Wow, I can't believe one of my favorite trilogies, World of Assassination was created from this mess of a game. I honestly don't know where to begin with how truly disappointing Hitman: Codename 47 is. Almost everything about this game is just bad.
Right from the start the game throws you into the tutorial without really being helpful, and it felt like they never really fully explained the fundamentals of the gameplay. They never even walked me through on how to drag the bodies. I had to look up the directions on how to do it because Eidos was too lazy to include it into their tutorial. Not to mention I kept failing because the game never told me to switch disguises during the "training" mission.
The actual gameplay is just pure frustration because the game gives off the impression that it's stealth game when it is not. It's an action game, but an extremely unfair one. Even on easy mode and with a Kevlar suit, enemies' bullets eat through your health quickly and there's no healing items at all in this game. Trying to switch to a weapon during combat is a nightmare because chances are you're going to die before you even get a chance to defend yourself, and there is no melee combat, so you have to use a weapon of some type like a sword or gun.
It also seems like every enemy in the game is hyper aware of everything you do. For example, if you're right behind enemy and you pull out a knife to take him down silently, he automatically hears you and alerts the guards in the area which pretty much guarantees you're dead. You can't pull out your fiber wire around enemies because if you do than you're dead, but somehow you can get past a metal detector with it though. Nothing in this game except for switching out disguises, has stealth elements.
There was one level, after going through a series of objectives you get a vial of poison to take out your target. I put on my disguise, poisoned the food and brought it out for them to eat. I was like "Finally, I get to do something that feels like how Hitman should!". Sadly, instead of just killing my target and completing my mission, the game decides that it's the perfect time to turn what would have been a really cool moment into a stupid cheesy action scene and threw a bunch of enemies at me which forced me into this chaotic shoot off.
I suppose now would be a great time to mention that if you die in this game, and you almost certainly will, you'll have to restart the entire level all over again. No joke. This game only saves in between missions and has no manual saves whatsoever. Even more annoying, not all the cut scenes can be skipped, so be prepared to hear some of the same dialogue over and over again. I'd like to tell you that because you get checkpoints on easy and normal that it might make it more fun to play and lessen some of the frustration, but it honestly makes it far worse. If you happened to die on either easy or normal than the game spawns you at an awkward checkpoint and all the enemies that killed you will still be alerted and will attack on sight making the checkpoint system worthless.
Usually, this the part where I'm like "Well, the game kind of blows, but the art style is cool though". This one of the few times where I can't say that. This game's art style is ugly and off putting like the loading screens or cutscenes. Granted some of the assets weren't that bad like some of the trees and such, but a lot of the assets were just repetitive to the point all it did was make the levels look bland and boring afterwhile. Then again, the almost all of levels themselves are unnecessarily large and half the time were just empty, like Columbia which is one of the worst levels in this game. I hated that mission, a mixture between Tomb Raider and Scar Face. Not a whole lot of originality in that level.
As for the story, there's not really much there. You find out a little about the targets you're supposed to assassinate and 47's backstory, but other than that the game's plot is about as deep as a puddle. There is no environmental storytelling that helps elevate this either and personally I found it to be boring.
Overall:
While I'm glad I had the opportunity to play this game, I can't honestly say it was a pleasant experience. Hitman: Codename 47 has got to be one of the worst games I have ever played, and I had to use cheats about three levels in to finish the game and I still didn't enjoy it. If you have to use cheats to finish a game and yet it still feels miserable to play than I think there's a major problem. I highly doubt that I'm going to play this again.
Pro:
+ some of the songs on the soundtrack are good
+ cheats
Cons:
-boring story
-awful combat
-poor level design
-no manual saves
-various glitches and bugs
-awkward controls
-ugly art style
Right from the start the game throws you into the tutorial without really being helpful, and it felt like they never really fully explained the fundamentals of the gameplay. They never even walked me through on how to drag the bodies. I had to look up the directions on how to do it because Eidos was too lazy to include it into their tutorial. Not to mention I kept failing because the game never told me to switch disguises during the "training" mission.
The actual gameplay is just pure frustration because the game gives off the impression that it's stealth game when it is not. It's an action game, but an extremely unfair one. Even on easy mode and with a Kevlar suit, enemies' bullets eat through your health quickly and there's no healing items at all in this game. Trying to switch to a weapon during combat is a nightmare because chances are you're going to die before you even get a chance to defend yourself, and there is no melee combat, so you have to use a weapon of some type like a sword or gun.
It also seems like every enemy in the game is hyper aware of everything you do. For example, if you're right behind enemy and you pull out a knife to take him down silently, he automatically hears you and alerts the guards in the area which pretty much guarantees you're dead. You can't pull out your fiber wire around enemies because if you do than you're dead, but somehow you can get past a metal detector with it though. Nothing in this game except for switching out disguises, has stealth elements.
There was one level, after going through a series of objectives you get a vial of poison to take out your target. I put on my disguise, poisoned the food and brought it out for them to eat. I was like "Finally, I get to do something that feels like how Hitman should!". Sadly, instead of just killing my target and completing my mission, the game decides that it's the perfect time to turn what would have been a really cool moment into a stupid cheesy action scene and threw a bunch of enemies at me which forced me into this chaotic shoot off.
I suppose now would be a great time to mention that if you die in this game, and you almost certainly will, you'll have to restart the entire level all over again. No joke. This game only saves in between missions and has no manual saves whatsoever. Even more annoying, not all the cut scenes can be skipped, so be prepared to hear some of the same dialogue over and over again. I'd like to tell you that because you get checkpoints on easy and normal that it might make it more fun to play and lessen some of the frustration, but it honestly makes it far worse. If you happened to die on either easy or normal than the game spawns you at an awkward checkpoint and all the enemies that killed you will still be alerted and will attack on sight making the checkpoint system worthless.
Usually, this the part where I'm like "Well, the game kind of blows, but the art style is cool though". This one of the few times where I can't say that. This game's art style is ugly and off putting like the loading screens or cutscenes. Granted some of the assets weren't that bad like some of the trees and such, but a lot of the assets were just repetitive to the point all it did was make the levels look bland and boring afterwhile. Then again, the almost all of levels themselves are unnecessarily large and half the time were just empty, like Columbia which is one of the worst levels in this game. I hated that mission, a mixture between Tomb Raider and Scar Face. Not a whole lot of originality in that level.
As for the story, there's not really much there. You find out a little about the targets you're supposed to assassinate and 47's backstory, but other than that the game's plot is about as deep as a puddle. There is no environmental storytelling that helps elevate this either and personally I found it to be boring.
Overall:
While I'm glad I had the opportunity to play this game, I can't honestly say it was a pleasant experience. Hitman: Codename 47 has got to be one of the worst games I have ever played, and I had to use cheats about three levels in to finish the game and I still didn't enjoy it. If you have to use cheats to finish a game and yet it still feels miserable to play than I think there's a major problem. I highly doubt that I'm going to play this again.
Pro:
+ some of the songs on the soundtrack are good
+ cheats
Cons:
-boring story
-awful combat
-poor level design
-no manual saves
-various glitches and bugs
-awkward controls
-ugly art style