This creates some tense situations. Enemy guards will eye you warily and may decide to confront you if you're acting strangely. Their cold stares will often leave you feeling unsettled as you try to walk--not run--through an enemy-infested area as quickly as you can. Yes, 47 can run tirelessly, but doing so generates noise and also rouses a lot of suspicion, making running impractical for most situations requiring stealth. Fortunately, 47 can also walk, sneak, and crawl. Sneaking and crawling are silent, and 47 can aim sniper rifles more steadily from a crouched position. The thing is, these other means of movement can seem excruciatingly slow compared with running, and realistic though this may be, you'll have to practice a lot before you can successfully sneak up behind an opponent.

There are usually several ways to complete each mission. 47 can ruthlessly gun down his victims, or go for something more subtle.

The game does a pretty good job of teaching and explaining all the control mechanics to you early on and in the context of the story--see, 47's employer wants to make sure he hasn't gotten rusty, so he offers the assassin a quick refresher course. The fact that most of Hitman 2's controls will be instantly accessible to anyone who's played any recent shooter speaks to how greatly the designers have improved the series' controls since the original. Suffice it to say that all the original game's control problems are gone and that Hitman 2 basically controls just like your typical first-person shooter. The main difference is the presence of an easy-to-use context-sensitive menu, which lets you do things like pick locks, put on disguises, climb through windows, grab useful items, and so on. The one small issue with the controls is the fact that the tactical map of each area, which you'll have to refer to frequently when looking for your mark, is a couple of button presses away.

The original game's extremely steep learning curve isn't nearly as insurmountable in the sequel, since at normal difficulty, 47 can sustain massive amounts of damage (thanks to good old genetic engineering) and can still finish most missions if he blows his cover. Also, the fact that you can save your progress during missions certainly helps--seven saves are available per mission at normal difficulty, and two at are available at expert, but none are available at professional, the toughest setting--though the game takes up a lot of memory-card space in exchange. The professional setting offers an additional challenge in that the real-time area map you have constant access to will not reveal enemy positions, whereas on normal and expert, you'll see incoming enemies as blips on this screen. Also, aiming is noticeably more erratic at the two tougher settings--you'll need to manually compensate for your weapons' recoil, which actually makes the weapons seem to pack more of a punch. At any rate, between the multiple difficulty settings, the game's end-of-mission ranking system (which rewards you for staying stealthy), and the inherently open-ended design of the missions, you may find that Hitman 2 has a lot more longevity than most other single-player action games these days.

Hitman 2 looks great on the GameCube, though its visuals aren't quite as impressive today as they were when the game was released on the other platforms. The frame rate can be spotty, and you can sometimes clearly see the effects of mip mapping, where the textures farther away from you are rendered at lower resolutions than the ones close by. Nevertheless, the game's indoor and outdoor environments look realistic. Similarly, the weapons are all rendered with meticulous detail, down to alternate reload animations depending on whether you're playing from the third-person or first-person view. You also won't see a great deal of variety in the character models in each level, though all the characters are motion-captured to look lifelike. You'll also probably enjoy the game's stylish cutscenes, which often take the form of surveillance footage taken of 47's targets. In one remarkable mission, you'll have nothing to go on but an old black-and-white video of the target as a young child.

Yet perhaps the most notable aspect of Hitman 2's graphics is its use of what's now commonly known as rag-doll physics, meaning that characters don't die in any prescripted fashion, but rather go limp as they're struck by the simulated force of your firepower. Sometimes this effect is amazing, like when you blast a ninja from out of the rafters and watch him tumble to the ground or when you take out an enemy sniper and see him slump dead over a railing. At other times, the rag-doll effect lives up to its name, and you'll see a foe go flopping end over end in a manner that's more comical than anything else. All in all, it's still a cool effect, though.

Great graphics and terrific audio help earn Hitman 2 plenty of style points.

The game sounds even more impressive than it looks. The jarringly loud and clear report of each of the game's various firearms is very convincing, and the characters all speak in their native languages--though if you start shooting, you'll begin to hear innocents uttering the same cries for help over and over. The voice acting in Hitman 2 is generally solid, and 47's voice, with its slight European accent, is particularly good. But the music is probably the highlight of the audio presentation. Featuring a booming original soundtrack, parts of which were performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Hitman 2's music effectively underscores the action and also weaves in some cultural themes that help establish each new setting. And the way the music fades to a soft, ominous tone after you assassinate your target in each mission may send shivers down your spine.

Hitman 2 is late to the party on the GameCube, but owners of Nintendo's system would be better off playing it late than never. That's because it's remarkably well done in most every way and is a major improvement on the original. Many of the design decisions made by IO Interactive were directly in response to common criticisms leveled against the original, but these improvements don't come at the cost of a simpler or easier experience. Even the most experienced gamers will find a serious, rewarding challenge in the game's highest difficulty mode, yet the well-rounded design of Hitman 2 means just about anyone with a taste for the subject matter, or just a stomach for it, will really like the game and its distinctively cinematic style.