Hitman: Blood Money

"Names are for friends... so you don't need one. *WHAM*"

In the Hitman series of games, you control Agent 47, a genetically engineered assassin out to make a pretty penny by renting his exceptional skills as a hitman. The latest in the series, Hitman: Blood Money, is by far the best.

Graphics - 9/10

Crisp. Clear. Not extremely mind-blowing, but quite realistic. The blood and gore effects as well as muzzle blasts, bullet ricochets, et cetera, are quite nice and definitely add to the tension of a gunfight - and you WILL get into a gunfight eventually on your first playthroughs of the level, no matter how sneaky you are. Animations are smooth and convincing, and seeing someone cartwheel over a railing to their doom is quite neat.

Sound - 9/10

Excellent. From the cough of a silenced gun to the uproar of a fifty-caliber pistol as it tears through your target's skull to the target grunting and struggling for breath as you strangle him with a fiber wire, quite good, crisp, and realistic.

Gameplay - 10/10

From the moment you step behind the steely blue eyes of 47 to the moment you raise your gun to blow your target's brains out through the back of his skull, you will get the definite feeling that you are a hitman. The game works wonderfully at creating an atmosphere of tension and calm professionality at the same time, exactly the feeling you would get if you were watching a movie about a cold-blooded killer.

The Hitman series has always been about multiple ways to accomplish a given objective, and this game shines true to that. From poisoning your target in his sleep to dropping a chandeleir on him to simply busting in through the doors with an automatic weapon and mowing everything down that gets in your way, you can go about completing a mission any way you wish. As stealthy or as barbaric as you want, it's all up to you. There is delicious complexity in this game, that is an immediate and obvious given. Each mission is structured as such to give ultimate freedom to the player as to how he will go about his hits.

Take, for instance, a target sitting in an outdoor glass-bottom hot tub in the rocky mountains during a christmas party, suspended over a long drop. What do you want to do? Snipe him from an above ledge? Take down his bodyguards from behind, use one as a human shield and blast all the guards before strangling him to death? Sneak to a passageway below and shoot the glass, making it look like an unfortunate accident? All up to you, 47.

The complexity in this game, again, cannot be overstated. You can do anything from disarming guards in a disorganized melee to poisoning items of food to blowing up gas grills in target's faces. There is a wealth of weapons to be chosen from and even something as simple as entering a building can be done in multiple ways, each with it's own benefits and disadvantages. How you go about doing things brings consequences that really give you the feeling that the choices you made matter. At the end of a given mission, you will be shown a newspaper detailing a report of the incident. Were you stealthy enough? Were there any witnesses? Did it all look like an accident, or is it plainly obvious blood money is involved?

Replayability - 10/10

The wealth of different ways to accomplish any given mission makes sure that you will never end up playing a level just once. What if you had done this? What if you had done that? What if you had avoided that gunfight and taken that one out from behind before he spotted you?

Rent or Buy - Buy. Buy. Buy. Buy. BUY!

In closing, the best in the series so far, and an excellent game that allows you to step into the boots of, and become, a true Hitman.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/06