Hitman: Contracts

The release of the first two Hitman games ( Codename:47 & Silent Assasin) are generally well known and considered an excellent stealth game. Personally i consider it to be one of the very first, which makes it great in its own right.

Contracts takes the game to a whole new level of play. Now to be honest i was a bit hesitant to start with as im not the biggest fan of the hitman series. But i find myself left out of entire conversations sometimes when people talk about how brilliant Hitman really is. So i decided to buy contracts to revitalize my love of the shooting stealth game.

My first play of Hitman: Contracts left me in wonder about what was to come or i wonder what the next mission / level will be like. Like the new Hitman games, the story is agent 47's story as one of the worlds most notorius killer. Each mission you recieve a target (usually) and several other objectives. What makes the game so good is the sheer number of ways in which you can assasinate your target, be it sneakly shooting them or poisoning there whiskey. Granted how you kill your enemy is one factor, but a major contributor to the fun of the game is the way in which you reach your target. Which would generally intail Agent 47 killing someone and borrowing there clothes to blend in.

The game play is simple enough to learn, but there is training missions for people who will find it confusing or difficult. I found the game almost humourous at points and generally laughed in some case's, these "little" things that have been put in make Hitman Highly entertaining but also sitting on the edge of your chair magic that we all love!

The graphics for the Contracts are a good improvement from the old games and are reasonably good for this day and age which add to its atmosphere and blood all over the walls and floor type thing, that i love. Granted it may make me seem sick but im a man who loves gory games. During the game i usually got a skill rating of mass murderer (killing everyone and your target). Only twice did i recieve professional status (were i kill very few people plus my target) which is shameful to say, but i love gore remember.

I loved some of the missions and the sheer number of different things that were inplace to help me, kill me or annoy me. Eg: were i must enter a hotel to kill two brothers, but the hotel have metal detectors. So i must find a security room to turn them off, walk outside pick up my trusted suitcase filled with killing devices and what not then walk back in without the metal dectecor alarms going off. The brilliant thing is that this isnt part of the objectives nor are there any help features to tell you to do this. Contracts as a game allows you to think freely within the perimeters of that level, which is genius and i wish more game developers would take a note from Hitmans book.

There are minor faults within the game, eg: 47's ever annoying no running policy! Yes thats right folks he walks everywhere. But its small and to be honest not worth bothering about, except when you want to run from a swat team etc. Another minor fault but something that i think plagues any game made within the last 16 years are some of the graphical faults. For instance i might be dragging a body along a corridor, the body will move in the strangest and most unrealistic way, which does annoy me sometimes. Although ill probably be having to much fun to notice it unless im trying to see the faults.

To end i do believe Hitman: Contracts is an outstanding game, good graphics, good story, excellent game play and just okay physics. Hitman: Contracts is one of the best games ive ever played, so BUY IT! BUY IT NOW! Those are my wise words to your fickle gaming brains.