THIS IS AN OLD REVIEW!
Back in 2005/2006 this game was everywhere in game magazines. every month I'de pick up an Issue of PLAY just to read about more updates of this game. It looked pretty sweet back then but when I played it it was amazing. Every month PLAY would have some updates of one or more levels they played. They even did a guide to all of the Easter Eggs in the game. This got me hyped so much.I picked up Hitman 1 through 3 and played them and they were Mediocre...But Blood Money was a different Issue all together. The high production values and freedom made it one of the best games of that year....
The graphics are amazing for a PS2 game. Not quite Resident Evil 4 standards but compared to what the 7 year old sex machine(The PS2) has done before this is next gen stuff. Some effects in the game are awesome. The water effects look really good and when you move in the water it acts as realistically as a PS2 can handle. Explosions look really good too. Although as far as I know cars can't blown up which is a shame because if they could be then this would be a BIG! Plus on the game. The blood looks realistic too. You can shoot someone in the head blood will come out and stay on the surface that it landed on until the end of the level.
Rag doll physics are one of the funniest things in gaming today. For all those who don't know what that is it's like if you threw a rag doll at a wall it would go in a weightless way this is what it means. Rag doll physics are sort of weightless physics and it's not realistic but it is however funny to look at and the first time you set off a mine in a crowd and let people just fly it's a blast (lulz) one thing that isn't realistic is that if you push someone into water they will instantly die which is helpful and also very annoying.
In previous Hitman games there has always been ways to do things other than the standard way but in Blood Money it takes it to a whole new level of freedom. Like in the Mission A new lifewhich you have to kill a Witness and steal a piece of microfilm from his wife.You can do it very quickly by shooting everything in sight. or you could dress up as an FBI agent and kill the witness and kill the wife and take the film OR you could dress as the pool boy and seduce the wife and take the Microfilm and then kill the Witness OOOOOR you could rig the barbecue so that the wife gets killed and jumps into the pool. And then Kill the witness. It's just so much freedom and there are even more ways to kill the Witness and this is just one of the roughly 15 levels in the game. There is no set way to kill the target. The missions can be extremely random too and can ruin your perfect plan to kill the targets. In one mission I tried to kill 2 targets by putting a bomb under the limousine they were arriving in. But the security guard found it and put it in the lost and found. It's just really random like Morrowind or San Andreas.
I LOVE the weapons in this game and they're all upgradeable. You can get the SilverBaller and duel wield them and attach silencers to them both and get Magnum ammo so you get a one hit kill on pretty much every enemy. You can get the now legendary sniper rifle and attach a silencer, longer scope Armour piercing bullets and the like. There are several different types of weapons there are TONS of pistols, a couple of snipers and a few shotguns, Lots of machine guns and other weapons I won't ruin
You also get RU-AP mines which you can use to rig things like a piano to fall on someones head by rigging the winch that controls it. There are a lot of things to help you in your mission like lock picks, Armour,extra mines, pain killers and such which can be extremely helpful if used in the right situation.
Something which is new to the hitman games is Notoriety. This is what happens if you're caught on camera or if there are witnesses or if you leave any evidence. if you kill your target and leave and 20 people saw it you will got a hell of a lot of notoriety and also another new thing to the series is you having to re buy weapons. If you have to pick up a suitcase in the mission and you brought the rifle case and didn't retrieve the rifle case then you're screwed and have to re buy it again and if you dress as a waiter and fail to retrieve your suit this will cost you hella money! So it really motivates you to backtrack through the missions and get everything you left behind and it can sometimes even be held as evidence. If you lose the weapon then all your upgrades are gone and you also have to buy them all again. This can be extremely tedious and aggravating.
There are special rankings in the game I don't the order of them off by heart but I know Silent Assassin is the best and serial killer is the worst you get money for getting good rankings. Rankings are based off of your violence,noise and time. If you make a lot of noise the noise level will rise and then you will get a worse rating at the end game. Violence is of course how violent you are. If you run in guns blazing Say Hello To My Little Friend style then you'll get a bad rating. But you can make up for some of this by leaving no witnesses there are a few ways to do this like killing ONLY the people who saw 47 or by killing everyone in the building it's your game.
The story is quite well done and has a similar story telling method to the shitstain PC game Mafia. It's about how the FBI Killed 47 and a man is interviewing the head of the FBI the voice acting is top notch all the way through the game and has a solid voice cast for a game that isn't high on story. 47 has a completely soulless voice which I would usually complain
about but seeing as 47 is a serial killer and a hitman it suits his character a lot more than if he was an uppity arrogant brute like the Prince from Warrior Withing.
The frame rate is solid all the way through the game and I have only had a few problems with the Frame Rate and to prove how solid it is in the Mardi Gras level there are dozens of people on screen at the same time. They aren't full meshes and are made up for just textures but they are partly made up of meshes....Did I mention every single one of them are killable? Now that is a technical achievement on a PS2!
The controls in hitman have always been an issue but this game sorts it out by letting you play it all in first person view. Before in hitman games you have to press all the buttons to see if you could interact with an object but in Blood Money there are face buttons in the top left showing you what you can do with an object and it helps a lot to complete your mission.
The health meter and alert meter have been given one hell of a makeover this time around. In contracts they were really confusing and didn't show exactly what was going on with your health but this time they just said Feck it and and made them two bars. The way it should have been from the very beginning.
All in all this is an amazing technical achievement on the PS2 and is one of the finest games on the console to date. I give it a well earned respectable 95% Perfection. If you are into stealth or espionage games then pick this up right now. Now I heard Hitman 5 is coming out and I'm waiting to hear some news about it. I hope they keep the interface from Blood Money and add some sand box areas and alot more guns and it could be possibly be one of the best games ever.
