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| Game: |
Hitman Blood Money |
| Genre: |
Action/Shooter |
| Developer: |
Io Interactive |
| Publisher: |
Eidos Interactive |
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| Related Links: |
Coming Soon. |
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Hitman Blood Money Preview: |
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IO Interactive has done extremely well with their Hitman games, why you might ask? Well in my humble opinion the character and method of Agent 47 (the lead protagonist) does things slightly differently to simply sticking in the shadows, waiting for an opportune moment to either slip by or strike out at opponents. You see Agent 47 is the master of subterfuge which if you look in the dictionary means trick to achieve an objective or in layman’s terms (in context of the game at least) grab the nearest disguise and carry out objectives un-noticed. This is what Agent 47 does best and whilst we are probably all familiar with his token image of a bald man wearing a dark suit, white shirt, red tie and black leather gloves, Agent 47 gets to play dress up in a variety of costumes throughout the 3 games he has appeared in.
In Hitman: Blood Money Agent 47 is placed in the midst of a war between two rival contract agencies. When assassins from his contract agency, the ICA, are eliminated in a series of hits, it seems a larger, more powerful agency has entered the fray. Suddenly, Agent 47 loses contact with the ICA and must go it alone. Sensing that he may be the next target, he moves to America where he attempts to carry on with business as usual.
So what’s new?
Well Agent 47 is back and this time things are a little different. As always 47 is paid with large sums of cash for carrying out jobs across the globe; but this time there is an emphasis on how the money is spent rather than it being something in the background. That’s right 47 can now be spent on various tools of the trade and what is more the choices that are made here affect 47’s journey through the game world. Money can be spent on new weapons but also upgrades for weapons which affect things like weapon recoil, accuracy, sound, rate of fire, damage and zooming ability. There are also a number of gadgets available to help out on those tricky missions.
The main new addition to the game is a Notoriety which basically tracks how well known Agent 47 is at any given time. So in reality this means that should 47 act like Rambo in one mission, gunning down everyone in his path with no regard for stealth or cunning. In another mission people will actually recognise him and thus will affect 47’s options greatly. This holds true especially if you want to suddenly revert to being stealthy again, which in some cases might just be a little easier. Going back to the money side of things for a moment; the cleaner the hit, the more money you will earn which means access to better equipment. What it also means is the option to lower your notoriety level if you can afford to do so.
Other new features in the game play are things such as the techniques that are available to Agent 47 to aid in accomplish his goals. Things like causing distraction, or untimely accidents, body disposal, human shields in gun battles, decoy weapons and more. That’s not to say that 47’s job is going to be any easier by any stretch of the imagination as the guard AI has had a major overhaul. Guards will now follow blood trails that are left behind; they will investigate suspicious items and more importantly Agent 47’s behavior especially when he is disguised. A new pathfinder engine has been used here and provides improved tracking, movement resulting in realistic enemy behavior and interaction.
It also appears that Agent 47 has been taking some lessons from Lara Croft perhaps and now he is a lot more athletic than before. 47 can now move independently of the camera and has been granted some new moves enabling him to climb, hide, scale ledges and automatically pass over low obstacles.
Killing time?
The BAFTA winning composer Jesper Kyd makes a welcome return as the guy who provides the ultimate Hitman music for your listening pleasure. I managed to get a quick play of Hitman: Blood money at the Leipzig games Convention and what struck me first was how much the graphics have improved and how more realistically Agent 47 moves. I also notice how the game would switch to a multi camera view when key events took place which in this case was when your target arrives in the building. I think the improvements made to the game are very much welcome for the series and something fans and non fans should really get excited about. The notoriety is such a good idea and makes the game a little more realistic and means that there is some cohesion between the missions. It also adds a little to the realism of the game (although 47 can still take a number of shots before going down for good). The custom aspects of the game promise to make each players experience different to a certain degree and if anything means there will be even more replay value (remembering that there was tons of replay value in the previous games anyway). Hitman: Blood Money is due out this Autumn 2005 and is definitely one game that I will be keen to spend more quality time with.
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