Before we get started I would like to inform everyone that due to the episodic style of Hitman the review will go up in parts and not have a score until the final piece is released. Also the reviews will be as spoiler free as possible.
When Hitman was announced I, like many others, had a lot of excitement. Quickly that excitement turned to concern, however, when it came out that Hitman would release episodically. I reserved judgement until I saw just how they would go about releasing content. Upon release of episode 1, which included the prologue and Paris locations, I began to shuffle through everything and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of content that was included right off the bat. Given the story features and the player-made contracts it made for plenty of fun from the start. A cut scene starts off the game giving you the first look at Agent 47 that sets a pretty good tone to the game. It then puts you into training missions, which were fun, and for newcomers to the series provide good instruction into the game’s mechanics. After a good tutorial of a simulated training mission on a yacht the game then puts the player back in the same mission, but tells you to freely find new ways to complete it. From here the story progresses into another mission on an air field hanger. It’s here that the game opens up very well with a large area and a variety of options. The introduction of opportunities is great for people to track a specific way to go about fulfillingl the contracts. While many purists will choose to opt out, they work well for getting people to try and approach missions in different ways each time around and adding a certain replay value to the game by giving missions a leveling system and gaining XP for completing it by doing different tasks to complete the contracts. Also the game allows you to go back to choose different spots and disguises to start the missions with offering even more variety for the player.
Paris, France is the first stop. You start with Agent 47 dressed in a tux headed into a fashion show, again offering many options on how you proceed. The mission is full of life with the mansion being very crowded and just chuck full of ways to approach the mission. From the show floor to the courtyards around the mansion and into the kitchens there is no shortage of various ways to go about eliminating the targets. I found myself replaying the mission several times to try and complete it again as many ways as I could. It ends with another cut scene that leaves you intrigued as to where the story is taking you.
Episode 2 brings us to Sapienza, Italy. From the start of the mission I found myself wandering around and looking at the beautiful landscape and design. Stunning visuals and again a vibrant world really take this mission to the next level. The town is so vast and full of life it made walking through the streets a fantastic experience. The targets also make this mission especially fun because of the diverse nature I took to eliminate them. From rooftops to underground secret labs this mission stood out as one of my personal favorites in Hitman history, culminating in an ending cut scene that made me eager for the story to continue.
The gameplay in Hitman stands strong and aside from Blood Money, this could arguably be the best the franchise has seen. It is extremely polished and I ran into very little hitches that normally plague the series. Yes, there was the occasional dead body glitching through walls that got me compromised, but that was very very few and far between in the many playthroughs of missions. The visuals are incredible and each mission was full of life. I cant oversell the amount of choice that the player has in completing the missions as well. The one downside is that the episodic style leaves me wanting more and not wanting to wait because it does that good of a job at keeping me hooked. Overall this is an extremely solid start and can’t wait to see where the next mission takes us.
Cory J
Twitter @Fiction315
