Hit parade
With a corny title like Hitman: Blood Money, you might expect a B-grade action movie replete with
violence and gore dumb enough for any film critic to
flat out disparage. In this case, you’d be right about the violence part. But
thankfully Hitman: Blood Money is one of the smartest and
most immersive games currently out on shelves.
The Hitman series of games has never been one where players go in guns blazing —
considering the tasks here, such an approach is tantamount to suicide. Instead,
seeing as you play as a hitman ordered to take out
specific targets, you actually have to think like a hitman
and plan your murders accordingly. Thusly, Blood
Money, like the other Hitman games before it, offers unparalleled levels of
interactivity so as to present multiple ways to accomplish the dirty deeds.
For example, one of the early missions involves taking out
an opera singer with a dark secret, one who during a rehearsal faces a mock
firing squad. Before the firing squad scene, you can replace the prop pistol of
the actor shooting the singer with a real pistol. Or you could place a bomb in
the lighting above, and have the lights come crashing down. Or you could hide
in the rafters above and snipe the singer from there. Or you could…well, you
get the idea.
As morbid as it sounds, having your plans come exactly to
fruition within the game can give you a luxurious high of accomplishment,
especially since the difficulty ramps up quite quickly. Hitman is not for the impatient
or easily frustrated.
Hitman: Blood Money is available for the
PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PC. Parents take note: this game is rated M
for Mature, and is not one for the
kids.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
