Overview

Return of the Barcode

It’s official, the stealth action game is it’s own genre. It might be ninjas, it might be special agents, and of course, it’s also hitmen, or a hitman as the case may be. The first Hitman, while not a revolution on the PC, was certainly well received critically and by the populous.

Rightfully so, the first game brought you complex gameplay, beautiful level design, and altogether an ambience that just felt real. It had a Chinatown with visual layers upon layers, down to little dragon paper lanterns hanging in shop windows; a Columbia covered in trees with gnarled roots emerging from a richly textured ground.

Zen assassin

Glorious architecture

Check that lighting out

No rest for the wicked

But Hitman: Codename 47 also had its own issues. The AI, for being one of the games principal gameplay mechanisms, was actually quite poor. Hitman also suffered from a number of frustrating interface problems ranging from not being able to walk backwards to clunky cameras to not being able to save. There were many reasons why the game wasn’t a revolutionary title.

The 47 we know and love

I'll be watching you

Take it from behind

In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin our hero returns after a long religious break. While acting as a gardener in a monastery in Sicily, 47’s mentor and religious guide is kidnapped. His only option is to return to the business again, and with a palpable reputation to back him up, the enigmatic “Agency” has a long list (20) of jobs for our bald and bar coded hero. Eidos and IO Interactive bring 47 back to the limelight with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, and attempt to address many of the issues that plagued the first game. The focus on this touch-up is the AI, the interface, the controls, and the overall fun factor. New to the plate is a gorgeous graphical engine, new models and of course, many a new toy to play around with.