Hitman: Blood Money Review

The bald-headed assassin is back with the release of Hitman: Blood Money on the Xbox, Playstation2, Xbox 360 and PC. Coming two years after the release of Hitman: Contracts, Blood Money is a fitting finale for Codename: 47 before he takes the steps into the next-generation.

Presentation, narrative and atmosphere are key traits of the Hitman series, elements that Blood Money easily manages to maintain. Running alongside the events of the game lies a political story involving the death of the US vice president, the candidacy for his replacement and an eventual assassination attempt on the president. Events within the game are played as a series of flashbacks from a few years before the present day, between the former CIA director and a journalist. Cut-scenes from both the interview and the flashbacks are complimented with information in the newspapers and NPC characters throughout the game, resulting in a highly effective manner to present an engrossing storyline that revolves around a number of plotlines.

Blood Money remains fundamentally the same as its predecessors, challenging players to perform hits on designated targets throughout North America. The emphasis is on stealth, the ability to kill the mark without anyone noticing, using disguises, intel and the environment to assist you. In keeping with the series history, IO Interactive have incorporated a variety of new features and modifications within Blood Money, which help to continue Hitman's position as one of the better stealth-based offerings.

One of the most noticeable additions is the Picture-in-Picture system, which splits the screen off in 24 fashion to bring the player's awareness to important events, such as an key moment in the mission storyline, a body being discovered or 47 being caught on CCTV. Although a small touch, the addition does provide assistance to the player when it comes to following what's happening, and as a secondary function looks pretty cool to boot.

Blood Money also finds 47 after he's been down the gym, with a number of new manoeuvres such as vaulting over small obstacles, jumping between ledges and close-quarter combat techniques. Although it's about time 47 learned how to use the environment a little more usefully, the implementation in Blood Money is a little hit-and-miss, and perhaps isn't used as much as it could have been. The idea is to open up the locations in which 47 can access to perform a hit, however there's a very definite list of objects that he can interact with and those that he cant - it feels overly structured. To make matters worse, small objects such as beds can cause 47 insurmountable problems as he fails to hop over them, which is made even more frustrating when you're trying to grab a uniform of somebody actually on the bed and finding it impossible to interact with him.

An entirely new game engine and an overhauled AI system has resulted in a distinctly different experience this time around for 47. The emphasis in Blood Money is on performing the hit in believable situations, as such you'll often have crowds of people to deal with, whether it's the Mardi Gras in New Orleans or tours around a Chilean vineyard acting as a front for a cocaine smuggling operation. IO Interactive have squeezed out every last inch of power out of the current-generation consoles, to create highly populated scenes often numbering in their dozens and occasionally much, much higher. More significantly the sophisticated AI helps to create a believable game world in which the game is set; NPC characters have the unnerving ability to stop and stare at you, which is never good when you're trying to go undetected; guards patrol areas intelligently and carry out believable investigations at scenes that have gone amok, storing corpses in body-bags and removing them from the crime scene.

The major new feature introduced to the Hitman series with Blood Money is the issue of Notoriety. Your performance within a mission is judged upon a list of varying criteria - carrying out the objectives, rating bonus, damage control, suit retrieval, noise/violence, time, etc... - which in turn calculates your success at the hit and presents a Notoriety score at the end of each level. Based out of 100 your notoriety will increase as you progress through the game (unless you perform a perfect hit every time), which results in a greater chance of NPC characters recognising you within a mission, making it harder to complete your objective without detection.

Tied into this, Hitman: Blood Money employs a particularly effective newspaper breakdown of your performance, detailing the hit and crucial information such as the confirmed hits, number of shots fired, etc... passed on by witnesses - even a photofit of 47 likeness if enough people saw him, though this can look completely unlike him if you're good enough. The newspaper also contains information on the central presidential election that runs behind the game, along with humorous tones such as the cat that detonated an entire neighbourhood in a gas explosion and quotes from George Bush!

Blood Money certainly has a lot going for it; however, it wouldn't be a true Hitman title if it wasn't for the game's challenging balance between frustration and satisfaction. Like its predecessors, Blood Money can be a tough title to get into, requiring a different mindset to many other stealth games, as you get into the head of a hitman. It's all about working out which strategies are apparent for each level, which can be an infuriatingly "trial-and-error" experience to start with. Perseverance and patience, however, will reward you with a truly entertaining experience, one that dares to be a little different and becomes even more rewarding because of this. Once you've performed one assassination you'll likely get the hook and find it hard to put down, slowly improving and looking for even more devious ways to perform the execution - a real gun replacing a prop weapon at a theatre; poisoning a cake; or even recklessly tossing a bomb into a hot-pool with the target and the buxom beauties by his side.

Blood Money will also keep you coming back in the search for the perfect hit and the challenging Silent Assassin rank. Because of the multiple possibilities and with locations as diverse as a Parisian opera theatre to an idyllic North American suburb, there's an almost puzzle like nature to achieving success in Hitman: Blood Money. Conversely if the idea of replaying a level continuously to work out every possibility isn't your idea of fun, then you're probably not going to enjoy Hitman: Blood Money as much as others.