This past week, I played a majority of the Hitman games and have decided to share my thoughts on them.

To be precise, I played Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Contracts, Hitman: Blood Money, and part of Hitman: Absolution, but not Hitman: Codename 47, the first of the series. And I will be spoiling some of the franchise’s story, which I think plays a very small part in the games.

For anyone who does not know, the games follow Agent 47, a genetically engineered human who works as a hitman for an organization known as The Agency. The games are third person shooters that feature large open ended levels. Most levels feature a target to kill and various means of carrying that out, such as poisoning or causing an accident. Absolution is the biggest deviation from that, but I’ll talk about that later.

In the process of playing Silent Assassin, I was enjoying it for the most part. After playing Contracts and Blood Money I probably will not touch the game again. Its successors improve on the core mechanics in a number of ways and leave Silent Assassin in the dust.

The disguise system has been a major part of the Hitman franchise from day one. Many of the guards and civilians have outfits that Agent 47 can put on after he kills them. This allows access to areas that he could not get into without immediately being shot. The problem with Silent Assassin’s version of this system is that all of the guards are extremely paranoid. Standing or walking too close to a guard will cause them to see through your disguise and open fire. And the distance at which they recognize 47 varies wildly. I died often, and guards that noticed me one time, failed to notice me on another, even if I did nothing differently. This inconsistency frustrated me throughout the game.

A series of levels set in Japan bring another layer of frustration to disguises. Guards always stop 47 in order to check his ID and after that they always open fire. EVERY. SINGLE. GUARD. What is most baffling about this is that all of the outfits have masks. There is no way to tell that 47 is a different person, and yet all of the guards stop him and only him. To top it off, these guards also have better vision than any of the others in the game and there is no sort of cover system in the game. The last level in the arc does not have this problem, which leads me to believe it was some sort of coding error that was never fixed.

Other than that, I quite enjoyed the game while playing it. The levels were quite big, but there were some that felt kind of empty, specifically the levels set in the Middle East. There is a location that somewhat serves as a hub world. All of 47’s acquired weapons are stored there and can be used for target practice. These acquired weapons can also be equipped before starting a mission arc. A neat twist is that the hub world is actually where the last level takes place.

For anyone who has yet to play a Hitman game, I do recommend playing Silent Assassin. Compared to Contracts and Blood Money, it does not hold up quite as much, but without that comparison it holds up very well.

 

I think that Contracts is kind of a weird game. Most of the levels (except for the final one) are all flashbacks that take place during Codename 47. Not only that, but several of the missions are remakes of levels from Codename 47. The part I find weird is that there was only a four year gap between the releases of those two, and in that gap only one other Hitman game was made. Splinter Cell did something similar with Splinter Cell Essentials, but that was a portable spin-off that pulled from three other games. Because of this, I am glad I skipped Codename 47 when I played all of these.

However, I do think that how these flashbacks are framed is sort of neat. In between flashbacks, Agent 47 is shown in a hotel room, bleeding out from what is likely a gunshot wound. At the very end of the game it is revealed he was on a hit that was compromised. He was ambushed, shot and cornered by the police in the hotel room. The final mission is about 47 escaping, but opening the target list reveals two targets that have already been taken care of. Blood Money fills in the holes on who leaked the hit and also one mission is the first part of the hit gone wrong. I do not think that any of the Hitman plots are particularly good, but I do think that the narrative structure in Contracts is a unique one.

Gameplay wise, Contracts plays like a better Silent Assassin. The guards are not as paranoid, yet they are aware enough that it kept me on my toes, and are also consistent in that awareness. The levels are bigger and feel a lot more open-ended than the ones in Silent Assassin did. Sneaking in the previous game felt really slow, but this game speeds it up a bit which makes it a lot more useful. One minor change I did not like is that the inventory system was changed from a list of items to a wheel of items. It felt slower and clunkier than the list but does not impact gameplay that much.

Some of Contracts’ levels build an atmosphere that none of the other Hitman games do. The combination of music, lighting, and design of these levels created a mood, pulled me in, and left an impression on me even more than levels I felt provided a better gameplay experience.

Hitman: Contracts holds up much better than Silent Assassin and even in Blood Money’s shadow, I would not mind revisiting it.

 

Whereas Contracts felt like a refinement of Silent Assassin, Blood Money feels like an evolution. The core of Contracts is still there, but several new mechanics are built around that, making Blood Money the best Hitman game.

There’s really nothing to say about the basic gameplay. Just like the previous two, Agent 47 is given a target or targets, put in a big map with several points of interest marked, and free to do whatever. The walking and shooting do feel a bit tighter, however. Unlike Silent Assassin and Contracts, Blood Money awards money at the end of a mission. This money can be used to upgrade several different weapons in various ways. It may seem like a little addition, but adding a progression system around the already fun gameplay encouraged me to keep kills as silent as possible.

