A fantastic game with the best of both worlds; fun VR interactions (combat, climbing, messing around with physics), as well as more traditional game trappings like exploration, upgrade trees, inventory management, and a quasi-open world element. The story isn't half bad either!

The only negative here is the performance, and the general visual fidelity. Playing this on a launch Oculus Quest, it feels like a miracle port -- which is a good and a bad thing. It's very well fleshed out and ambitious for a game on the little standalone headset, but some of the textures are downright hideous, and chugs in performance are far too common, and below what I'd say is a tolerable level in VR. Coupled with some other minor gripes (bad checkpointing, no manual saving) and this is just a hair below true perfection. But nonetheless, one of my favourite VR games to date, and a 2020 GOTYC.

[I played the Xbox 360 remaster via Series S backwards compatibility]

Still fun in its simplicity, and cheesy spy genre stylings, but too many of-the-era frustrations to finish the campaign. Objectives and navigation are just a little too obtuse, with insta-fails meaning you have to quit to the menu to start again -- not even a restart option in the pause menu! That feels like something that would have been sorted by the N64 era, but I guess such quality of life touches are more recent than we realize.

May boot this back up for some splitscreen multiplayer, in the event this plague eventual passes.

One of the most visually impressive games ever made. Every hill you crest in the open world leads to another jaw dropping vista -- and the more focused story scenes are beautifully constructed too.

The rest of the game? Pretty damn excellent also!

The controller definitely feels like it is overstuffed and struggling to contain everything this game wants to do -- I maybe could have lived with a mechanic or two being cut. But the individual parts are all just so satisfying to use. Great combat, fun stealth with lots of tools to experiment with, and some nice quality of life innovations in the open world navigation.

The story is a surprise hit. While it won't surprise you too often, the writing is solid, especially for the side characters, and really excellent voice acting across the board.

Another fabulous collection of maps, with tonnes and tonnes of room for experimentation. As with previous entries in the series, the first time I entered every map there was a giddy sense of awe. The size and scope of open world games continues to balloon, but basically no one can touch IO in terms of tantalising players with how densely packed its levels are. There's more creative mischief to be had in one countryside mansion in Hitman 3 than in entire sprawling cities in other games. This was also the first game in the series where, in my initial playthrough, I was able to off the targets without the guided 'mission stories' and still get a perfect score. It doesn't get more satisfying than that!

There's just the right amount of fresh ideas in Hitman 3 -- with some unique level design choices to differentiate from previous games, but not so drastic that the core appeal of the franchise is diminished. Only the final level is a gigantic departure, and while I can see that irritating some folks, I appreciated it as a dumb little novelty to round out the trilogy. My only gripe is the story, which has never really grabbed me -- in the older games or this new trilogy. Hitman 3 leans into the overarching plot a lot more and I don't think it benefits from it. It's convoluted but not in an intriguing way, and told via very ropey looking cutscenes.

Once again there are small quality of life improvements, most notably on the PS5 versus the PS4. Load times are zippy, performance is super smooth. I look forward to revisiting this for the rest of the year, to complete challenges and check out the always fun post release content from IO.

I would love to revisit this thing later in the year, in the hopes it has been patched and improved. Because the core idea here is awesome, and actually did get its hooks into me. The many, many facets controlling a mob family during the prohibition era made for a very addictive management sim. So addictive that I was able to look beyond the many bugs and shortcomings to still have a lot of fun in 15ish hours of play.

But the issues just stacked too high and I can't keep going with it. The bugs are numerous, and I currently have two story quests that I can't finish because the relevant NPC didn't spawn. UI elements hang and glitch frequently. It just feels very unfinished.

It's not just bugs though. The core management mechanics are good, but some other mechanics feel undercooked. The XCom like combat is poor. With dumb AI, unresponsive controls and tight interior locations, the fights just feel like a slog. A recent patch did add an 'autoplay' feature to skip fights, which is helpful because there's so many, but also sort of defeats the point of playing the game at all.

A great addition to this fledgling series, with a more tightly packed and better characterized story than the 2018 original. It's really interesting to see an open world game, which still has tonnes of optional content, keep its main story focused and to the point. The final few missions are fantastic.

On the gameplay side, it's very familiar. It's a welcome 'more of the same' with some tweaks and changes to the formula established in the last game. The real must-see aspect is the story, and the eye-melting fidelity of this game on PS5. As beautiful and bustling a representation of a big city like New York as we've seen so far.