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Hitman: Contracts Preview
Derek dela Fuente
02/04/2004
Peter von Linstow, Character Designer at IO Interactive gives us the low-down on 47's return...
With a release just around the corner, Hitman: Contracts is starting to get the high profile exposure it deserves. The Hitman brand has grown and improved through each subsequent release, which is pretty remarkable considering the first game was impressive. Hitman offers intensity in it action and inventiveness in its ideas, which is sealed together with plush graphics and slick animations â“ the prerequisite for a class act!
Hitman: Contracts explores the dark psychology of killing for a living and promises to be the most disturbing episode in the series. Fusing action and suspense-filled missions with a greater variety of ways to make the perfect kill is not an easy task but Interactive do it with class. An increased arsenal of firearms, close combat weapons and new 'take-down' moves will be at your disposal allowing you to perform a wide range of brutal 'hits'. We spoke with Peter von Linstow, Character Designer at IO Interactive, who has worked on the whole series of Hitman titles.
The team is buoyant with the success of the brand and the nucleus of the original team, with some new additions, remains pretty much the same. In terms of technology, the platforms which the game has been placed on, have not developed since the second game, so this time the team has tried to improve as much as possible on the existing engine, including incorporating the major advances made for Freedom Fighters (another cool game) and have made ways to avoid the well known bottlenecks in particularly the PS2 structure. The majority of the code has been optimised, so in many ways it's actually a new engine.
IO has progressed the storyline of their favourite contract killer and give the audience a little more insight into his life and background, but always to the point of trying to have you come back for more. In Hitman: Contracts we will see the world more from Hitman's perspective. A more dark and uncomfortable atmosphere, compared to the more exotic and postcard-like environments of the two first games.
One essential feature of the previous games was the inventive way you could kill so exploring more ways but ensuring it is done tastefully and plausibility still tops the list for the team, as was explained.
âIn Hitman: Contracts we have made an effort to include multiple ways to kill each target. Some ways will be obvious, and others will require some research, but the number of ways and variations has improved a lot since the previous game.
Some of the possibilities in the game are pretty graphic, I'll give you that, but we try to emphasize that the 'best' way is the silent, clean way - The 'Silent Assassin' way. The variations are there so that we can offer the players a choice with regard to their own style of play, or to give a way out in situations that have gone bad, without necessarily having the player start over again. I don't really think that censorship has that much impact or issues for us. It has its advantages as well as drawbacks. It might prevent certain groups from playing the game, which I think is positive, but it also has a way of attracting attention, which of course is also positive, and I believe that if a person really wants to play the game, he or she will find their way, regardless of the censorship. In my opinion, there are many other games that are much more disturbing than Hitman.â
An increased range of weapons, which will have their own corresponding animations, meat hooks and pool cues, along with new location specific weapons, like the use of a pillow as a silencer. You will also be able to use most of the small firearms in pairs. In general there are more of every type of weapon and we are informed that there is no extra difficulty factor regarding the weapons.
The game begins in Paris as Agent 47 finds himself wounded and trapped in what is a dangerous situation, even for him. Hitman: Contracts takes you to many interesting places around the globe and each location will be pertinent to some degree to the action on offer. One particular mission, for instance, takes place on an abandoned naval base in Siberia, during a blizzard. The interesting thing is that a small story actually takes place, where different characters interact with each other, and the player must chose a point in which to interfere. This, in effect, offers the player endless possible orders and ways to accomplish his goals.
Where Hitman has captivated gamers is you can feel the tenseness of the action and there is always an underlying threat that the next move could be your last. IO has worked hard on the psychology of a killer, the core focus of the game, and their aptitude and expertise to recreate this in the game is almost flawless! Merely killing someone can easily be done but moving onto the level of being able to see futility on the face of the shot person and other dilemmas a killer has to face is another matter. Peter explained the ideologies and mindset of the team in some detail.
âThis is an interesting area and we have talked a lot about this. The technical side of having the victimsâ express their emotions is one thing. It's not an easy task, but I'm sure we could pull it off if we gave it the necessary attention, and mind you, we have to some extent. The moral aspect is something else. We must remember that computer games are mainly entertainment. They allow us, in an amusing way, to play roles or accomplish things we are not able to in real life, and get away with it and/or try again if things go wrong. Here we can drive cars we cannot otherwise afford, at speeds on the wrong side of the safety limit, experience places we don't have access to in terms of law, geography, time or even the boundaries of imagination... And even kill people! All in the name of good, clean, fun. (Please note that in the Hitman games we try to clearly point out that the people that you are supposed to kill are bad people who 'deserve it'. If you kill others, be it guards or civilians, it is up to you, but the 'best' way is not to kill anybody else, as I mentioned earlier.) If we make a game about killing people, where the actual killing is an unpleasant experience, because we kill normal people, relate emotionally to the victims, we might have taken the step towards realism beyond the edge. Of course there are many degrees with which to execute this, but generally, I think, we should try to keep the games challenging, entertaining and fun. Rather than try to mess with peopleâs emotions, in a negative way. I'm sure that there are people who would find these 'dare' and 'consequence' challenges fascinating, and the moral boundaries of society fluctuates on these matters, but in the end I think this is beyond the actual point of the game in the first place.â
Peter agreed that in Hitman: Silent Assassin, it was perhaps a little too easy just to shoot your way through the rest of the level, when things went wrong. Too many people missed out on the finer details involved in trying to achieve the 'silent assassin' rating.
It is now a lot harder to shoot your way through the levels in Hitman: Contracts, and perhaps impossible in some missions. The team has tried to make more ways to accomplish each goal and laid out more clues, so that it inspires more stealthy play. The team of testers has been involved in this since the very first builds, and has been used extensively to improve gameplay and refine difficulty settings...
IO did not give much away about the action in game events/incidents but it is understandable why. The nature of the game is to be put in a certain situation and get yourself out of it â“ solve the dilemma. Any insight would in this case spoil it!
The structure and layout of the game has also been finely worked on. People who have played Hitman: Silent Assassin more than once, will have found that there were more than just one path through most missions, many of which may not have been obvious. It has been a major point to improve this and offer multiple ways to accomplish each goal, allow several physical ways of access to the key location and have some type of story going on in the missions that will affect Hitmans timing in the game.
The reworked game engine and renderer can spew out more polygons, handle animated environments, more particles and effects and is generally improved in all aspects, which the team is sure you will see when you experience the game.
Of late the stealth genre has become a tad stale but the Hitman series, we are told, will continue until a 4th or even 5th offering, as long as there is a demand. IO vision, in the words of Peter, âTo continually push the envelope to develop, refine and improve on every possible aspect of the game, and come up with a challenging, interesting and fun experience for the players, I think we've been pretty successful in doing this so far, and Hitman: Contracts is no exception. The future will also be shaped by the possibilities of the new consoles and PCs, the new generation of handhelds and 'gamephones', and the development of multiplayer and online possibilities. In the end who knows..?â