Along with that the ranking system is spruced up a bit. Instead of just a simple ranking and a comparison of how much stealth versus how much aggression was used, it is presented as a newspaper. Newspapers will be shown reporting the assassination, and the reports vary based on how it was tackled. Leaving lots of witnesses after a huge gunfight will result in a sketch and the report that gunshots were heard. Do it super quiet and the newspaper will report how nothing was heard and no one witnessed anything. It is a neat system, but the structure of it gets repetitive soon. The pool of phrases it uses is very limited and the novelty wears off. Even so, I still enjoyed what it tried to do.

Even though I complained that Silent Assassin’s guards were too paranoid, I think Blood Money’s are too relaxed. However, I believe there is a reason for this. Blood Money introduces “Notoriety”, which is a meter that fills up based on witnesses and security footage in past missions. More notoriety means guards are quicker to spot 47. Notoriety never felt overwhelming as it can be removed for a fee at the end of missions. Because of that, I never had much of it, which is why guards felt so relaxed. So the problem was not with the awareness of the guards directly, but that notoriety was not much of a problem. Though I felt like it could have been a little more difficult, I do prefer it being too easy rather than too hard.

Blood Money is a result of six years of polishing Hitman games, and it is the shiniest the series has ever been. I have been fighting the urge to jump back in and try it on the harder difficulties.

 

Absolution was my first Hitman game. I played it back in 2013 and thought it was great. I had a hard time understanding why some series veterans did not like it, but that was because I had never played the other games. When I tried playing it this time, I stopped in the middle. To be exact, I stopped on mission 9 out of 20. I cannot say that it is almost halfway as some missions are shorter and some are longer than others. Before I gave up, I turned the difficulty down to the easiest setting and still was frustrated. I decided struggling through the game was not worth my time and completely gave up.

First off, the things I actually liked about the game: Absolution is the first game made in a post-Gears of War world. What I mean by that is, Gears introduced the fundamentals of third person shooting to the previous console generation, and I believe we are still feeling it today. Absolution has the tightest shooting in the franchise, and while the games were never firefight heavy, it does make pulling off silent head shots much easier. On top of that, there is a cover system which aids in hiding in situations where the wrong disguise is being worn. It is now possible to do hand-to-hand combat, which I was always thought was a weird omission. Agent 47 is the ultimate human weapon, so why could he never punch before? Also, sharp weapons can now be used to stab people unlike the previous games where it felt like 47 was flailing about wildly.

Agent 47 also has more options to move around the environment. Crawling through vents and shimmying on ledges is now possible, which adds some variety to movement. This may sound weird, but whenever 47 strangles an enemy it transitions seamlessly to dragging the body. It is one of the small touches that makes a big difference.

Now, onto what I do not like. The disguises in this game feel almost useless. Instead of a simple awareness meter in previous games, a different meter is introduced that holds “Instinct.” Guards and other people can see through disguises very quickly without using Instinct. Instinct is a limited resource and is acquired by killing enemies silently, completing objectives, and apparently sneaking by enemies in a clever way (which I never have seen happen). Problem is, objectives are not completed enough to use Instinct as much as it feels needed. So that leaves killing enemies right?

Absolution expands on the ranking system of previous games by adding a score. That sounds like a good idea, except for the fact that any non-target kill deducts points. Yet, some non-target kills give more Instinct. Some of that score can be reclaimed by hiding bodies, which is not always a viable option. So these two systems conflict each other by deducting points yet giving more Instinct. And also, its very little Instinct. I understand trying to add difficulty to the disguise system, but Instinct is a bad addition. I personally think that Contracts had the best balance of guards being aware of Agent 47.

On top of that, levels are divided between mostly linear sections. There is some choice, but it is very limited and does not feel as satisfying. It comes down to personal taste, but I believe the big open levels of the previous games are vastly superior. Also, a majority of the sections are getting from point A to point B and it is not fun at all.

The story is also very intrusive and really, really bad. Like I said earlier, none of the previous stories were good, but Absolution makes the mistake of shoving it down the player’s throats. The actual story has some average writing, but there are some annoying characters. Like I could not wait to assassinate some of them so they would no longer appear in cutscenes. Too bad I never got to.

Along with the basic mode, there is a Contracts mode that allows players to play through levels, pick their own targets, and upload the level so other people can play. It’s kind of a neat idea, but as said earlier, the levels are very linear, and also the feature is barebones. Plus, the best way to get a high score is to replicate how the uploader did the level. That goes against the open-ended nature of the previous games and makes the mode not very fun. The upgrade system from Blood Money is locked behind this mode, which is a shame.

In a vacuum, I think Hitman: Absolution is a fine game. Playing it back to back with other Hitman games made me realize how much I prefered the other games and it ruined Absolution for me.

 

Contracts and Blood Money are the pinnacle of the Hitman franchise. Silent Assassin can be used as a look into the game’s roots, but I cannot speak to the first game, Codename 47. Absolution is a failed attempt at trying to take the series in a different direction.

I enjoyed my entire time with the games, even if there were some low points. A sixth entry, titled simply, Hitman, is due out March 2016. I do not want to get to much into it, but it sounds like the game will be more like Blood Money, which I think is the way Absolution should have gone. I am looking forward to the future of the series.

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Riley Berry is an Associate Writer for MONG who is the loudest assassin ever. You can follow him on Twitter.