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Hitman: The baldy bitch-slapping bastard with the big Silver Ballers is back once again like the Renegade Master!
This time round, we start off 20 years earlier, taking us back to before the first title, Hitman: Codename 47, but it doesn’t take too long before you’re back in familiar territory. There are so many ways to skin a rabbit, or even, kill people: poison in a drink, garotting, scissors to the head or even drowning in the toilet – always making sure you dispose of the body where possible.
After you complete a mission one way, you get the option to complete it in other ways, eg. the first one, on the yacht, allows you to bump off the baddie in any way you choose. Next time, it’s with rat poison. However, this just extends the training-type scenario, and if you’ve played all the games in the series, as I have done, then you have no reason to do endless training – you just want to get stuck into the game proper!!
Sadly, as Hitman 2016 is being released in episodic form, you’ll be waiting a long time to do that, since just as you get started… it’s over!
Square Enix say they’re doing this so that they can get each section exactly as it should be, but since they’ve had over 3 years to make this title, shouldn’t they have done that already? I know there’s been other games releases this way such as Life Is Strange and Game Of Thrones, but personally, I don’t get it. When I watch a TV drama, I prefer to check out an episode or two each day (not possible with conventional scheduling, but we’re definitely moving away from that), so I want my games the same way.
I know one of the main features of the Hitman series is that you can attempt to smackdown the enemy in numerous ways, and while I’ve completed the Paris section one way, there are many others to attempt (you can see the video of my taking down the two targets in the video featured), but this opening episode still feels like we’ve only been given one proper mission with two training missions and that shouldn’t be the case.
That said, you can attempt Contracts, including those created by other gamers, one simply telling you to take out the annoying reporter, Lindsey La Couer, at the start of the Paris mission, and then escape.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts about the game.
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.