The game's slow stealth action isn't for everyone, but there is no denying that this is a great action game.
- Varied and tight gameplay lets you play as you like
- Incredibly visuals
- Interesting missions
- You can disguise as the enemy
Negative
- Slow stealth will make impatient players irritated
- Mixed sound effects
- Some of the objectives may not be as clear as they could have been
This stealth game has its own merit for being a great action game, even with some minor flaws. While the gameplay is so varied that each level has multiple ways of beating it, the stealth is slow and slow enough to bore players who don't have enough patience. Overall Hitman 2 is an impressive game, both technical and graphically.
Thankfully there is no need to play the original Hitman to understand the background story. The game will make you play a man, known only by the codename 47 who was a hired gun but "retires" and is now a gardener of a church in Sicily. But after the priest gets kidnapped, he has no choice go but to go rescue him, but once again becoming the hitman he was. By contacting his former employer, which manage to tracked down the kidnapper, but after that mission a few more missions must be done as payment for their help. The game's length is fairly long, but there is no multiple.
Gameplay is mostly stealth, but gunplay can be used as well. Sneaking and killing the enemy one by one may be the best solution in the game, but the stealth is slow and movement is slow which may not appeal to everyone. The default controls are not perfect but thankfully they can be changed. Sneaking with the SPACE bar is slow and moves slower. 47 has several weapons at his disposal, such as normal pistols, fiber wire, and other things, which after each mission you can choose which weapons to pick. Weapons can be picked from the enemies you kill. The best thing about the game is that you can take the enemy's clothes and infiltrate the enemy's headquarters, instead of blasting your way through. For example in the first mission you can disguise as the postman and get into the building thanks to that. The disguise will fail either if you disguise yourself as a normal person or the enemy inspects you and finds guns, or don't stop running or make yourself suspicious, and when the enemy finds a dead body. You can hide the dead body anywhere, since the scale of each mission is huge, allowing you to approach each mission the way you prefer. You can take the enemy as a whole by shooting them. The shooting is fairly simple. The game always you to use first-person mode by pressing the F1 button. Knives and melee weapons can be used as well, but for sneaking the fiber wire is always preferable. The sneaking just feels too slow. Dead bodies don't disappear.
The game's level of challenge will depend on what you choose in the beginning of the game. The AI can put up quite some fights, if in numbers. Even though they are a bit too suspicious of you at times and your disguise fails. Luckily, the game allows you a limited amount of times you can save throughout your missions. Losing your life means repeating the entire level. The health bar is important to keep in check but the bar under it as of the same importance which is the alertness meter which when is moving the enemy is suspicious and when blinking red meaning that they found you. You can run from the enemy, but once they found you, it is better to engage them sometimes. There might also be normal people who won't attack you and just run away. Mission objectives are quite varied but mostly involve eliminating the target. Some objectives are not as clear as they should have been. Mission objectives can be accessed by pressing the B button and a person will talk to you where she will discuss the mission with you. Sometimes when you clear an objective too quickly, she might not confirm that you have completed the objective or not. Other which involve killing a single person isn't very clear which may result in failing the mission. The map is vital sometimes, because every person in the area is shown, the direction they are moving and depending on the color of the marker are the people armed and other people.
One of the game's most impressive qualities is certainly the graphics. Everything looks incredibly, from the character models to the environments, and there are a lot of different environments, and the large sense of scale is amazing. Each mission gives you a lot of variety, but it also requires a lot of trial and error to get it right. Music on the other hand isn't as awesome as the graphics. Some of the sound effects are poor, especially gun firing. The music is great though, and the voice acting is solid. Since the game will take you in different countries, enemies will speak different languages which sometimes it is better if they didn't speak at all.
Hitman 2 does a lot of things right, including great graphics, presentation and gameplay. But the biggest problem with the gameplay is that it isn't for everyone, it is too slow for some people to enjoy. Although the variety and freedom giving in mission is appealing. But overall Hitman 2 is a very good action game with little flaws, but anyone looking for a stealth game and has enough patience, Silent Assassin is a great game to play if you are into these kind of games.
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Graphics = 8.9
Large environments and mostly excellent character models. Using enemy clothes is a cool idea.
Sound = 7.7
Apart from a few poor sound effects, the music and voice acting are solid.
Presentation = 8.4
Cutscenes are great, menu is cool, and loadings are fast. Now if only the mission objectives where clearer. The map is great by the way.
Gameplay = 8.3
Slow stealth may not appeal to everyone, but the great variety of weapons, each mission allowing you to play as you want, and the fact that you can disguise yourself as the enemy is all cool. Gunplay not the best around but sustains the game.
Story = 8.1
Great story which doesn't need any background from the first game. Story is fairly long, but there is no multiplayer at all.
OVERALL = 82 / 100
Hitman 2 does a lot of thing right, but the slow stealth gameplay may not appeal to everyone. It is still a great action game nonetheless.