95% or 9.5
Back in 2005/2006 this game was everywhere in game magazines. every month I'de pick up an Issue of PLAY just to read about more updates of this game. It looked pretty sweet back then but when I played it it was amazing. Every month PLAY would have some updates of one or more levels they played. They even did a guide to all of the Easter Eggs in the game. This got me hyped so much.I picked up Hitman 1 through 3 and played them and they were Mediocre...But Blood Money was a different Issue all together. The high production values and freedom made it one of the best games of that year....
The graphics are amazing for a PS2 game. Not quite Resident Evil 4 standards but compared to what the 7 year old sex machine(The PS2) has done before this is next gen stuff. Some effects in the game are awesome. The water effects look really good and when you move in the water it acts as realistically as a PS2 can handle. Explosions look really good too. Although as far as I know cars can't blown up which is a shame because if they could be then this would be a BIG! Plus on the game. The blood looks realistic too. You can shoot someone in the head blood will come out and stay on the surface that it landed on until the end of the level.
Rag doll physics are one of the funniest things in gaming today. For all those who don't know what that is it's like if you threw a rag doll at a wall it would go in a weightless way this is what it means. Rag doll physics are sort of weightless physics and it's not realistic but it is however funny to look at and the first time you set off a mine in a crowd and let people just fly it's a blast (lulz) one thing that isn't realistic is that if you push someone into water they will instantly die which is helpful and also very annoying.
In previous Hitman games there has always been ways to do things other than the standard way but in Blood Money it takes it to a whole new level of freedom. Like in the Mission A new lifewhich you have to kill a Witness and steal a piece of microfilm from his wife.You can do it very quickly by shooting everything in sight. or you could dress up as an FBI agent and kill the witness and kill the wife and take the film OR you could dress as the pool boy and seduce the wife and take the Microfilm and then kill the Witness OOOOOR you could rig the barbecue so that the wife gets killed and jumps into the pool. And then Kill the witness. It's just so much freedom and there are even more ways to kill the Witness and this is just one of the roughly 15 levels in the game. There is no set way to kill the target. The missions can be extremely random too and can ruin your perfect plan to kill the targets. In one mission I tried to kill 2 targets by putting a bomb under the limousine they were arriving in. But the security guard found it and put it in the lost and found. It's just really random like Morrowind or San Andreas.
I LOVE the weapons in this game and they're all upgradeable. You can get the SilverBaller and duel wield them and attach silencers to them both and get Magnum ammo so you get a one hit kill on pretty much every enemy. You can get the now legendary sniper rifle and attach a silencer, longer scope Armour piercing bullets and the like. There are several different types of weapons there are TONS of pistols, a couple of snipers and a few shotguns, Lots of machine guns and other weapons I won't ruin
You also get RU-AP mines which you can use to rig things like a piano to fall on someones head by rigging the winch that controls it. There are a lot of things to help you in your mission like lock picks, Armour,extra mines, pain killers and such which can be extremely helpful if used in the right situation.
Something which is new to the hitman games is Notoriety. This is what happens if you're caught on camera or if there are witnesses or if you leave any evidence. if you kill your target and leave and 20 people saw it you will got a hell of a lot of notoriety and also another new thing to the series is you having to re buy weapons. If you have to pick up a suitcase in the mission and you brought the rifle case and didn't retrieve the rifle case then you're screwed and have to re buy it again and if you dress as a waiter and fail to retrieve your suit this will cost you hella money! So it really motivates you to backtrack through the missions and get everything you left behind and it can sometimes even be held as evidence. If you lose the weapon then all your upgrades are gone and you also have to buy them all again. This can be extremely tedious and aggravating.
There are special rankings in the game I don't the order of them off by heart but I know Silent Assassin is the best and serial killer is the worst you get money for getting good rankings. Rankings are based off of your violence,noise and time. If you make a lot of noise the noise level will rise and then you will get a worse rating at the end game. Violence is of course how violent you are. If you run in guns blazing Say Hello To My Little Friend style then you'll get a bad rating. But you can make up for some of this by leaving no witnesses there are a few ways to do this like killing ONLY the people who saw 47 or by killing everyone in the building it's your game.
The story is quite well done and has a similar story telling method to the shitstain PC game Mafia. It's about how the FBI Killed 47 and a man is interviewing the head of the FBI the voice acting is top notch all the way through the game and has a solid voice cast for a game that isn't high on story. 47 has a completely soulless voice which I would usually complain
about but seeing as 47 is a serial killer and a hitman it suits his character a lot more than if he was an uppity arrogant brute like the Prince from Warrior Withing.
The frame rate is solid all the way through the game and I have only had a few problems with the Frame Rate and to prove how solid it is in the Mardi Gras level there are dozens of people on screen at the same time. They aren't full meshes and are made up for just textures but they are partly made up of meshes....Did I mention every single one of them are killable? Now that is a technical achievement on a PS2!
The controls in hitman have always been an issue but this game sorts it out by letting you play it all in first person view. Before in hitman games you have to press all the buttons to see if you could interact with an object but in Blood Money there are face buttons in the top left showing you what you can do with an object and it helps a lot to complete your mission.
The health meter and alert meter have been given one hell of a makeover this time around. In contracts they were really confusing and didn't show exactly what was going on with your health but this time they just said Feck it and and made them two bars. The way it should have been from the very beginning.
All in all this is an amazing technical achievement on the PS2 and is one of the finest games on the console to date. I give it a well earned respectable 95% Perfection. If you are into stealth or espionage games then pick this up right now. Now I heard Hitman 5 is coming out and I'm waiting to hear some news about it. I hope they keep the interface from Blood Money and add some sand box areas and alot more guns and it could be possibly be one of the best games ever.
95% or 9.5
