).
But that was before the new ones (Hitman 2016/2) were released. These new games use already the same formula of small and original sandbox levels, but do it better and bigger. Better graphics, better art, better animations, more accidents, the level design is really better thought for replayability, better AI, etc.
BM has its place in history because it invented some of these features like the accidents, but it was the newer games where it has been matured.
I actually played Blood Money a second time just before playing Hitman 2016, in fact I wrote a bit of the experience here. What I saw is that nostalgia was blinding some fans, even in fan favorite levels like the Opera one I was surprised to see how empty it was, how small was the level and how basically there was only two accidents setup, no more.
In most things, Blood Money offers the same experience as the new games but not as good, so there isn’t a lot of point on doing it, unless you want to experience everything. The only thing it has it’s some really interesting concept/level design (like the H&H party, or the Mississippi boat or the suburban level) that still hold up.
I really think that 47 should be able to wear women’s costumes. That’s no less ridiculous than a big bald white dude with a tattoo on the back of his neck blending in as custodial staff at a Bangkok hotel.
Blood Money still has the best atmosphere by far though. That Jesper Kyd goodness. I definitely recommend it. Hell, to newbie of the franchise its simpler missions might be a nice tutorial.
fyi, there’s no need to call it Hitman 2016. There’s only one game called Hitman, and it’s Hitman. It came out in 2016. You can just say Hitman. It’s not like Tomb Raider or Doom.
@BrianRubin, this video is pretty long but I think it’s worth watching once you’ve played the game for a bit. Or maybe just listen to it while you’re doing something else. The IOI team hangs out with Giant Bomb and gives them some tips on playing. Half of the video is in Paris, the second half is in Sapienza so you can stop there if you want to avoid spoilers for one of the all time best maps that’s ever existed in videogames. I haven’t seen this video in a few years but at the time I remember them sort of explaining their approach to the game and I realized I wasn’t quite going at it the right way.
Thanks for the insights guys, and the video.
Anyone who bought or played the original game in the series in 2000 called it just Hitman. All of the reviews published at the time called it Hitman. No one ever said Hitman: Codename 47.
I don’t know how good the old games are holding up, but just FYI:
IOI announced a couple of remasters a few months ago. Maybe you want to look into that.
Gah, those appear to be consoles only.
I’m still at Miami. One interesting thing is how much you have to replay the levels to get every conversation and see all that can happen. Not only you have to replay it, say, 3 times doing action A , action B and action C, to see and listen what happens in the three variations, in for example run C you need to do run C.1 and run C.2, because in different places different npcs can act simultaneously (like Sierra going to shout to her mechanics while the secretary is in the bar saying they should take care of her and not let her drink too much).
But replaying the levels a bunch of times until you know every NPC interaction so you can mess with them is kind of the point of this game. You’re like Ed Harris that HBO show of that movie of that book.
This video is gold
It goes into explaining with more detail some of the mechanics of the game.
The new ET is already online.
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You can know a game is good when a disguise called ‘Hippo Whisperer’ exists and you can provoke a ‘Death by Hippo’. That’s all I wanted to say.
And it’s based on a true story!
It feels so nice when you get all the classics in one go (sniper assassin + silent assassin + suit only, basically).
This one was fairly easy, all things considered. Infiltrated the construction site through the wooden log in the river, from there to the ritual temple room, from there to the hippo, throw meat and wait for Rico, baam, his body even fell directly to his pet, so Mijo would dispose of the body.
Next is distract the two guards with something, run crouched and cross all the riverside/harbor area of the mansion using the low wall as a cover. There is a guard at the end but he is using binoculars and he won’t see you. Cross the cave, you are in the coca fields.
In the cabin, where the target (the drug expert) goes once in his full path, is where you can kill them. Just attract the other guy before so you will be alone and get his key to enter, too. There is even crate to hide the body. Just remember to destroy the camera just above the door.
From there you cross os the coca plantation to the jungle area where the shaman is, from there to Andrea’s house. Climb it up through the pipe. Attract her secretary to the balcony throwing something, knock her out. Go down through one pipe, and when Andrea is using the phone, enter and kill her. Get out through the same path, done.
Great, I couldn’t play tonight thanks to the online drm! :(
Heh, I still remember when I was a bit unconvinced with the game because I had read the first level was small and tutorial-like, that meant the game would only have 5 ‘real’ missions, instead of six.
I see now the error in my ways. Some of the other missions are another step up in scope, in detail, and in possibilities. Mumbai for example is amazing, the ambiance is top notch, the detail per m2 is incredible (every little room or street has unique objects, cartels, graffitis, etc). The dramatic lightning, the bustling streets, the verticality of the place, the derelict slums… top notch.
It has three targets, one a slum lord in a trainyard, another a movie producer in a film set and the last one a elusive phantom roaming the streets, boss of the Crows gang, with bases on the sewers and the rooftops. Each one of them would be a separate mission in Blood Money, for example, each one with different unique kills, like infiltrating the movie set disguised as an actor or going to a meeting with the slum lord as her tailor.
But, in addition, there are even more possibilities you can do like making two target meet in a secret reunion and then killing them, or making a target kill another inadvertently, or help an assassin that was hired to kill two of them and then disguise as him to meet another one…