Hitman 2: Silent Assassin Preview

By Amer Ajami, GameSpotPosted Feb 25, 2002 6:43 pm PT

Have the developers at IO have fixed the problems that plagued the original Hitman? Read our impressions of this sequel to find out.

Never had it felt so good to be so bad than in IO Interactive's Hitman: Codename 47, a game that placed you in the shoes of a nameless assassin who used a veritable 31 flavors of weapons to take out his oh-so corrupt targets, and woe to anyone who stood in his way. But the game had problems--serious problems, not the least of which were shoddy controls, questionable enemy AI, and the dependence on trial by error in almost every mission. Thankfully the developers at IO weren't blind to these shortcomings, and in designing the sequel to Hitman, fixing the original game's deficiencies was priority number one. Hitman 2 is now nearing completion, and we were recently able to get some playtime with the latest build of the game. With a checklist of problems from the original game in hand, we set out to see if IO Interactive really had worked out the kinks of the first Hitman.

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For those who don't know, the game takes place several years after the events of Hitman: Codename 47. Your character has resigned himself to a life of gardening in a Sicilian monastery. On a daily basis, the hitman confesses his life's sins to the priest who's taken him in, but otherwise he leads an uninteresting life--that is, until the priest is kidnapped by the Italian mafia. Determined to save his friend, the hitman reactivates himself with the "agency," and his first self-imposed mission is to break into the local mob boss's house in an attempt to rescue the abducted priest. Diana, the liaison from the original Hitman, will be back in Hitman 2 to brief you before every mission, though the way you move within each level will be a little different in the sequel. As you're getting briefed, you'll have access to a map of the level that you're about to enter, and it'll show you where your objective will be, potential trouble spots, and fallback areas so that you don't go into a hostile area completely blind. Gone is the notion of having to buy your weapons beforehand. In Hitman 2, you'll be able to choose what hardware you'll carry with you before each mission for free. What's more, each level will have several drop points that the agency will use to get you additional firepower should you need it. Your arsenal will include almost all of the weapons from the original Hitman, plus an additional 10 new weapons. Of course, the hitman's signature Hardballer .45 will be making a return, though you can now silence it and double up on it, John Woo style. If something with a bigger punch is in order, you can choose from an MP5 SD6, MP5A4, Beretta M92F (with or without a silencer), Colt Python, Desert Eagle, PSM 5.45mm, Ruger .22, AKS-74U, M4A1, Uzi, SPAS-12, M60, Barrett M95 .50cal, and Dragunov SDV. A garrote, a combat knife, a crossbow, some sedatives, and even an ax will be available if stealth is called for.

When silence is necessary, the crossbow will prove to be ideal.

Playing the game, the first thing we noticed about Hitman 2 was a slightly revised interface and a new alertness meter in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. A little like the light meter in the Thief games, this rectangular-shaped box remains empty as you stay undetected and gradually fills up as others around you start to take notice of your actions. If you do anything suspicious in plain view of your enemies, the meter will turn red, and more often than not all hell will break loose around you. It's obvious that this new addition is meant to address the AI problems that plagued the original Hitman. Many people who've played that first game will remember a specific mission in Hong Kong, where your character--who is bald and whiter than snow--infiltrates a triad gang simply by dressing up as one of them. No more. The enemy AI in Hitman 2 will be far more complex than in the original game, and this new alertness meter will help you gauge exactly how interested others are in you and what you're doing.

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