It is incredible how much Metal Gear DNA this game carries, right down to the murderous slapstick with piles of identical bodies
1 Like
I did the neighborhood level in 2 by killing every NPC on the map and piling them in and on dumpsters. I got 0 stars but I laughed. Still haven’t done it the normal way lol
5 Likes
The neighborhood level is maybe the most fun level to explore in the whole series - what it lacks in visual panache it more than makes up for by embracing the series’ whole “the rich are insane and depraved” mantra and ramping it up.
Amazing what you’ll find when you crack into a couple of basements and attics.
2 Likes
Something about HitmanTM that’s gotten lost since HitmanTM 2 is how much this trilogy embraces the vast and multiple ways people can approach and play the game. HitmanTM 1 was released episodically, with months of wait between maps. So when Paris, the first level, came out there was nothing to do but play it over and over and over (well, that and the tutorial levels which were still cool in their own right). And it’s designed for that- it’s got all sorts of challenges to complete that are on opposites sides of the gameplay spectrum. Some of them require you to be really lethal and loud while others require you to blend in with the crowd.
The game has multiple tiers of hint systems so you can customize exactly how much guidance you get on objectives and situational awareness. If people want a guided, linear experience that tells you what to do every step of the way, you can play it that way. And if you found that kind of boring, you can tone the hints down when you played it a second time. But the game is so well designed that it still accommodates a fully hint-less playstyle without it feeling hampered in some way. There’s always in-game visual and audio cues to clue you in on map mechanics and stories without there needing to be UI elements to tell you what to do.
So you gradually figured out what you wanted your HitmanTM experience to be like as you replayed Paris to complete all the challenges.
With HitmanTM 2 and 3, they were released as complete packages with all maps released at once. And that means you can now approach the game with a mindset that there’s a beginning and and end- you start in map 1 and then you just play them in order until you hit credits. And you beat HitmanTM 2 and 3. You get a lot of hours worth of content out of that, but I think there can be less impulse to replay maps. So now have you a situation where you want to have the best experience possible on your one and only playthrough. But there’s no one and “best” way to play HitmanTM without at least a little bit of seeing what the game plays like and figuring out what you want out of the experience.
Also, I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it about the time limited content, but as of the 2022 update to Hitman 3, they’re all back under a new mode. Everday the mode rotates between the limited time event missions and you get a limited number of attempts at beating it per day. So if you fail, you have to wait for it to come back. But it will come back. In the mean time, you’ll be able to play all the other time limited missions every day until then.
10 Likes
Too bad they’ll never bring back the Elusive Target with the Garies (Cole and Buses), for obvious reasons I guess.
But yeah, I think that’s a big part of why Hitman felt so damn cool, and why 2 and 3 bummed me out a bit. I played the shit out of the levels from Hitman as they trickled out (imagine anyone coming to these games, released as a whole, and thinking “I’m gonna play the shit out of the Himmapan Hotel” - unthinkable!), but I definitely muscled through 2 and 3, knowing full well I was playing it “wrong.”
Gotta agree, and can’t recommend enough going back to, well, any level, really, and just trying out those different challenges. A lot of them get checked off whether you finish a level or not, so it’s cathartic to bean the shithead kid in the Knives Out level with a pool ball. You’ll get XP for it eventually!
Edit: actually, circling back to the other day - now that you’ve got it out of the way, I recommend really digging into Santa Fortuna. It’s a daunting level, but the challenges and kills possible in it are some of the best in Hitman 2, they just take some work to pull off.
2 Likes
I really loved the slow release format of the first Hitman game. It definitely locked me into the play style I still play these games in, which is getting Mastery and learning like every aspect of the level before moving onto the next. I basically played none of the H2 maps because I had to playthrough all the H1 maps, which I thought was really fun anyway.
5 Likes
I love playing Hitman like a Murder Jazz but its kind of sad how little Mission Stories are featured as the series goes on. I liked having that jump off point to get to know a place and seeing Hitman 3 only have like… 1-3 per map just sucks.
