Hitman (2016)

I actually initially bounced off of Hitman 1 when I played it back in 2016. I don't know what it was but it may have been that I really wanted a more open form of being able to assassinate people by sniping them or stabbing them in the back or whatever. But what Hitman really is is almost a puzzle game.

The core of the game is the levels. There's only 6 levels (7 if you include the tutorial) and that's the whole game. But what a level each of those six levels are. They're super detailed with tons of rooms and buildings and locations and hidden pathways and people. Perhaps most notably people. Because the puzzle comes in learning the layout of the levels and then donning disguises by knocking out people and using the access granted by the appearance to get through areas.

The second defining point of levels are the little environmental quirks that you can use to kill enemies. Things like a battering ram in a training exercise that you can use to smash your target into a car, instantly killing them. A lot of these are super fun and kind of immersive fun. Like in Morocco where you disguise yourself as a masseuse and then snap your target's neck. Or masquerade yourself as a famous model and then strangle your target. It's a ton of fun pulling these off.

One of my favorite parts of the game is that they have these little "mission stories" that basically spell out the steps required to pull off these flourishes. Without it I think the game would be a bit too free form. And you'd have to do a ton of experimenting to see those cool executions which I think are basically the best parts of the game.

It's done really, really well. And the game is gorgeous. Each location is proper gorgeous. Especially places like Sapienza that have beautiful views of the ocean as well as sunlight.

Now since this is a game about levels I have to say Hitman 1's levels are a mixed bag. My favorites are probably Marrakesh and Hokkaido and that's from a mixture of how cool they are in Hokkaido's case, and how they're laid out in a natural way that makes exploration cool. Other levels like Sapienza felt a little...barren. Like there were lots of areas but most of them didn't feel useful and it felt like most of the map was just pathways to a couple central areas you needed to spend time in. To that end I'm giving this an 8. Part of that rating is because I actually played Hitman 1's levels in Hitman 2 and then played Hitman 2 right afterwards. And those levels are great.

Oh, I should mention there's a story. It's very cliched conspiracy theory stuff. Though I will give big props for them fully animating those scenes in this game. In 2 they just went with stills with voice acting over them which is definitely a step back. But in the end the story is a footnote to the fun gameplay.