Good old Agent 47. He doesn’t get the same level of love and recognition as some other game protagonists, but he really should.
He may not be a cybernetically enhanced super soldier with power armour like Halo’s Master Chief, but his suave suit gets him where he needs to go, even if he always has to ditch it for several disguises during the course of a mission.
The levels are huge and gorgeous.
Mario may have a more cheery disposition, but we can’t all be upbeat all the time, can we? Agent 47 has a lot more personality than one may expect from a character devoted to the emotionless elimination of targets assigned to him by his employers, a fact Hollywood seems to have realised quite some time ago but has been unable to capture or capitalise on in either 2007’s Hitman film, or the 2015 reboot.
As you may have gathered by now, I’m quite a fan of the Hitman games. I spent hours upon hours playing 2006’s Hitman: Blood Money, and have returned to it periodically over the years; it still holds up today.
While Blood Money received universal acclaim from both critics and players, its 2012 sequel, Hitman: Absolution, got a mixed response. I wasn’t a fan, and was so turned off by some elements that I didn’t even bother completing it. How could the Hitman series go from a game that I couldn’t stop playing, to this?
When it was announced that the next game in the series would be released in an episodic form, instead of as a complete standalone game, many of us were convinced that this was another sign that Agent 47 would never return to his former glory.
Wonder what happens if I press this?
Rarely have I been so happy to be proved wrong.
Hitman: The Complete First Season collects all the episodes and content released since March 2016 into one package, and it is a glorious return to form for everyone’s favourite bald assassin.
The maps are exquisitely crafted and filled with incredibly well realised non-player characters, be they targets, potential enemies or innocent bystanders.
It is clear that the developers took to heart some of the criticism levelled at Absolution, which just didn’t give players the sense of freedom earlier games did. There will always be those who disagree, but for me and for many other fans, the series is all about being dropped in a sandbox environment where there is no single, correct way to accomplish your goals.
The words “linear” and “Hitman” should never be spoken in the same sentence, and they never need be in descriptions of this game.
It begs you to replay its missions again and again to see what inventive new way you can find to off your targets.
An advantage of the episodic release system was that players couldn’t just jump straight to the next level, as they had to wait for it to actually be released, so there was a lot of incentive to replay missions, unlocking new weapons, disguises and starting locations, and using them in subsequent run-throughs to kill targets in different ways and unlock even more goodies.
Straight shooter.
Now that all the levels are available in one package, it’s tempting to just jump to the next episode as soon as you complete a mission, but this would be a mistake.
Each level really does deserve to be savoured and experienced again and again to do it justice.
Another tip: turn off most of the assists. The game does a brilliant job of introducing new players to its mechanics, but the player aids can make the game far too easy and eliminate the fun that comes from figuring things out for yourself. If this is your first Hitman experience, use the aids for the training mission, perhaps, but after that, turn off most of them and only return to them if you really get stuck. This shouldn’t happen too often, though; the world of Hitman can be a tough and dangerous place, but patience, planning and a keen eye are all you need to win the day.
To be honest, I haven’t had this much fun in a game since Titanfall 2, and that was my pick for best game of 2016.
Whether this will be your first time donning a black suit and gloves, or you’re an old pro at picking locks and using a silenced pistol, Hitman: The Complete First Season is a must-play.
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Windows, Linux
Rating: 9/10
