Hitman 2 (2018) on PC / Steam – The DVDfever Review

Hitman 2 (2018) feels very much like a Bond film when it starts up on the Prologue level, as Agent 47 comes into view on a night boat to a beach house to track down some info on a particular baddie, but as luck would have it, they soon return and your mission changes to require you to bump them off in as inconspicuous a way as possible. As you’ll see from my uploaded video, I went for a rather loud and stand-out way to get rid of them, but I did try the alternative of…

Still, that’s the fun part of the Hitman series, and while I’m not going to dwell too much on the way this game works – since it’s well-established, I’m also not going to go into detail about the plot, as a lot of people will want to discover that for themselves, and I’ll let the videos and gameplay speak for the game, especially when this is a game the fans will buy, anyway.

Oh, and Hitman 2 is not to be confused with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, from 2002, which is probably my favourite out of the earlier games because it was there where we saw the Hitman style really take shape after the original game which felt more like just a test-run for future titles.

Prior to obraining a Steam code for this, I had the Xbox One version (hence why the new gameplay videos are for that format), and I had big problems with this first time when trying to play the training level. After installing the game, it then wanted another 1.83Gb for the update, then the intro came up, and then it kept wanting to install individual updates for every damn level!!

Then once I’d started the training level, and changed the invert Y axis to ON, I played a few mins of gameplay and then it crashed back to the home screen!! My first thought was – I accidentally quit out and back to the Xbox menu? How?? Ugh! But… it happened again & again & again & again & again!! WTF?!!

A friend suggested it could be a cache issue, even though I’ve NEVER had this with any other Xbox One games, and to unplug the Xbox One for a few minutes. I did that and, so far, I’ve not had any problems, but how many people are just going to take this straight back to the place where they bought it for a refund?

Playing the game on Steam, however, it’s plain sailing, as usual, and I love it.

I will update my review once I’ve got into the PC version more.

There are five main missions plus a prologue. After the prologue, you can attempt all but the last two missions and, at that point, I presume it’s doing this because it doesn’t want to reveal too much of the story arc too soon, but then you don’t want to spoil it for yourself, either. The mission titles are as follows:

Prologue: Nightfall
The Finish Line (Miami)
Three-Headed Serpent (Hawke’s Bay)
Chasing a Ghost (Mumbai)
Another Life (Vermont – a fictional version)
The Ark Society (the mysterious Isle of Sgàil in the North Atlantic)

However, while Hitman Season 1 had Escalations and Bonus Missions, Hitman 2 is just a single level per area.

In fact, in the main, all the game mechanics, graphics and sound are as polished as the last one because nothing has changed, so dealing with that would’ve taken next to no time, but as for the new levels? It’s basically £49.99 DLC for Hitman 1, but with the ability to play the new DLC without Hitman 1.

That said, about the visuals, there are still occasional glitches, such as in my level 3 video where a ton of my bullets hit the wall, and you can see how it all goes a bit wrong. Plus, there was a time (which I didn’t capture, as it turned out, but I’ve seen it in the previous game) where I squashed two mechanics in level 2, and as the car was raised back up, one of the corpses got stuck to the bottom of the car and was then jittering about and then flying into the air!

Also, when one man killed me and I fell over, I fell towards him and THROUGH him! Surely things like this should’ve been fixed in the intervening period?

I will also add the observation that there are plenty of cupboards and baskets in which to hide – perhaps too many, since surely the average cupboard in your house has a great deal of stuff in there??

There are many game modes, but all the glitters is not necessarily gold, so read on to make sure you purchase the right version:

Sniper Assassin: Announced in July, this mode allows you to put your marksman skills to the ultimate test,and there was even a competition at the time (I didn’t even come close) where those who won could have their name and likeness added to the game in future Hitman 2 content.

Check out the video below and you’ll see what it’s like from when I attempted it on PS4. Yes, I achieved the objectives, but not in a very quick time, and I certainly didn’t cap all the bodyguards.

