Hitman Blood Money

A war has broken out between the two main assassination agencies, and Agent 47 begins to notice other agents of the ICA being taken out. To avoid his own demise, he takes off to America in hopes of making a living of his own.

The biggest addition to the series is the addition of paid contracts. You will now be paid for your hard work, and the quality of the kill will determine how much you’re paid. This money can be spent to lower your profile, buy new weapons, or upgrade the ones you already have. How you spend the money will effect future missions and decide which weapons will be available. Now there is more incentive to progress as professional as possible.

To help with the quality of your hits, weapons can be upgraded in many different fashions. The damage done, recoil resistance, and sound suppression can be improved, rate of fire and reload time reduced, and accuracy and zoom functions can be used to help your hit percentage.

Agent 47 also has some new moves in his repertoire. When the need arises, he can now climb many surfaces, hide, scale ledges, and pass under low objects. All of these now allow for deeper problem solving and assassination techniques.

Along with these new control options, new methods of deceit and self-defense have also been added. Accidents, distractions, decoys, body disposal, and human shields are some of the new mechanics included in Blood Money. One great example I witnessed was a fire alarm. Agent 47 pulled the fire alarm of a hotel, and the sprinklers came on, alarms blared, and panicked residents ran from their rooms and through the halls causing total chaos. This allowed the hitman to go unnoticed for awhile. To avoid the firemen a little later, he escaped out a window, and then climbed up a wall of vines to a window in the floor above.

Aside from all these new gameplay elements, Hitman: Blood Money visually looks wonderful. The lighting created realistic effects against the highly detailed character models.

Hitman: Blood Money looks to be the deepest and most involving Hitman yet. It’s planned to release this fall on the PC, Xbox, and Playstation 2.