Hitman: Blood Money
I just finished Hitman: Blood Money (first time playing it). I thought it was a really fantastic game. I can't remember if I played Psychonauts this year or last year, so I'm not sure if Blood Money would be my #1 or #2 game of the year so far. The core gameplay loop of casing out an area, looking at all the costumes and people, figuring out everyone's schedule, looking for interactive objects, planning, and executing is just so refreshing. It's nice to just wander around levels. I love the cut-aways that tell you that a pivotal in-level event is happening. I love that most levels have many different solutions. I liked that the controls are agile enough that they don't feel clunky but clunky enough that you feel like the game is punishing you if you try to play it as a shooter.
How I Played
I played trying to go for Silent Assassin. I achieved it in Curtains Down, A New Life, 'Til Death Do Us Part, House of Cards, and the heaven/hell level. I came close on A Vintage Year (one body was found); Flatline (the guy who asks you for therapy went aggro on me so I had to shoot him instead of silently killing him), Murder of Crows (shot a guard on the way out), You Better Watch Out (didn't sedate the fucking dog of all the bullshit).
I played the stupid steamboat level as a run-and-gun because it seemed huge and boring and I hated the theme and I just wanted to get it over with. Amendment XXV I had two slip-ups; first, I took a painter's costume and didn't fully hide the painter, so he was found. Second, I had sedated two people at that point and when I needed a guard's uniform, I ended up poisoning the guard. I guess I also got in trouble for the shoot-out with the guy, but I don't see how that was avoidable.
Also my first time through House of Cards I shot and killed everyone (129 people) in the casino. All staff, all security, all civilians. Is it possible to kill everyone in Murder of Crows?
Curtains Down was my favourite level.
One beef
The plot sucks. So bad. It's told in terribly rendered cutscenes with the barest thread of a story. It's stupid. It involves the vice president and some random evil assassin dude conspiracy to use clones or some shit to take over the moon or kill the president or create a clone army or deny others from cloning or kill agent 47 or something. The levels have only the most basic connection. Several major plot events make no sense to me. There are characters the game assumes you know from previous Hitman games, but I don't because I didn't play those--but it's not like it does anything meaningful to capitalize on the fact that you would know them. It's just gibberish. The ending sets up, maybe, some sort of tease of something?
So I basically treated the game like a series of unconnected puzzles or like the non-campaign scenarios in an RTS or something.
Okay, one more beef
There are two moments in the game which feel like they are intended to be boss battles. Like any other game where the enemies are humans and die in a few bullets, it's not possible to have an effective boss battle.
But on the whole, this was a fantastic game. I'd definitely play an expansion mission pack to it. The game looked great as well, like most last gen games with really high AA/AF. The crowds in A Murder of Crows were spectacular, it's amazing that a dev team made better crowd tech in 2005 than Assassin's Creed has today, and I thought AC's crowd tech wowed!
Even if you don't like stealth, play this game. Play it on easy, approach it like a puzzle game, and when you finish a level, go to Youtube to look at videos or whatever to see some of the other ways you could have done it. Really, really fulfilling experience.
Tis all I got.
