played through World of Assassination

the common consensus for the hitman trilogy ive seen is that hitman 2 has the best maps of the 3. while i cannot speak of h3 just yet, they are certainly more fleshed out than h1. idk how but they feel both more linear and more open at the same time.

with h1 there was kinda a linear progression with disguises that stopped as soon as you got the highest ranked guard disguise. in h2 the maps feel plenty more open and i felt myself needing to swap out plenty more disguises throughout. there's also plenty of ways to go about it. take the mumbai targets for instance. all 3 are in different corners of the map, require different disguises to get to, and also in one instance the disguise doesnt work unless youre far enough distance away, since the crows are on the lookout for intruders. finding the maelstrom through clues gained from the other targets as well as infiltrating the crows base was an awesome feat. and it really feels designed for skulking, so many boxes to dump bodies in, tons of distractions too. it was a really cool area. using all that info to find the maelstrom, following him and finally after all your hard work silently disposing of him in a back alley... peak gaming .and then taking out vanya shah i have an even cooler story of trespassing for like 30 minutes, making my way to the back of her warehouse, and taking out a guard and placing him in convenient dumping box, and then climbing up the pipes to trespass again trying to find a higher tier guard and having to sneak around and find a perfect time to strike, and when the deed is done, shimmy down the pipe and listen to the chaos unfold right above me. sneaking into vanya shah's car and then shooting her and walking out the back to take down the final target of the mission, only to engage with that level of depth again. i could go on and on with the other maps, like miami, whittleton creek, columbia, but you get the idea by now.

the peak gaming comes to a head with the final mission of base h2, the ark society. the atmosphere, the setting alone make it peak. an assassin sneaking into a secret society's base on a remote island with stormy seas all around? sign me the hell up. this is doubly true with the stakes in the story making it incredibly satisfying to escort the constant out of the island after neatly taking care of the washington twins. man, walking the constant down to the boat was so fucking cool and tense. backing up, the washington twins were also cool targets to take out. i found myself eliminating the guards they had and becoming their guards and following them around for another cycle before finally getting them in the bushes where no one could see... at least for one. the other i threw a soda can at her head and a brick at the guard's head and then snapped her neck in a room off to the side. stalking your prey is insanely fun in the game.


i guess what im trying to get at here is that is the simulation aspect feels more fully realized through map design alone. it makes you feel like you are The Hitman instead of having a get out of jail free card with a silent pistol. i mean, maybe it was more self imposed but i found myself ditching the use of lethal weapons for subduing instead. it felt cooler to have that extra bit of tension, esp if i couldnt find a place to dump the body at.

the story is the same as the first game, devoid of much substance and depth, but still charming and with a "cool" factor. i do have to compliment the performances of the cast. The Constant was especially great, perfect voice for the "evil mastermind" archetype, and the rest of the cast gave solid performances. unfortunately, the presentation took a hit with the cutscenes being nothing more than glorified slideshows. in many cases i couldnt tell what was going on in the scenes because they were so dark and there was no movement lol. however there's a reason for this decline in presentation due to the company splitting off from square enix, so i forgive it. i also seem to be the only one who cares about the story in these games at all, but even for me they arent the main attraction.


there's also the drama with the way these games were released. looks awful but luckily i didnt have to worry about that model 8 years late to the party heheh

overall a definite upgrade from the first and addressed almost all of my complaints from the first review. i was a dumbass and didnt get the dlc maps at the same time as purchasing WoA but luckily they went on sale today lol. 27 dollars for every map in the game is a complete steal, im so glad i picked this game up. review for the dlc will be up in the next few days likely, who even knows. new york and haven island, here i come!

Hitman 2 is essentially a glorified score attack game loosely tied together by a vague plot. But that is by no means a bad thing.

What you have is a handful of scenarios, each in a wildly different setting from the last, with a new target or targets to kill and linked together by a threadbare plot about uncovering Agent 47's past. Feel free to ignore any and all plot points (although there's no judgement from me if you indulge in them) and fully sink your teeth into each scenario treating them as standalone missions. You can see how this was developed with an episodic nature in mind before Warner Bros pivoted to releasing the game in full from it's disjointed flow from mission to mission.

The missions themselves offer you a multitude of ways to off your targets and the game kindly provides you with 'story missions' to follow, which are recommended for a first pass of the level. They give the player a handy checklist of events that culminate in a specific demise for a target. You can then replay the level and try a different 'story mission' for a different outcome or completely freestyle it and take them down as you see fit.

The game scores and ranks you on your efficiency for completing the mission and there's dozens of challenges to conquer to further unlock tools to use in the mission, boosting the game's replay factor.

The NPCs within each mission seem overly jumpy and get suspicious of you at a moment's notice, but then again, I'd be suspicious if a guy walked around town with my erratic playstyle. This means you really have to be patient at times to wait for a perfectly clear route so you can proceed without alerting anyone. So if you're more of an 'all-guns-blazing' type of player, this might not be for you.

