Hitman: Blood Money

"Once You've Played This Game, Blood is on your hands....."

Hitman:Blood Money is the latest installment in the Hitman game series. But is it a perfect hit, like the rest of Agent 47's assignments?
Story 7/10
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While you might not expect much of a story in a game where you kill different people every level for no purpose other then money, Hitman:Blood Money's story ties in much better then expected with the levels and gameplay. The story centers around a cloned "perfect" soldier known only as 47. 47 works for an agency called the ICA, which is a Hitman hiring service. The game follows 47 through many of his "jobs", from the Paris opera to the White House. During the course of the story, many issues of human cloning are debated by politicians, leading up to the possible legalization of cloning near the end of the story.
Another side of the story follows a reporter named Rick Henderson, who is a newspaper reporter looking for the next big scoop. When he is contacted by a former FBI agent, he is interested, but ends up unravelling the mystery of Agent 47, following him through his "hits".

But how does this all add up?

Gameplay 9/10
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Combining traditional Hitman gameplay, and adding new features, Blood Money is not only entertaining to play, but also surprisingly refreshing. The Heads Up Display features a compass, and a little icon telling you what action you can perform on any objects you're examining. The simple map and legend helps players find targets and important objects with ease, with the exception of the higher difficulties.

A new feature added to the Hitman games, is the ability to customize your own weapons. 47 starts the game with a basic assortment of a pistol, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a sub machine gun, and a sniper rifle. During the process of the game, you can spend money earned from jobs upgrading these weapons. These upgrades include adding scopes and laser sights, changing the slide, fitting the gun with silencers, or replacing the gun's stock parts with lightweight parts. You can also keep weapons acquired during jobs for use in later jobs, if you wish.

The game encourages stealth, though players can run and gun through many of the levels as well. Using stealth will earn you a higher rating, which would obviously earn you more money. With the money, you can either buy the aforementioned upgrades, or you can choose to invest in bulletproof vests, improved lockpicks, improved bombs, and non detectable briefcases.

Yet another new feature is a witness/evidence and notoriety impact. People who witness you perform your hit will affect not only your rating on the current level, but they could also inform police officials and newspapers, which could make future jobs much harder, unless you either bribe them at the end of the level, or kill them. This adds yet another feature to the game, the newspaper. The newspaper is shown to the player after each level, and is basically a police and media account of events performed by you during the hit. If you were the perfect hitman, the newspaper would read something like "Silent Assassin Wanted by Police".

Audio 7/10
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The main menu features two different sets of sounds, a classical opera-esqe theme, or an upbeat theme. Each level has its own background music, until you are discovered or any action occurs. Whenever either happens, an exciting, upbeat theme plays, a mix of opera and instrumental music. While this theme is not bad, it is a little repetitive as the only "action" music in the game.

The sounds effects are quite enjoyable, especially the sniper rifle and silenced pistol noises. The bomb sound effect leaves something to be desired for, but since it is not heard often, players won't notice it much.

Video 9/10
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The game features awe-inspiring graphics. Blood Money requires a high performance computer to play, but if you make the requirements, it is a most-see. The water sparkles in the outdoor environments, and lights and strobes in club settings are amazing. The characters are modeled down to their eyes, which move and blink in a life like manner, and the textures on objects such as briefcases and rifles are well detailed. The only visual fault of the game is that in the larger parade and club areas, there is almost no variety in character models, making it seem as though you were running through a crowd of the same five people.

Replayability 8/10
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The game features 4 different difficulties for you to try out. On the harder difficulties, the levels are quite a challenge, but you'll feel much satisfaction once you've beat each one. Blood Money contains quite a few levels, which could take a first timer a day or two of straight gameplay. For those who've played the game through once already, you might be able to cover a difficulty in one whole day. Once you've completed all the missions, you can try to get the best rating (Silent Assassin) on each level, and collect all the collectible weapons in the game for display and test firing at your safe house.

Overall: A worth purchase. If you've never played a Hitman game before, I recommend doing some reading on the gameplay first, and if it interests you, then its definitely a good buy. 9/10 (Not averaged)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/06