Hitman: Blood Money - Xbox 360, PC

[SIZE="5"]Hitman: Blood Money[/SIZE]

I kill people. It's what I do. I do it expertly, precisely, efficiently. I blend in with the crowd, entering discreetly, doing the hit, exfiltrating. I'm a silent assassin. Hey, someone should make a game called that.

My job never gets repetitive. There's always a new target, a new workplace. What shall I need for work today? I'll need the usual kit: fibre wire, pain killers, some loose change. I think I'll pack my dual silenced pistols – I was at the Post Office the other day, and really regretted not having them on me. That line moves so, so slow.



Now, on to the game. Hitman: Blood Money consists of 12 levels (13 counting the tutorial), each beautifully crafted as an assassin assault course. Levels are large enough to give you more than one way to go about things, allowing you to be creative. Each mission has a sort of tier system, each tier needing a better disguise in order for you to be able to infiltrate the area. That clown outfit may get you into a paedophile convention, but White House security won't fall for it.

Those missions follow Agent 47, a bald albino clone whose accent doesn't really suit his hardnut persona. A rival agency has opened up, and it has hooked up with the old 'this town ain't big enough for the two of us' cliché and began killing the members of Agent 47's agency. The missions are punctuated with cutscenes that follow a journalist and a man with half a face in a wheelchair that moves by itself. When it moves it makes a whiirrrrrrr sound. Jolly good.



Whichever method of completing a mission you may choose, you can be sure you missed out on a much more interesting one, you idiot. Therefore, in order to experience 100% of what the game has to offer, I decree that everyone must have Hitman running on five different consoles at the same time. Or complete the game a few times over. Either one.

When you think about how you'll go about taking down your target, you'll think something up that seems logical. Because, you know, logic an' all. It's pretty good in most situations. You'll muck it up, and you'll die. This would be annoying, were it not for the ability to save at any point in a mission. Hooray! A simple problem solved with a similarly simple answer! IO are truly at the forefront of lateral thinking. Once you get it right though, once you hit that sweet spot, and everything goes perfectly, you feel like a professional. The previous attempts, being doomed to failure, flood out of the back of your memories, leaving only the successful attempt. You feel like a genius.

Depending on how well you accomplished your mission, you'll get paid a fee for your services. You can then use this to upgrade your equipment, adding silencers and laser sights, or kevlar vests and lockpicks. You're also treated to a newspaper report showing your mission stats. How many people were killed in your homicidal rampage are shown, as is your mission rating, which can be anything from terrorist to Silent Assassin – the holy grail of the hitmanning. Manning? Hitting? You know.



For an Xbox 360 game, it looks remarkably like a three-dimensionally rendered turd. It would've been nice to see the sunlight shine off Agent 47s head, but no! I could make a better looking game. Not a good looking game. Not at all.

Arguably the best Hitman game in the franchise, Blood Money delivers enough to satisfy your lust for blood, without being brainless about it. And you play a bald guy. Well worth a purchase.

[SIZE="7"]Score: 9/10[/SIZE]

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