4 Likes
New map is out today, Ambrose Island. Freebie, so it just downloads with the title update, and chronologically seems set just before the final mission of Hitman 2.
I dunno, it’s OK. Sorta Sapienza-ish, with two targets and a thing you gotta destroy or otherwise make inaccessible. Layout and vibe is kinda like a mix of the South American map from 2 and Haven Island from 2.
Not the best map, but it’s free, so I guess there’s that.
4 Likes
Been playing around with the Freelancer Mode, that they’ve got in a closed test til…tomorrow morning? Damn.
Anyway.
It’s cool! I’m playing through the campaign again for the…fourth…I don’t know how many times, but even starting anew doesn’t really prepare you for this mode.
The standard levels will throw you into a random, hopefully not compromising spot, forcing you to scrounge around for supplies, with your target being marked as usual. So far for me, they’ve all been guards or regular NPCs that follow much shorter, and generally far more exposed routes than the campaign targets.
The game is a lot more lenient on what you can get away with (there’s generally no penalty for extra casualties, though you might fail some side objectives if you go wild), but at the same time, if you die, you fail that mission, and the rest get harder (and if you fail the showdown).
It makes the game somehow higher stakes but also more wild and risky. Yesterday I did a mission in Sapienza where I needed to kill a maid in the mansion (closed the piano, and while a butler attended it, threw a knife at her a jumped out a window), a guy milling about the cemetery (pushed over a five foot ledge to his death), and a guy who just walked from one end of the pier to another (thrown screwdriver to the head followed by my gunning it for the exit boat).
The showdown levels give you some basic details about your target (what they’re wearing, what they’re doing there, various tells), then drops you into the level with multiple possible suspects. It’s trickier than it sounds! But mostly because I kept really having to follow one guy around and figure out if he was wearing a necklace or not.
(It turns out he was - it was also very telling that whenever his buddy who followed him everywhere came by, the game would spit out “LOOKOUT NEARBY” “ASSASSIN NEARBY” - I took the time to crack a safe in the level, got enough money to buy the gun that shoots vomit darts, waited til I had a nice runway with nobody to see me, popped his bodyguard in the back and then him, followed him to a port-a-potty and shoved a screwdriver into his head.)
It feels like a really smart way to make use of these huge levels they’ve built. Gonna be sad to see this mode disappear for a few months.
8 Likes
Ack! I thought you were implying it was releasing on monday. Can’t believe this is still stuck like this considering how it was supposed to be done a year ago. I wonder if they just lost most of their team to 007, or if this is still being used as a testbed for 007.
1 Like
Yeah, I think it got pushed back a bit more than they had hoped, but what’s here feels pretty good? I think they could better explain the lookout/assassin stuff in the showdown levels, but otherwise it seems like everything is kinda good to go.
The end of January, though…dang.
1 Like
Probably both!
1 Like
we got a sausage serial killer on our hands here
13 Likes
crossbows! hell yeah
3 Likes
first they came for the oil barons
next they came for the sausage kings
5 Likes
I saw this article a few days ago and the title made me laugh
If only it was actually agent 47 and not the fsb
6 Likes
turns out by playing hitman 3 i’ve been ender’s gameing all these russian oligarchs…
4 Likes
Trying to explain to people how to buy this game, especially on PC, has been a nightmare, so this is smart.
Anyway, it’s $21 on Steam right now. So if you buy that and sit on it til the 26th, the only things you’ll be missing out on are, uh, the stuff in this image:
Never really “got” the sniper missions, haven’t messed with escalations (and the reviews for the Seven Deadly Sins missions are all pretty much negative). Probably worth it for Haven Island and New York (they’re great levels), though Hitman 3 removing the unlockable Electrocution Phone is still some bullshit.
I mean, I get why they did. But…I want it. Bring it back 
4 Likes
what in god’s name
how many times have they done this
it’s like the Danish obsession with rearranging furniture
3 Likes
to be fair every time they’ve done it before has basically not helped anyone at all and this finally sounds like it makes sense. though still lol
3 Likes