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Page 1
<!--Start here--><b>Introduction</b>
This review takes a look at Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. It's storyline and unique playing style combine to provide a great game that brings a well needed change in the gaming industry.
<b>Overview:</b>
Hitman 2 puts you in the shoes of Agent 47, who performs murders for hire worldwide. The game starts off at a Monastery in Sicily,Italy where Agent 47 has decided to give up his life of an assassin and look for forgiveness. That lasts for a whole 5 minutes, and then you get back into the good ol' life of the Silent Assassin. Agent 47 travels the world getting paid for assassinating people through 20 different missions with the choice of Normal,Expert, or Professional modes. The game includes around 30 different types of guns including 6 different pistols,6 sniper rifles, an assortment of sub-machine guns, rifles, and the ever so important fiber wire and anasthetic. When looking at the title (Hitman 2:Silent Assassin), it might seem like this game is based completely around stealth missions. Luckily the game developers give you the option of being a total Silent Assassin, or be a mass murderer, pretty much as long as you kill the target of the mission you are good to go. I'll discuss the gameplay in detail later though, lets get right into the graphics.
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<b>Graphics/Game Detail</b>
The graphics in this game are really remarkable. There is a lot of attention to detail in all areas of the game whether it be the weapons, character detail, or the landscapes of the levels. The textures in all areas of the game are crisp, and almost never look distorted, even when looked at close up. The cinematics of the game are also very good in both graphics and sound. The number of cinematic scenes in the game is pretty small compared to other games, with an average of about one introduction cinematic at the beginning of each level, and very short dialogues if you happen to talk to someone in the game. I think there is just the right amount of cinematics for this type of game though, afterall you bought the game to play, not to watch 3 hours of a movie.
The sound in the game is good as well. The background music is of the "spy-movie" type music, which is appropriate for the game. The sound effects are very real, the developers paid alot of attention to detail. Just to name a few, you hear the crunching of snow under your feet with each step you take, the flapping of birds wings as they fly away when you walk by, and last but not least the many DIFFERENT gun sounds. Each gun has its own unique sound complete with recoiling, and reloading the gun, which adds to the realism effect. The characters you encounter in the different countries of the world you travel to, each speak in their own native language which also adds to the game making you feel like your really there.
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Overall the graphics, sound, and detail of this game all come together to form one all-around excellent game.<!--end here-->
<!--Start here--><b>Introduction</b>
This review takes a look at Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. It's storyline and unique playing style combine to provide a great game that brings a well needed change in the gaming industry.
<b>Overview:</b>
Hitman 2 puts you in the shoes of Agent 47, who performs murders for hire worldwide. The game starts off at a Monastery in Sicily,Italy where Agent 47 has decided to give up his life of an assassin and look for forgiveness. That lasts for a whole 5 minutes, and then you get back into the good ol' life of the Silent Assassin. Agent 47 travels the world getting paid for assassinating people through 20 different missions with the choice of Normal,Expert, or Professional modes. The game includes around 30 different types of guns including 6 different pistols,6 sniper rifles, an assortment of sub-machine guns, rifles, and the ever so important fiber wire and anasthetic. When looking at the title (Hitman 2:Silent Assassin), it might seem like this game is based completely around stealth missions. Luckily the game developers give you the option of being a total Silent Assassin, or be a mass murderer, pretty much as long as you kill the target of the mission you are good to go. I'll discuss the gameplay in detail later though, lets get right into the graphics.
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</center><b>Graphics/Game Detail</b>
The graphics in this game are really remarkable. There is a lot of attention to detail in all areas of the game whether it be the weapons, character detail, or the landscapes of the levels. The textures in all areas of the game are crisp, and almost never look distorted, even when looked at close up. The cinematics of the game are also very good in both graphics and sound. The number of cinematic scenes in the game is pretty small compared to other games, with an average of about one introduction cinematic at the beginning of each level, and very short dialogues if you happen to talk to someone in the game. I think there is just the right amount of cinematics for this type of game though, afterall you bought the game to play, not to watch 3 hours of a movie.
The sound in the game is good as well. The background music is of the "spy-movie" type music, which is appropriate for the game. The sound effects are very real, the developers paid alot of attention to detail. Just to name a few, you hear the crunching of snow under your feet with each step you take, the flapping of birds wings as they fly away when you walk by, and last but not least the many DIFFERENT gun sounds. Each gun has its own unique sound complete with recoiling, and reloading the gun, which adds to the realism effect. The characters you encounter in the different countries of the world you travel to, each speak in their own native language which also adds to the game making you feel like your really there.
