A promising concept is wasted in this jumbled mess of an introduction to the Hitman series.
The game starts off rather abruptly. The protagonist, known only as 47, wakes up strapped down to a bed. He's then told by an unknown voice to get up, get dressed, and get going. You learn everything you need to know to play the game in this level and at the end you'll kill one person, then move on to your first real assignment. I assume that every single mission in the game is tied together by some plot, but you wouldn't know it. After the training mission, you're thrust into an inexplicable assignment of killing random people for no real apparent reason. They do brief you before each mission. As to who "they" are I have no idea, but it's completely nonsensical.
Starting off on a high note, the gameplay in the first three levels is very fun. None of them are too complicated, overly difficult, or just plain dumb like the levels after. For these missions, you'll be tasked with killing one person and one person only. You certainly can kill others, but it will make your job much harder. The fun lies in finding an effective way to take down your target. There are usually a handful of ways you can do it, but there is always one easier way. For instance, in the very first level the best way to take out your target is to take a lift to the roof of a building, set up your sniper rifle, sit back, and patiently wait until you have an open window to pop a bullet in his skull. In my mind, this is what being a hitman is all about.
You'd think that a game based on a stealthy hitman would be focused on stealth. Think again. Although there are some stealth levels where remaining undetected is easily the best way to go about things, some levels have you acting like a mercenary. For example, the levels in the middle of the game take place in a jungle. It's practically impossible to not get fired upon in these missions, so going about stealthily is a negative. The game constantly stresses silent kills, but doesn't have a design that allows silent kills to be effective. In the last jungle level, the target you have to take down is treated like a boss fight, meaning you can't kill him with a few silent shots. The enemy just taunts you as you shoot him, but he won't die. So when he shoots back, the enemies inside and outside hear it, come running, and instantly take you down. So to take on your target without other interference, you'll have to kill every single person within ear shot and believe me, that's a whole lot of enemies. Taking them down silently is near impossible because there are enemy outposts looking down on what's happening. So going guns a blazing is the best way to do it. Here's why that doesn't work. It's just too difficult. You know how most games that stress stealth over running and gunning give you a lot less leverage when it comes to your health and if you get shot only a few times you die? Yeah, Hitman: Codename 47 is like that too. One enemy can quickly take you down with one or two short bursts of gunfire. Since some levels cannot virtually be completed with perfect stealth, you'll die a whole lot.
Here's another example of why the game was designed so sloppy. At the beginning of each mission, you get the choice of what weapons you want and whether or not you want body armor, a compass, and more. But for a three level stretch, you have the same inventory that you had for the previous level. The third level pretty much requires a sniper rifle if you plan on getting anywhere. Well, I dropped my sniper rifle in the level before it to pick up something else, unaware that it was essential in the upcoming level. It was still possible to finish the level without the sniper rifle, but it was clear the level was designed for a little sniper action. So not having one in the level (at least I didn't find one) and expecting the player to keep it from the previous level was absolutely absurd.
To be fair, the levels where you can be stealthy and blend in with the crowd are done fairly well. There are two levels in particular that are quite long and incredibly difficult, but the other shorter stealth levels were great fun. There's nothing quite like quietly taking down your target's bodyguard, walking in on him while he's in the shower, shooting him square between the eyes, and calmly leaving with nobody suspecting a thing. It really makes you feel awesome.
However, even the shorter fun levels can't save this game from hanging itself. The game is certainly difficult, but not for the usual reasons. It's difficult because it was designed so haphazardly. It's hard to know where to go or what to do because the game doesn't point you in any particular direction. It's not a problem in the early levels since they're so small, but in the later levels it's a huge problem. I guarantee that you'll find yourself wandering around constantly trying to figure out what to do next, then either 1) get bored and quit or 2) look at a walkthrough so you can keep playing. Having the player figure things out for themselves is great, but when the game fails at even giving you the slightest idea of what to do, there's something wrong.
The graphics obviously aren't very good. It's been over 6 years since this game was released and they definitely don't hold up. The environments are drab and the characters are blocky and move awkwardly. Contributing to the near impossible difficulty, you just can't see very far. I don't mind some pop up every now and then, but when it doesn't pop up until I'm literally 10 feet away from it, it certainly doesn't help to my advantage. Not only will it make it harder to navigate, you won't be able to see the enemies either. But they'll certainly see you. I died countless times from someone that was standing directly in front of me, but I never saw because of the horrible draw distance. Six years ago, this may have looked great. Nowadays, it's well below average.
It's hard for me to judge the sound because it didn't work half of the time. I read online that this is fairly common now in newer computers, but since it still happened, I have to judge it accordingly. I've played games just as old and older and everything worked perfectly, so why should this game be any different? For the entire game, I heard only a few lines of dialogue. I heard one or two sentences at the beginning of the game, then it crapped out and would randomly pick back up during select cutscenes. It was a huge problem. I can't really praise or criticize the voice acting since I didn't hear enough of it, but judging on the little bit that I did hear, maybe it's better it didn't work. The other aspects of the sound actually worked, but they also might as well not have. The guns sounded weak, the explosions sounded kiddie, and the other various sounds did nothing to heighten the experience.
The sole reason I bought this game was because I bought the trilogy pack consisting of the three sequels and I figured I might as well play the first one before those. I'm glad I did only because my perception of the franchise really can't go anywhere but up. Nothing is polished in this game with the worst offender being the frustrating, poorly designed, and way too difficult gameplay. I can deal with the aged graphics and piss poor sound, but the gameplay is where it matters most when it comes to video games and Hitman: Codename 47 manages to fail on even the simplest tasks.