Played through World of Assassination

Pretty much the same story gameplay wise as the first game, so I'll mainly just be talking about the experience with the different levels, the Sniper Assassin mode and potentially some personal thoughts as I played through more of the series.

Before that I want to iterate again, this always online shit is awful, and so are the elusive targets, whoever came up with this shit is a moron.

Anyways, the levels were just not it this time around, there's only 3 levels that are at the very least "good" because you're thrown so many levels which you can't dream of experimenting with until you've been railroaded through the "Mission Stories" and typically are overstuffed with NPCs because they're crowded third world areas or whatever, it's just a fucking disaster.

There was one out of those crappy bunch that had an interesting gimmick of an unknown target you have to discover... which went up in smoke when I was doing one of the "Mission Stories" and after fucking up disposing of a KOed disguise target and guard, a random NPC spotted me, so I just got frustrated and shot him before I reloaded my save, but right before I did that I was told "Great work 47, you found the target!" which really ruined any fun that could have been.

Anyways, halfway through you're dealt probably my favorite level in the reboot trilogy so far "Another Life" (not to be confused with A New Life from Blood Money) which is much more what you'd expect from the Hitman series, taking place in an American suburb with JUUUUST the right amount of NPCs, and there being plenty of things to explore, as well as having a lot of fun things around, and creative opportunities for kills, great time, didn't do any "Mission Stories" in it and managed to find a lot of interesting stuff regardless.

The other 2 levels I enjoyed were the 2 from the DLCs, one was the bank which was similarly good, but just not quite as good and a little hard to get around without following a "Mission Story" and the resort level which was just... Ok, I liked the fact that it was pretty open yet not too populated and filled with enough bushes that it basically invites you to just throw caution to the wind and try getting quick kills off by just popping them and immediately ducking into cover, in fact you can kill the first target within seconds of starting.

Story was a lot better this time, as in there's actually a story to follow, with things that happen and have weight in what happens in the actual levels, but it's nothing amazing, just some cheap b-movie spy thriller.

I tried to shift up my gameplay by forcing myself to experiment a little and not forcing myself to EXCLUSIVELY kill targets, to not feel as pressured, and I feel like I got a much better grip on the gameplay loop because of it this time around, but flaws with the AI are becoming more and more apparent, I hope the next time they do a set of Hitman games they lower the scope so they can tighten up things like AI.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to mention Sniper Assassin!

It's okay, not really my thing, that's all.

This game, advertised as a sequel to Hitman 2016, was meant to continue the support where that one left off where we'd get a whole new season AND another one further down the line to fill out that "live service" begging that big publishers like to turn all their games into perpetual money machine, however, that fell apart as I'm sure you all know by now with "Hitman 3" or as it's also known as "Hitman: World of Assassination" as if trying to cover up what they'd done and how much money they'd swindled out of people.

The game itself feels like an interesting side-grade with the addition of having 47 able to hide in tall grass and bushes, much like Talion from Shadow of Mordor/War (the game loads up with a WB logo, so I guess they bought this game from Square Enix?) and even earlier stages were altered to allow this, however, the only one I got to try from the previous game were the training stages which added it.

Then there's the UI change in regards to the item selection where instead of filling up the screen and blocking your view, it comes up as a small dark bar at the bottom of the screen so you always get a second to look at where you are before you decide to pull out something that might be an illegal item like guns for a civilian outfit and ect.

There also seems to be a personal level system for your account, however, I have no idea what benefits it'd actually give you, if any. Especially at this point where the game is not purchasable anymore and you have to buy the newest one AND associated DLC.

I still liked the story and like the previous one it ends with a cliff-hanger that suggests some dark secret hanging over the whole thing, however, I'm still going to review this game with a bad score because of the fact it was meant to be made as an apology for the previous game, yet they did it again and we have a third game that I'm going to take the time to get all the items from the mastery because some of those items are just TOO good. Like the baton, pistol and knife that can be concealed and unable to be found in a pat-down. Would've been really helpful for some of these missions!

Edit: Something I should note is both this and the 3rd game use brief cases, which is a great way of carrying your weapons, like the sniper rifle, to one location without having to dress up like a security guard and being able to walk around unnoticed as the big rifle strapped to one's back generally let's people know that you're up to no-good.

Probably controversial but it might be the weakest one to me? Like, not bad of course, But I’m not itching to replay some of these levels as much as I am with 1 or 3, they feel a bit too open for my liking and targets are often really disconnected from each other, meaning you have to go back and forth often - also one of the 6 levels is essentially a glorified tutorial in a game that already has one so that’s not good
I will say though - I like the story developments in this one, the actual mission briefings were better even if the cutscenes in between missions themselves were worse, but IOI was bordering on bankruptcy so I’ll let it slide - plus there’s some very memorable kills in this one and there’s also a higher ratio of good targets
So overall, it might be my least favorite but it’s still a good one, and considering IOI nearly went bankrupt making it, it’s a miracle we got this and 3 at all, so I’ll give credit where due.