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</center>Overall the graphics, sound, and detail of this game all come together to form one all-around excellent game.<!--end here-->
Page 2
<!--Start here--><b>Gameplay/Lasting Appeal</b>
One of the nice features of the game, is the ability to choose your weapons for each mission. Before the mission you start back at the monastery in a garden shed where you store all of your weapons that are collected throughout the game. You get to choose your weapons, then get briefed on the mission, and finally get to play. The monastery lets you have some practice shooting at targets like the scarecrow, some pigs, birds, and some other things before you go on the mission. I have to admit, in order to "test" out the realism I waited till the birds that were on the ground started to take off, whipped out a gun, and shot them. And yes, they do fall out of the air, it's quite amusing. When you play the game you have a life meter in the upper left corner, along with a suspicion meter, that will change depending on how suspicious the people around you become during missions, in the top right is your weapons list, and bottom right is your ammo. A few other important tools in the game, are the map, which allows you to see all enemies, targets, weapon pickup locations, and hostages in realtime(i.e. you see where a guard is headed at any given time). It is a very good addition to the game, too bad it took me 4 missions to realize this even existed in the game. Another nice feature, is the game allows you to play in either 1st person view or 3rd person view, so you can pick whichever view you prefer, or switch back and forth in the game with the press of a button. <center>
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As mentioned in the overview, the game comes with three options of play, Normal, Expert, or Professional. I reccomend starting off on the normal level of gameplay to get a sense of how the game works, and what you have available to you in each of the 20 missions. The levels of difficulty basically correspond with how the game becomes increasingly more difficult. For example, in the Normal level of difficulty, if you shoot someone with a gun you might have one guard that walks out looks around and goes back in, not caring much. In contrast to the Professional level if you shoot someone with a gun that isn't silenced, you can guarantee that you will have 5 guards there in no time, investigating what just happened, alerting the other guards, and ready to kick your ass any time they see you. The professional level of the game is meant to be played like the title says: Silent Assassin. You don't use many guns, if any at all, and rely on your trusty fiber wire, or anasthetic to knock people out, and using the disguises and sneaking up on people is a must.
Playing the professional mode might seem like it could be boring, but it's definitely more realistic. You have to compensate for gun recoil manually, and the guards are much more aware. Professional is basically how the game was intended to be played though:sneaking up on people and using other people's clothes as disguises.
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There is a definite lasting appeal to the game. Each level has on average 4 or 5 different ways you can beat it, whether it be via different routes on the level itself, or different disguises and so on. This alone makes the game better giving you the ability to do close to whatever you want to do to beat the level.Sadly the game doesn't include a multiplayer level, which I think would be very cool in this type of game, but the variety of ways to beat the single player missions makes up for the lack of multiplayer.<center>
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<b>Conclusion</b>
Hitman 2 is definitely a different type of game. It's not your normal shootem' up type of game where it's all killing. It requires skill, and planning of how to complete your mission successfully. I think more games should be like this and turn away from the pure shooting and killing like most new games have. I would definitely reccomend this game to anyone looking for a new game to play.
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<!--Start here--><b>Gameplay/Lasting Appeal</b>
One of the nice features of the game, is the ability to choose your weapons for each mission. Before the mission you start back at the monastery in a garden shed where you store all of your weapons that are collected throughout the game. You get to choose your weapons, then get briefed on the mission, and finally get to play. The monastery lets you have some practice shooting at targets like the scarecrow, some pigs, birds, and some other things before you go on the mission. I have to admit, in order to "test" out the realism I waited till the birds that were on the ground started to take off, whipped out a gun, and shot them. And yes, they do fall out of the air, it's quite amusing. When you play the game you have a life meter in the upper left corner, along with a suspicion meter, that will change depending on how suspicious the people around you become during missions, in the top right is your weapons list, and bottom right is your ammo. A few other important tools in the game, are the map, which allows you to see all enemies, targets, weapon pickup locations, and hostages in realtime(i.e. you see where a guard is headed at any given time). It is a very good addition to the game, too bad it took me 4 missions to realize this even existed in the game. Another nice feature, is the game allows you to play in either 1st person view or 3rd person view, so you can pick whichever view you prefer, or switch back and forth in the game with the press of a button. <center>
</center><br/>As mentioned in the overview, the game comes with three options of play, Normal, Expert, or Professional. I reccomend starting off on the normal level of gameplay to get a sense of how the game works, and what you have available to you in each of the 20 missions. The levels of difficulty basically correspond with how the game becomes increasingly more difficult. For example, in the Normal level of difficulty, if you shoot someone with a gun you might have one guard that walks out looks around and goes back in, not caring much. In contrast to the Professional level if you shoot someone with a gun that isn't silenced, you can guarantee that you will have 5 guards there in no time, investigating what just happened, alerting the other guards, and ready to kick your ass any time they see you. The professional level of the game is meant to be played like the title says: Silent Assassin. You don't use many guns, if any at all, and rely on your trusty fiber wire, or anasthetic to knock people out, and using the disguises and sneaking up on people is a must.
Playing the professional mode might seem like it could be boring, but it's definitely more realistic. You have to compensate for gun recoil manually, and the guards are much more aware. Professional is basically how the game was intended to be played though:sneaking up on people and using other people's clothes as disguises.
<center>
</center>There is a definite lasting appeal to the game. Each level has on average 4 or 5 different ways you can beat it, whether it be via different routes on the level itself, or different disguises and so on. This alone makes the game better giving you the ability to do close to whatever you want to do to beat the level.Sadly the game doesn't include a multiplayer level, which I think would be very cool in this type of game, but the variety of ways to beat the single player missions makes up for the lack of multiplayer.<center>
<center>
<b>Conclusion</b>
Hitman 2 is definitely a different type of game. It's not your normal shootem' up type of game where it's all killing. It requires skill, and planning of how to complete your mission successfully. I think more games should be like this and turn away from the pure shooting and killing like most new games have. I would definitely reccomend this game to anyone looking for a new game to play.
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