twisty on 8/6/2018 at 13:44

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Just noticed that there is a sequel to Hitman 2016 coming out in November (confusingly titled Hitman 2). Really thrilled to hear it as I thought Hitman 2016 was a brilliant return to form so can't wait to see what is in store for the "sequel".

(https://store.steampowered.com/app/863550/HITMAN2/)

Thirith on 8/9/2018 at 10:00

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I think these updates coming with Hitman 2 for owners of the previous Hitman (2016) look pretty cool.

[video=youtube;dG9Fo0Morwo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9Fo0Morwo[/video]

Sulphur on 15/11/2018 at 07:57

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Spoilers for Hitman 2's first mission below.

I've played about two hours of Hitman: Season Two, and thirty minutes of that was the first mission, with the rest being revisiting Sapienza from the first season. It is, as far as I can tell, still a huge assassination puzzlebox that gives you tools and approaches to sculpt your style of kill - poison, malfunctioning batteries, pistols, cutting implements, explosive ducks, etc. There's something about that first mission, though, that sticks with me.

So your target is a woman named Alma Reynard who works for a shadow agency that secretly rules the world and the ICA needs to blah blah blah - let's just say that the wider story isn't particularly interesting. Your first introduction to the kind of person Alma is happens when you break into her swish beachfront property via the garage, and discover two dead bodies surrounded by torture implements. That's the game letting you adopt a sense of moral justification for the hit; 'she's never been one to shy away from collateral damage', Diana says. Okay, cool. I guess I'm invested then.

Exploring the house reveals that it's a beautiful duplex with stylish decor and lighting, the kind a very well-to-do person would have. Too ostentatious for an undercover agent, surely. It's empty at the moment, so it's a good time to scope out the layout of the house - secret panels, glass skylights on the terrace/roof that look into the bedroom and dining rooms, stairwells, etc. There's also some emetic rat poison lying around so, being a Hitman veteran, I promptly dump it into the half-full glass in the kitchen, and the glass upstairs in the bedroom. Some more snooping and I find the lead 47's looking for around the same time Alma and her crew roll up and get into the house, which means it's time to get to the assassinatin'. She's dressed up from an evening out at some high-flying social event, has a breezy Spanish accent, a full complement of bodyguards (why?), and a boyfriend named Orson who's an asshole (who is sadly not a target, so he needs to be left alive).

There's the incidental dialogue that suggests Orson isn't a fan of how Alma's treating him like an accessory, and Alma doesn't really care - 'Welcome Alma and... guest,' the house says to them when they enter, and Orson tries to teach it his name and gives up. He beelines for the glass in the kitchen, and in a matter of seconds runs to the bathroom. Okay, Hitman anticipated me. Very good, game. Alma then turns on her huge TV, initiates a call, and informs a man named Donovan that his wife and children have been taken hostage, and if he wants to seem them alive again, he needs to do exactly as she says. With the calm distance of a professional, she outlines a plan for a hit where the poor Mr. Donovan is to push his boss off a building during his morning jog around a helipad, and to get it done in the next five minutes. She wishes him luck and signs off. All right, now that is evil.

I sneak around outside on the balcony as the guards fan out across the house and secure it level by level, then knock one out as he climbs the stairs, appropriate his clothes, and dump him into a conveniently man-sized laundry receptacle nearby. I discover some lethal pills and a cannabis joint in their medical closet just as Alma and Orson climb up to the bedroom - luckily, I'm dressed as a guard, so I walk out before they can see my face, and they get on with the business of changing into their nightwear. Which, in Orson's case, is a matter of stripping down and walking about in a pair of white briefs with a teal waistband.

I really wish he was a target too.

Orson's still nursing his grudge, so he asks Alma about the house, implying that the only reason she hasn't changed its greeting is because she expects him to be gone like her last boyfriend. She acknowledges it, surprisingly enough, by saying she didn't think it was that important to him. She relents, saying she'll change it, then prods him by saying the house could call him 'Sean 2', or maybe 'Sean Lite'. Orson's obviously pissed, and says he's going to take a shower. I stick around, wanting to hear more of their domestic arguing, but Alma finishes changing, brushes her teeth, and enters the bedroom. Sean-lite finishes his shower and beelines to the glass, and I smirk at Hitman playing me yet again, but he then asks Alma if she wants a drink -- and she says no, she just brushed her teeth. Goddamn it. So of course he drinks it, and yet again rushes off to the bathroom as the rat poison works through his innards.

Alma, meanwhile, gets to bed. At this point, I begin wondering - if I hadn't heard that hostage situation or come across those bodies downstairs, having heard that little dispute would have humanised these two jerkoffs for me. We've all done similar things to people, right? And Alma is one of those cool, reserved women I've known with an acerbic edge to their humour (minus the professional assassin angle, AFAIK), the kind of personality I usually enjoy. And now, I... can't really bring myself to kill her in her sleep. Meanwhile, her boyfriend is busy emptying his guts into a toilet bowl.

And that's the thing about Hitman. You don't have an out, you don't have a conscience, and you don't have a choice. Do the hit and get out. There isn't another option. I look at my inventory, and I'm all out of ways to do it creatively, my usual goto when I need to distance myself from the act. It's funnier if someone dies in a planned mishap, it feels like nature taking its own course, so of course you're not really responsible. That's how you rationalise it. But all I have right now is a stack of coins and a silenced pistol. And my window to get this done is closing.

I pull the pistol out, aim it at her sleeping head, and pull the trigger.

The game rewards me in a multitude of ways. Orson is still hacking at the toilet bowl; I get points for an Unseen Kill, a Disguised Kill, for being a Silent Assassin; Diana is smoothly congratulating me in my ear. And all I know at this moment is here was a person I could have known in actual life.

Hitman 2's story is airily stupid. But its strengths are its murder puzzlebox, and every once in a while its little vignettes - this one and Hitman Blood Money's opening mission bring an internal conflict that I'm not expecting. You know what the really fucked up thing is, though? I want more of that. And that's the strength of Hitman for me: what you bring to it is what you take with you.

Sulphur on 15/11/2018 at 09:32

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I generally turn off the hints and guides, but I save playing it on Master for the eventual replay and 'perfect hit', so to speak. I did notice the other hints for Alma as in Orson's offer to make her tea (mango tea? what? why?) that I could have gone for, and of course there's more ways to do it - I saw the achievement for using a pillow, which is actually kind of a spoiler if you pay attention to your Steam feeds. :D

My initial trawl around Miami already revealed a few different ways to go about doing the deed, and really that's half of the pleasure of the game - scoping out a place and all its little nooks and crannies while fitting approaches together in your head.

froghawk on 28/2/2019 at 05:22

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Awesome video. It's some of the best level design I've ever encountered.