The HITMAN Trilogy is on GamePass and hence, I finally was able to try it for myself. I’ve loved the idea of HITMAN but never got to play any instalment of the franchise myself. You’re a bald guy with people skills, you got a nice suit, and you’ve got a bar code tattoed to the back of your head, and you murder people while sneaking around and stuff. You can poison people, kill them manually, shoot them, or you kill them in fun ways like… Removing the safety measure from a machine and having them get rid of themselves. Anyway, today, I wanted to talk about my impressions of Hitman 1 after finally playing through it for the first time. And yes, I know, Hitman is technically in all-caps but just having the two words up there in all-caps is bothering me a great deal, so I’ll stop that.
Anyway, Hitman follows Agent 47 and his handler who want to find out more about 47’s past. All the while, they are taking care of contracts. 47 needs to sneak in, disguise himself, take care of some bad people, and then get out. It’s quite simple, in a way, but I think that’s the charm of the story. The gameplay is where the game truly shines. Before the missions, you need to prepare yourself and choose what gear to bring with you. You can use coins to distract people while other weapons and tools can often come in handy to exact your plans in other ways. It’s got a bit of a strategic layer to it as different weapons work better for other playstyles but there are also areas where you can’t bring anything with you. The Hokkaido level, for example, is among my favourites due to the restrictions that come with it. You have to find opportunities to distract, knock out and strip people so that you can disguise yourself as them. Due to the tight security and the restrictions that come with that, you don’t have many opportunities from the getgo to get the jump on an enemy but as you learn more about the map and as you find out about more Mission Stories, you get to hone your skills and fuck up people pretty fast and incredibly clean.
Mission Stories, btw, are another few opportunities you may find in the game that help you find your way into territories that you can’t access. You may overhear how this supermodel named Helmut Krüger is present at the event you’re attending at! As they’re relatively similar-looking to 47, you can take the opportunity to live out your dreams of glamour, fame and fashion – which contradicts the lifestyle of a hitman quite a lot, ironically. Knock them out, disguise yourself as them, walk on the catwalk, and then meet up with one of your targets – in private – to then deal with them. The plan is simple yet effective. It’s absurd how well it works and I found it incredibly fun to do!
And well, the game is super challenging. There were plenty of times when I just couldn’t figure out how to deal with a situation or how to get rid of all those witnesses. Yes, you can brute-force some levels and wreck havoc upon thy enemies, killing everyone who stands in your way, but that lowkey ruins the fun of things… even if it’s a lot of fun. I mean, yes, you can just go for it, I guess… but most of the time, your targets may find themselves put into a lockdown once they caught wind of you, making it harder for you to get to them. The challenging aspects of stealthily moving around, sneaking your way into the enemy base, and taking out your targets before anyone else catches wind is incredibly well-executed. The strategic elements to it and all the preparation you do before the missions really pay off in the end. I frankly am in love with the game and I’ll definitely have to try and do some of those challenges in previous/already completed missions to unlock more starting locations, outfits, disguises, weapons, and scenarios!
Frankly, I missed out by not playing the newer Hitman games before and I’m glad I got to do it now. Hitman 2 has been a blast as well so far but I’m not quite done with it just yet. I’m looking forward to potentially finishing it soon, though, and I can’t wait to see what Hitman 3 has to offer for me once I get there! If you wanna see me fail at missions, feel free to stop by sometime on Twitch btw! Been going live quite frequently lately around 2/3 AM CET, so come hang out if you wanna! Have you played Hitman yet? If not, do you plan to given that it’s on GamePass right now?
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!
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