Nostalgia | Hitman: Contracts | Kentzz reviews [ENG]

How about being stealthy and deadly, huh? While the plot is insidious, the defining features of Eidos Interactive and IOI's latest Agent 47 World Tour are stealthy. You can't fire something you see in your way. Strangling a single competitor is one thing (whether he or she doesn't move, whether they're going, forget the junk), but when they come at you in a crowd, vigilance may be the key to survival. Hitman Contracts is the third game of the Hitman franchise, but this time the focus is stealth. Oh, you're going to murder a lot of people in the most satisfying ways, but you're always going to have to find the right time to kill.

This title of PlayStation 2 is long on mystery and action. The story revolves around the hit list, each with more challenging goals and the game jumps around the globe, giving players more maps to work through. The exploits of Agent 47 have a very precarious beginning. The bald assassin had just taken a target, but something was horribly wrong with the assignment – the target appeared to be waiting for him, and as a result, Agent 47 was shot and injured. He stumbled down the hallway of a low-key hotel, found the right entrance, and stumbled into a dimly lit flat, before collapsing to the floor. He is injured and drifts in and out of consciousness, but this is not to suggest that there are times in which he blacks out. Oh no, he's trying to travel to his past...

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A white room, a man in a white lab coat, is in the middle of the room on the floor. He's staring up at the figure of Agent 47 above him. He uses the word "son" and follows with "you break my heart," his voice quavering. Agent 47 bends forward, but instead of making a soothing gesture, there is a cracking sound as the bones of the neck give in to tension. The guy is gone, man. Agent 47, stoic after the act, goes on... Romania, an asylum where everyone appears to have a black suit similar to a man. But the prisoners are running the asylum right now, hacking orderly parts as they find them. The walls are coated in gore, and the corpses are littered across the hallways. The Romanian SWAT squad is shutting down. In the middle of this confusion, one man moves with purpose – the objective is to flee. Lunatics behind him, heavily armed and trigger-happy SWAT members in front of him, the only option is to elude all enemies in order to avoid this piece of hell.

Does that sound familiar to you? It's a derivative of episodes from earlier titles of the season. Delirium can do odd things to people, and one has to wonder if these flashbacks are a symptom of remorse or whether the glory resurrected from the point of view of Agent 47. The game introduces new weapons into the agent arsenal, some in the form of guns, others in the form of interactive environmental objects. You can use pool cues or meat hooks to send your enemies. The gameplay itself is not a move forward in the series; in fact, if anything, it's more of the same. But that doesn't mean it's a lot less fun. You will meet some genuinely distasteful people at this jolt, people and classes of people who live under the darkness and gutters of the world, and who are best not inspected in the glare of what we call humanity. Missions will lead you from China to England, with your goals running from crooked officials to crime lords and jihadists.

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IO did a terrific job on the audio on this one, and the look of the game is smooth and characteristic of the series – well, at least the second title. This game is a joy to play with intuitive controls, and very demanding. It's a game that's a little dim – an aspect mirrored in the musical score (by Jesper Kyd) and the lighting effects. The game is also high on replayability. Each mission is so non-linear in nature that you might potentially do it again with a totally different approach. There are obvious, quick ways to perform the tasks and a lot harder. As is typical in Hitman games, you do have the option of attempting to cover yourself in order to get past your enemies, but such uniforms don't always fit well.

Hitman Contracting isn't that creative. It does not tread a different ground for the series, but rather makes a sideways pass. It keeps the momentum running without even contributing to it. This is a solid game and a lot of fun to play, but I could have been best suited by adding more depth to Agent 47's psyche, more context details to help us get a better snapshot of this anti-hero. Hitman Contracts is the sort of game that fans of the series would have linked up with the unreal aspects, the look back, and the task ahead. Newcomers to the franchise will be exposed to the grim underbelly dominated by Agent 47's ice-cold deadly skills. It's going to be a thrill and hours of fun.