Hitman: Contracts

Coming 2 years after Hit-man 2 it's hard to believe that a game from 2004 could look and feel so 1998. The story has Agent 47 collapse in a Paris hotel room where he has flashbacks to previous missions (including 4 remakes from the first game) while an unseen doctor helps him recover. The tone is darker and more personal, and it feels tighter, I just wish the lazy programming didn't spoil it.

There are 12 levels in total, and if you're just in it for the 'thrill' of mass murdering then you'll whisk though the entire game in a single day. If you're going for the 'Silent Assassin' rankings then you'll get a bit more mileage out of it. Your efforts might be spoiled by security guards and cops seeing through your disguise FOR NO REASON! You better be rock solid on your controller with no twitchy fingers if you want those rankings, and be prepared to scream at the monitor until your larynx disintegrates.

Hit-man: Contracts came in at the tail-end of the Sixth Generation of console video gaming and thus became dated very quickly. It's a lot tighter than the expansive, and slightly overwrought, Hit-man 2, but IO Interactive really should have refined the programming.

Graphics C Sound B Gameplay B- Lasting Apppeal C

I had very high expectations for this game and it delivers 75% of what I was expecting. The graphics are great, but when you enter 1st person mode they just look ugly. Second the computer controlled enemies are unpredictable, they just open fire on you for no absolute reason which leads to major frustration. Though the voice acting is still stupendous, the music sounds like it's out of a cheesy 60's spy film. One thing the series is still good at is allowing the player to kill the target in numerous ways, either by poison, a bomb, the old sniper rifle, going in John Woo style, the list goes on. Finally the controls have been redone and finally their is a training mission.

Final Score 7.1/10

When I first played this game I found it hard and didn't want to play it but then a friend helped and I completed it in a number of weeks. It is a complicated game i can assure you of that. Very good game though. Enough violence to satisfy me. Could use more language though. Excellent graphics with the blood to make it look almost real. The first level is intense, picks up after the end of Hit-man Codename 47. Dead clone agents everywhere. 8/10 is a definite. 9/10 for the blood. Great game you should play it. The plot was the thing I din't get but it was a hard game. Buy and play it, the second level is really confusing.

Pretty decent game considering it was released in 2004. The story links up a lot with some missions from hitman 2 and blood money, which is always good and gives a sense of continuity to it. Surprisingly i didn't run into any crashes or any major bugs that could ruin the experience, exept for some weird bug that made the camera shake a little during dialogues with npcs. Overall a good game

The strongest aspect of the latest Hit-man game is its visual element. Running on a new graphics engine, which seems to suggest Japanese Anime, "Hit-man: Contracts" delves deep into the mind of a professional killer. Set before the events of "Hitman 2: Silent Assassin", it opens with Agent 47 seriously wounded in a Paris hotel. He's haunted by the memories of his past killings and the game takes place almost entirely in his head.

It's the psyche of Agent 47 that brings this title to life with a surreal atmosphere and the disturbing presence of the macbre. Unlike "Manhunt", which bordered on the pornographic in its depiction of violence, this game is more of a psychological shocker. Every level is a variation on the "it was a dark and stormy night" scenario and the first mission establishes this with a very bizarro style.

It takes place in a strange European nightclub/slaughterhouse. The owner is an overly obese man who's twin brother tortures a young girl upstairs while listening to oldies on a .45 record. Agent 47's assignment is to kill the owner and his lawyer who dopes up in a private room. The whole place is a like a Halloween party gone bad where the clients dress up in S&M-like attire and get wrapped up in lapdances.

"Hitman 2" was a huge improvement over the original and proved to be a great stealth game in the vein of "Splinter Cell". However, this third installment, while it does visually impress, isn't as innovative. It merely smoothes the gameplay of its predecessor and has made the missons more open-ended. Stages now have at least two different ways of how to neutralize the "mark", but this can be either a blessing or a curse depending on the player's tolerance for self-discovery.

In fact, Hitman fans will either love or hate the programmers' decision to include only a few number of original levels for "Contracts". The bulk of the game consists of recreations of assignments from "Hitman: Codname 47". This is disappointing considering Eidos' had first said it was not interested in doing a remake of the first game. The best mission is a new one set at a British manor which the company claims was inspired by Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" (Go figure).

If I seem to be negative in this review, rest assure, I am giving "Contracts" a thumbs up. This is a good game, I did like stepping into Agent 47's shoes once again and its strenghts certainly do outweigh its weaknesses. I only wished the title had been a complete original, then it would've been a great game. 3 stars out of 4. Grade: B