Ghost Mode: This is in its Beta form, and you have to complete five assassinations before your opponent does. You won’t see them, but they’ll be in the same environment but in a separate ‘reality’, hence why you can’t see them… it sounds more complex than it is. I don’t have Xbox Live so can’t play this. I’ll check it out on the PC version soon, but I do often suck at multiplayer.

Contracts: There are a stack of these, but they all appear to be based on Season 1’s locations, and… Season 1? But we’re on Season 2! Well, read on…

There’s also a Campaign mode called Patient Zero, but that ties in with my mention of Season 1.

Now for where you need guidance on which version to buy, although it’s more simple than it sounds…

I have the 2016 game on PC and was hoping to get this sequel also on PC so I could use the first game’s locations in the new game. As you’ll have read, I now have that, but initially, only Xbox One was available. Okay, so surely it must be possible to access Season 1’s content cross-platform so I can still play them on the Xbox One, and there must be a way for it to check my Steam account, right? No… and that’s completely ridiculous.

So, the only way to get those levels in the game is to buy the DLC… or buy the first game again, but on Xbox One. Out of curiosity, to see what the cost of that would be, I went to the Xbox Store as directed by the game and… the first game is NOT available! Huh?!

I also tried emailing IO Interactive, but no-one ever got back to me after three emails and a few days. I also tried tweeting them, but while they replied to other people’s tweets (only ones which were full of effusive praise), they didn’t reply to mine. Hmm…

I don’t know whether this was at IO’s insistence or Warner Bros that the first game’s content is not available cross-platform, but not only is it a crazy decision, it’s anti-consumer. Since the first game has been out for almost three years, it should be a few pounds at most, or hey, why not include it with this release… but failing that, make it a £5 extra at most when you’re paying £50 for the new game.

Hence, if you find yourself in the same boat I did initially, then there are a stack of missions that you can’t access unless you have the previous game, which I did, but it was on a different platform. Come on, IO Interactive, please make that change because you are locking people out!

Now, returning to more positive news and the first Elusive Contract is just a few days away, and it’s Sean Bean!

Hitman 2 (2018) is released tomorrow on PS4, Xbox One and PC/Steam.

You can also buy the Collector’s Edition Suitcase on PS4 and Xbox One.

Visit my DVDfeverGames Youtube channel for many more gaming videos.

Important info:

• Publisher: Warner Bros
• Players: single player campaign
• HDTV options: 720p/1080i/1080p
• Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes
• Spoken language: English
• Subtitles: English

My rig:

Intel i7 Six Core Processor i7-5820K (3.3GHz) 15MB Cache
ASUS® X99-A: ATX, HSW-E CPU, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s Motherboard
16Gb Kingston Hyper-X Fury DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
4GB nVidia GeForce GTX 980
250Gb Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540Mb/sR | 520Mb/sW)
3Tb 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200rpm 64Mb cache
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
CORSAIR 750W CS Series Modular 80 Plus ® Gold, Ultra Quiet
Creative Sound Blaster Z 5.1 PCI-E Soundcard – OEM
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1
Zalman Z11 Plus Black Mid Tower Case

Director: Jacob Mikkelsen
Executive Producer: Markus Friedl
Writers: Michael Vogt, Oliver Winding, Nick Price, Hans Lucht, Mikkel Bak Sørensen, Janine Hawkins, Fredrik Gyllenhoff
Music: Niels Bye Nielsen

Cast:
Agent 47: David Bateson
Diana Burnwood: Jane Perry
Lucas Grey: John Hopkins
The Constant: Philip Rosch
Janus: Richard Katz
Carl Ingram: Kerry Shale
Marcus Stuyvesant: Iain Batchelor
Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer: Richard Teverson
Olivia Hall: Michelle Asante
Peter Burnwood: Simon Thorp
Nancy Burnwood: Amanda Drew
Sierra Knox: Antonia Bernath

Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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