| Game Review - Hitman Contracts |
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Contact Mr. Shade and make fun of him
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| Publisher: |
Eidos Interactive
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| Developer: |
IO Interactive |
| Rated: |
M for Mature for very strong violence and some sexual content |
| Length: |
6 - 10 hours |
| Genre: |
Action, Stealth, Third Person Shooter |
| Website: |
Hitman Contracts |
| System: |
XBox (Also available on PC, PS2) |
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OVERVIEW
|
 Hitman
Contracts is the third game in the Hitman series that began on the PC. You play
through the game as a hitman and each level has a set of objectives that
always includes at least one target to kill. You use disguises and stealth to get to your
target, but you always have your silver ballers (dual .45 handguns) to back you
up. In this game, one of your hits has gone wrong and you've gotten into a bit of mess. All
but one of the missions you play through are flashbacks to previous missions. Murder and
mayhem ensue.
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MR. SHADE'S TAKE
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 Hitman
2: Silent Assassin is one of my favorite games on the XBox, or any system for
that matter. The non-linear gameplay and multiple ways of taking out a target
make each play-through a level different. The third game offers this same
gameplay.
The plot for this game is that one of your hits has gone bad - you've been shot and
you stumble back into your hotel room. You collapse and have a flashback to a previous hit.
After you finish a level there's another cutscene showing you getting better and then
you have another flashback. This continues until the last level, which fills you in on
what went wrong. The ending is actually pretty cool and does a nice job of setting up Hitman
4, but if I hadn't known there were only twelve levels I would have thought that I was at
the halfway point of the game. It's not a bad setup, but it's not as good as the plot for
Hitman 2.
This game is slightly different from the other two in that you do not get to
select your equipment for the level. You go into a flashback and BANG you're at
the start of the level. Fortunately, you're usually fully equipped, so it's not
really a problem.
Everything else is the same - you get info on the targets and
other objectives from your contact at the 'Agency' and your map shows all the
people color-coded into targets, enemies and civilians, as well as points of
interest. The map is actually in real time and will show you where all of the
guards and targets are at all times. I believe this changes on the hardest
difficulty level, but I haven't tried it.
The points of interest are usually a change of clothes, poison, or something else that
will help you complete your mission. You basically have to puzzle out how to get to
your objectives without alerting anyone. You either do this with a walk-through or
trial and error.
Your main way of getting around is to have a disguise - you can take the clothes off of
almost anyone you knock out or kill. Be careful though - if they were carrying
a weapon you have to carry that same type of weapon or other guards will get
suspicious and attack. Also, the closer you are and the longer you stay around
a guard the more your alert meter will go up. Eventually the meter will redline
and you'll get a notice that your cover has been blown.
Another way your cover can be blown is if the guards discover a body or someone you
knocked out has awakened. Some of the messages are pretty humorous like guards are
looking for a "suspicious bald person" or a "suspicious cult member."
Your primary weapons are the fiberwire (a
thin piece of wire used to strangle or slit someone's throat) and a syringe
that contains a knockout drug. You also have a wide assortment of pistols and
assault rifles, but these are used as a last resort. Some of the guns do have
silencers, which are quite useful in not alerting anyone. They've also added a
meat hook and pool cues as usable weapons in the game.
IO Interactive (the developers) does an excellent job with the difficulty levels. You
have 3 different options when you start the game: normal, expert and professional. Normal
has 7 saves per level, expert has 2 per level, and professional has none. The guards get
harder to fool on the harder levels and the Hitman gets easier to kill. The best thing about
the game is that if you are having problems sneaking through a level or timing a kill just right
you can pull out the heavy weapons and kill everyone. You'll get a bad rating for the level but
it allows you to get out all of your frustrations. Plus you can always replay the level later to
get a better rating. This is also the way that Hitman 2 worked.
Unfortunately it's the familiarity of the game that is one of its drawbacks.
This game feels more like an expansion pack than a new game - graphics and
gameplay wise, there isn't anything new. The second game was very much like
the first, but they were able to fix the controls and improve the levels while making the game pretty long
(20 levels). Hitman Contracts adds a few more weapons and seven new levels. That's right:
seven new levels. Five of the levels are from the first game in the series.
There are some slight changes to these levels, but anyone who has played the
first game will instantly recognize them.
This game is fun but is still somewhat of a disappointment. With a year and a half between Hitman 2 and this game
I expected new gameplay options and a lot of new levels. Instead we get the exact same look and gameplay of
Hitman 2 with a rehash of five levels from the first game. Also, the game was pretty short (in 10 hours I played
through the entire game and then replayed 5 of the levels to get a Silent Assassin rating). The most telling
problem with the game is that you could play a level in Hitman 2 and another level in Hitman Contracts and never
know you had switched games. Hopefully Hitman 4 will have a new game engine and will address these issues.
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| Category |
Description |
Score |
| Presentation |
The cutscenes are well done and the intros set up the missions nicely. The map
is excellent and keeps the game from being too difficult. |
8.0 |
| Graphics |
The graphics are really outdated. There is not much difference between this
game and the original that came out in 2000. |
6.5 |
| Sound |
The sound in the game is great. The accents match your location and the music
is really good. You can actually download the music as MP3's from the game's
website. |
9.0 |
| AI |
This is a shining point of the game. Guards patrol and will attack if you're
not in a disguise or if they see through your disguise. Civilians get nervous
and report your activity if you have a weapon out. |
9.5 |
| Gameplay |
Gameplay is great. You get a mix of stealth, action, and logic puzzles. The
controls are still a little clumsy and sometimes it's hard to line yourself up
for the fiberwire kills, but the good overwhelms the bad. |
8.5 |
| Replayability |
With multiple ways to complete a level this game is very fun to replay. You
also get to use new weapons that you have earned when you replay a level. The
replayability is necessary with only 6 - 10 hours of gameplay. |
9.0 |
| Overall |
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9.0 |
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