*On what is currently available to play. Not all the content is out yet because is releasing episodically.
I’ll start off by saying that I’ve only ever finished one Hitman game before the latest installment had it’s first round of content released. Prior to this game I’ve only completed Hitman: Absolution, which I liked. It was criticized for being different from the original Hitman trilogy because of how small the levels were and how it wasn’t as open ended as they were. Like I said, I never finished those so I was fine with what I got. The new Hitman game is a return to how the old games were, for the most part.
The game, and what are essentially tutorial levels, starts off 20 years before the first game and covers how Agent 47 joins the agency he works for and how he gets the name “Agent 47”. The first level is a guided level that has you do the mission in a specific way. Once you finish this you can play through the very small level multiple ways. The level after that, while not guided from the start, is still pretty small. Like all the missions it is open ended on how you achieve your goal, and there are plenty of ways to do it. Now once you finish that, and if you have the full experience purchase (so not the intro pack that is only $15 US) you move on to the first “real” mission set in a Paris fashion show. This level is the largest in the game at this point and offers a good amount of different ways to kill your targets.
One of the main things about this game is that the missions all have specific opportunities that unlock for specific scenarios such as making a cocktail that the guy likes and poisoning it, or dressing up as a specific person to get a private meeting. You have to find these opportunities by listening to conversations and then completing specific things to get it done. You don’t have to follow any of these though, and you can complete the mission any way you want which is where most of the content of the game is going to come from. Basically it boils down to completionism. You can do the mission once and be done with it, or you can try to complete all the objectives and do all the things for the sake of getting 100% completion. If you just play through it once you probably won’t feel like you got your moneys worth. I can literally beat all 3 missions in less than 30 minutes. The thing is, you want to go back through and do it multiple ways.
The other thing is that, like Absolution, there are player made contracts. This allows players to go through the level and mark their own targets and put them online for people to complete. This is where a good chunk of time will be spent. There are also escalation contracts that are 5 stage missions that offer you a target and then add progressively more challenging objectives, such as time limits and specific outfits/weapons.
Or you can do what I did this weekend and go on a rampage (note: I failed this attempt)
Overall I think the game is pretty solid. The graphics are good, though they don’t seem to be improved over Absolution. There is a good amount of content post story, though if you’re not interested in anything but the story you’d want to wait till all the content has been released. The controls are okay, though you will often get stuck in cover, but I have the same problem in The Division.
The other thing is that this is not a “run & gun” game. You can’t soak up bullets like in a lot of other games. You can take a few hits but you can’t really last in a sustained firefight. I did eventually pull off a rampage, which I will be uploading to YouTube, but it took me 3 1/2 hours and I did reload a couple times. I want to go back and do a no death, no reload rampage at some point.
Now I’m just stuck waiting for the next set mission to be released.