A shooter for every type of gamer.

Another first/third person shooter game, what's so special about this one now?
Well, Hitman 2 is not your average shooter. The goal of this game is not to have the player go out in full force and massacre everybody they see. You're suppose to be a swift and silent assassin (hence the subtitle "silent assassin"). The story goes like this:
The Hitman 47 is well known for being the best assassin. At the beginning 47 is in a peaceful garden in a monastery. He has chosen to end his violent ways and confess his sins to his friend Father Vittorio. Vittorio gets kidnapped by the mafia and 47 returns to his garden shed, establishes his connection with the agency again and seeks revenge.


Gameplay
This is the strongest forte in this game. There are 20 missions in this game and you can choose your way of beating them. At one end of the spectrum, you can kill every target you see. At the other end, you only kill your main target and sneak past the other guards. This is way all types of gamers will enjoy this game. At the end of every mission you will get graded based on your stealth, aggression, number of kills etc. Depending on how you play, you will receive a title. If you kill everybody, you will probably be labelled as "mass murderer". If you kill no one except for your target, than you will be labelled as a "silent assassin". There are many ways that help you achieve the silent assassin rating. You can use the sneak button to pass through enemies without making any sounds or to sneak up behind an enemy and strangle them with fiber wire or put them to sleep with an anesthetic. One disadvantage to this is that it is slowwwwww. Very slow. If you’re aiming for silent assassin, you better have a lot of patience. So if your not patience, than I suggest you aim to become a mass murderer. Now, onto weapons. There is a variety of weapons you can choose, even sniper rifles have five to choose from. There are even some exotic weapons such as a golf club, katana etc. The physics involved with the weapons are fun to play with; however they might be a little unrealistic. My favourite example is the Dual Silver Ballars (47's trademark weapon). Every bullet you fire has the force of a truck. The enemies will go flying, literally flying away. Nonetheless, they are very fun to play with. The weapons are accurate and employ fair accurate physics other than the Silver Ballers.

Graphics
If your computer is well above the minimum requirements of this game, than the graphics will look nice. I'm running on an AMD XP 1800 with an ATI radeon 9000. I maxed every graphic option available so the graphics look really nice on my computer. The characters are clean with no jagged edges and the backgrounds are faded lightly to improve the atmosphere. The only problem I have about graphics is the shadow. Up close, the shadows have jagged edges and look pixilated. From a distance however, they look smooth. What I really like is the particle effect in this game. When you run through a patch of grass you can see the dirt floating in the air. Or when you walk by a window you can see the dust particles floating in the sun ray.

Sound
The sound effects are excellent. The weapons sound realistic and the voices are clear. The music provides a gloomy atmosphere to the game, which suits it perfectly. Sometimes even listening to the music will get my adrenaline going even though there are no enemies around.

Cons
First, this game is very slow paced. If you don't have the patience than you will not fully enjoy this game. You have to study the guards’ movements and wait for the right time to execute your move. Sometimes this takes a long time and required me to load up my previously saved games many times. Speaking of saved games, there are limited numbers of saves depending on the difficulty level you choose. In the normal difficulty there are 7 saves for each mission. I found that an adequate number and have never reached 7 saves myself. Some of you might differ. Another problem I encountered was the controls. I don't know if it's my computer or not, but it seemed the controls lagged. After I pressed a button, there was a noticeable time difference before the character reacted. This was a major problem for me. In terms of bugs, there are few, very few. The only big one is when a truck runs over your enemy which triggers an alarm. This spoils your attempt to achieve silent assassin.

Conclusion
I would say this is one of the best games released this year. The graphics are clear and crisp. The sounds are clear and the music suits the mood of the game. Finally, the wide-variety of gameplay makes the replay value of the game high.


OS: Windows 98/ME/XP
CPU: PIII 450mhz or equivalent
RAM: 128MB Ram
Video: 16MB DirectX 8.1 Compatible video card
Sound: DirectX 8.1 Compatible sound card
CD: 16x CD ROM Drive
Hard drive: 800MB of free HD space