Hitman: Blood Money

Hitman Blood Money took the basic formula from its predecessors and vastly improved the level design to make one of the best stealth games of all time.

Because of the way that stealth works, the game feels more like a puzzle game than an action adventure. The maps are big and with a lot of interactible objects, and the trick is knowing what do you need to get ahead. Do you kill a guard and still his uniform? Do you hide your gun in a package? Is there a way around to evade the cameras? Blood Money is excellent at making you a resourceful assassin thats still very vulnerable to detection and gunfire. Unlike Contracts, shooting your way through is not an option as the damage you take is greatly improved. And its a much better game because of this as its first more immersive because of that, and second it incentivises the player to explore the environment.

I love the comedic style of the game. Its subtle, and not self-aware, but its very clearly there. The irony of poisoning donuts to give to FBI agents is not lost on me, and there are a ton of other little interactible touches like this that make the game really memorable. Each map is great, and the huge amount of options to kill your targets makes them highly replayable. The complexity of each individual map comes at a cost, which is a small amount of them. Its a game that can be beaten in a short time, but i honestly prefer quality over quantity. The scoring system at the end, plus the buyable upgrades makes coming back for more a very appetizing choice.

Audiovisually the game has aged very gracefully. Storywise its pretty lame and basic, but thats not really the reason you play this game.

Its an amazing and unique experience, and anyone into action adventure games should give this one a chance.

The best part of playing Hitman: Blood Money is that it makes me feel smart. Stealth assassination games are hardly in short supply these days, but none provide the same satisfaction as Blood Money. Getting in, eliminating your target, and getting out without drawing attention is never easy, and when you pull it off you feel like you’ve emptied a casino’s coffers with a pair of twos.

I miss this era of gaming, when jank felt fun, and we laughed at it instead of posting screeds on reddit about “dogwater AI”. One of my favorite moments from my recent playthrough featured me injecting lethal poison into my target while his guards stood idly just inches away. Their sight lines were perfectly blocked, allowing me to do the deed and saunter away scot-free. When I type it out like this it sounds silly, but when you’re in the moment, assuming the role of Agent 47, it’s absolutely exhilarating – and perhaps just a little hilarious too.

In any case, Blood Money is never boring. Looking back, there are so many memorable missions. Christmas party at Playboy mansion? Check. FBI witness protection scene in Suburbia, USA? Check. Redneck mobster wedding? Check. Hit in New Orleans during the middle of Mardi Gras? Check. Some missions are better than others, of course, but they’re all bangers.

As a newcomer to the series, the story didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It felt like a meandering thread that barely connected the wildly varying missions. If you told me IO Interactive designed the missions first and made a story connecting them later, I would not be the least bit surprised. It’s for the best, though: I’ll take strong, filler-free gameplay over boring story-focused missions any day. Oh, and shoutout to the ending, which features probably the most gratifying credits scene in the history of video games.

Hitman: Blood Money is a surprisingly deep game. Most levels allow for multiple ways of achieving victory, and I’m sure speedrunners have had years of fun seeing how fast they can get in and out while achieving a Silent Assassin rating. It’s a game full of secrets and subtle variations. Never has getting away with murder been this much fun.

The best out of the three Hitman games I've checked out (though I haven't finished 2 and 3 yet). My biggest issue with Hitman games is always the fact that I suck, but I was able to enjoy this one anyway. My biggest takeaway from this game was how varied it was with its environments, from a boat filled with high-brow guests and hillbilly goons, to a carnival filled with hundreds of people where you have to kill assassins dressed up as birds, to a family party protected by private security; a Christmas-themed party in a mountain residence owned by a porn tycoon, the White House, an opera... It's crazy how unique each mission is, but my personal favorite is probably A Dance With the Devil, where 47 has to infiltrate two parties at once, Heaven and Hell. I think the level design is phenomenal on that one.
Very very good game.

Easily the creative peak of the series, where Hitman most found its voice as a wry, ironic, darkly humourous and yet still serious and respectably inventive stealth game, Blood Money is just chock-full of emergent moments, sometimes frustrating but mostly rewarding, and creates a deviliciously fun atmosphere of creating accidents and causing havoc behind the scenes as a provocateur, playing with the level as much as in it. With AI governed by fairly strict rules, gaming the system is too easy, though I struggle to think of much else they could have done in this regard besides closing some obvious loopholes.

Hitman Blood Money is a game that hits the high point of the assassination theme stealth genre. It is one of those games that really makes sure that you can have multiple playthrough only to find something very rewarding and fresh every time you play. Blood Money has you playing as Agent 47 going around the world to different places assassinating various targets for various reasons. These assassinations have nearly very little impact on how the story unfolds, instead the main story features an interview with an agent who knew about Agent 47 and his skilled expertise in killing people, narrating how he killed this person. Nothing about the story is that intriguing whatsoever and it’s likely that most players will not care about cause of it’s lack of central focus to the actual game. The majority of the game (excluding the tutorial mission) includes a wide variety of methods of killing, routes and how it affects the overall reputation in the game. Hitman Blood Money implements a system which allows you to see how your methods of playthrough and how you kill your target, who else you killed and if you were detected in the playthrough, this affects how the next mission plays out. This system is not cheap and nor lends a disadvantage but is overall realistic. In fact, it gives the game more immersion and feel of how an actual assassin do the dirty work with discretion, but the game never forces you to play as an overall stealthy character you can choose to go in guns blazing killing everyone in site. By doing so, the developers have given an arsenal of weaponry at your disposal to take out your target. These range from silenced pistols, submachine guns, sniper rifles and many more. Not only that but additional and miscellaneous weaponry can be found around the areas that you are in to give take out your enemy or make it seem like an inside murder, then that of an assassin. Additionally, accidents can also be done to make it less suspicious of you being caught by any of the various enemies in the game. At the end of the game you’re given a score of how well you did and what noise you made or how violent you were which is a neat touch, with the final result being a title for how well you did and a snippet of a newspaper which you can read about your dirty deeds. This all lends into the immersion and RPG element side of the game; it feels rewarding to see how well one can pull of something in the unique way only to see it on the cover the newspaper with authorities stumped by it or even have a crudely drawn image a dead ringer appearance or something totally inaccurate. Another very positive aspect of the game is the level design. Each level is almost painstakingly sculpted, to choose your own method of killing. The levels are often vast and unique with many different authentic cultures to see and sometimes deviant locations only the debased would participate in. All of this makes each experience more unique than just a military base or a high-rise building with corporate interior.

Though these pros are all great there are flaws in the game do show a bit but not so much that it ignores all the positive. For one thing the game does have this knack on how stealth actually work, unlike more stealth themed titles like Thief. The stealth is mainly just sneak here and avoid the patrols, there’s no hiding in the shadows nor does Agent 47 sneak like an actual person who would be stealthily would, each time Agent 47 is put in sneak mode he moves so slow that it makes it hard sometimes to melee kill enemies from behind, another problem with the game is the throwing of item. Agent 47 can throw items but he does it like a someone who’s never thrown before, it’s awkward and sometimes fails to throw in the direction you want it go only for it to land near you compromising your position. It seems like the most emphasis on stealth would be changing to enemies clothing to get into various places to kill off your enemies and not sneaking around.

But these are just nitpicks Hitman Blood Money is truly a gem that I like and anyone else who like assassination games should get.