Hitman 2: Could’ve Been Great, But Only Turned Out Good

Author's Rating:

Pros: Unique emphasis on stealth and deception.

Cons: Can get through the game just by killing everybody. Boring plot.

The Bottom Line: 
Still a fun game...just not a classic.

Author's Review
If you’re as cheap as I am, when Hitman 3 came out, you checked out the reviews for Hitman 2 to see if you could get a good cheap game. Actually, I had this game before Hitman Contracts came out, but it is a good game and delivers a lot of bang for the buck. Here goes da review…

The first few minutes you play this game (besides the confusing introductory level), you think to yourself, “This is pretty cool.” You’ve killed a flower delivery man, took his clothes, and dragged the body into the rocks Then you pick up the flowers and start walking towards the gate of the mansion. The bodyguards pat you down…and draw their weapon. But you pull out your dual pistols and bust a cap in both of ‘em. Then you frantically look for a place to hide those bodies.

Pretty cool, huh? You can get through levels by firing only one shot…if you’re good enough. You can sneak behind a guy and kill him silently by choking him with the fiber wire, or knock him out for five minutes with the anasthetic. You use costume changes to sneak into places.
The problem is, once I “busted a cap” on the aforementioned bodyguards with my dual pistols, I realized I could just shoot everyone in the mission with relative ease. Especially, in one level, I was actually sneaking around in the sewers when I killed someone and got an M60 gun. No more stealth needed! I stopped hiding and just killed all who opposed me.

That’s the problem with this game…you can get by just shooting everyone in sight. Play this game as a typical third-person shooter and you can beat the game. Maybe it’s mey fault for not playing the game as it was meant to be played. The only problem is it’s so damn easy just to play the game like that, and still just shoot-em-up fun.
And the stealth is not that realistic. Agent 47, whom you control, is a bald ugly guy with a barcode on the back of his head. And you’re telling me he can pose as a Mafia bodyguard, Japanese chef, and an Arabian lieutenant? C’mon!
The perfect mix of stealth and action employed in the game makes it ridiculously easy at times. Kill a Mafia dude and take his clothes. Run around with a kitchen knife. The other bodyguards will look suspiciously at you and scratch their heads for a second or two. Put a knife in their belly. Easy. Too easy.
Or in Japan, kill a dude and take his clothes. The other guards will come up to you and check you for ID. Knife ‘em. Or gun them down as they approach. Don’t bother with a silencer, use your loudest gun and his pals won’t even notice and keep patrolling. Advance further and wait for them to run up to you. Rinse and repeat. Once again, too easy.

However, if you play the game as it’s meant to be played, it can be enormous fun. In one level, sneak in and dress up as a fireman. Throw a smoke bomb down the chute. Then when the alarm goes off, follow the other firemen into the basement. You don’t have to keep your fire axe hidden anymore. Then sneak off into the other room as the other firemen go another way. Put an axe in Charlie’s head. Head on out…see, when you find ways to play it with stealth, it’s mighy fun. In one level you get to impersonate a surgeon and kill the cult leader during his “heart surgery.” Using stealth, and finding creative ways to do your mission, leaving the innocents alone and not letting hostiles know you are there or you are the Hitman and killing only your target, it can be challenging and fun.
Unfortunately, you can often just kill every person in the level. I think the game makers should have made it so that it would be very difficult to complete a level if you pull out your guns right away. For example, in the last level, you go back to your home, only to find it swarming with your foe’s bodyguards. All you have is a fiber wire. Challenging? Not really…run to your weapon shed…the bodyguards will see you and shoot at you, take the damage, run to the shed and get your shotgun and shot them all as they stupidly open the shed doors and walk to you.

That’s the game’s only real flaw…they should have made it so you HAVE to use SOME stealth. The graphics are good and my only other gripes are that the story is bland, there is only one mission that is interesting plot-wise, and that 47 is sooooooo UGLY! Whenever you die, you see 47 fall to the ground and die and blood start to pool under his body. Whenever that happens, I load up my last saved game right away because 47’s face is in plain view during that scene, contorted with pain, and he’s so ugly I want to PUKE! But otherwise, there’s some very cool missions, like the one where you have to kill someone at a party that you’re not invited to, and where you have to pose as a patient and kill the doctor, and stuff like that. There are always multiple ways to complete a mission and more than one stealthy way…like in one mission you can either snipe the two people at the meeting, or you can sneak around in the sewers and attach bombs to the bottom of their cars. It is a very fun game…just not one that will go down in gaming history…like Deus Ex, a game I have to mention in every game review I do...