An amazing game! I guarantee!
You've seen many movies where hitmen are hired to do odd jobs such as assassinating leaders or sometimes sabotaging material, and in Silent Assassin, you'll be given the chance to display your skill of stealth, weaponry, and the art of confusion as you try to fit into the mold of each situation you're in. Newly incorporated in Silent Assassin is how the game "grades' you on the amount of stealth you achieve throughout each mission. Yeah, you could go in guns blazing and maybe live to tell, but the idea behind a hitman is to be silent and not be seen while going through their task. After padre is kidnapped, Mr. 47 contacts his old organization who helped find him "jobs" from the previous game, so that they may be able to locate his mentor. And of course, everything has its price, so now you must go on a few missions to "pay" for the information to find your friend. After a few missions, you'll find out they still don't know where he is, and again, you're lead on some other missions finally realizing that your life as a hitman is truly what you are, not a gardener. You'll travel the world over and back, going through around twenty missions having to assassinate some people, hack computers, and also break into heavily guarded fortresses. Eventually, you'll find out that the main man hiring you for your odd jobs is the man who kidnapped Mr. Vitetoreo and you're lead upon one last mission from the place you started, the monastery.
The graphics in Silent Assassin have been stepped up a little since the first game and most of the actions of each character are smooth. You're either allowed to be in 1st person or 3rd person perspective which is a nice choice. Animations for each character are done nicely and the physics engine in the game was something new to genre and with this game, it was handled nicely. The areas inside each mission were detailed and really set the atmosphere for each environment whether you're in Japan in the middle of a blizzard, or India making an assassination attempt. A nice innovation from the first hitman that was carried over is the ability to wear the clothes of any of your enemies. You could take out a guard on the outside of a complex, without being seen, and adorn his clothes and walk into the complex. No, you're not able to just run around, but depending upon your costume, you'll be able to go through different places you weren't allowed before. This function of the game adds a lot of play value to the game and of course, you don't need to absolutely do this, but some missions can certainly be easier with the help of a disguise.
Completing the actual assassination attempts should be easy in the weaponry standpoint, because Mr. 47 will almost always be well equipped for any situation he's in whether he brings the weapons with him or finds them off contacts throughout the mission maps. You'll deal with weapons such as silenced pistols, the legendary hardballers, and a crossbow which can be used for a soundless long range weapon. Whatever situation you're in, you'll find the right weapon. If you want to be quiet, use wire to wrap around the neck of your opponents, or if you're not worried about sound, bust out your AK and mow down multiple enemies. You'll gain new weapons as you pick them up during your travels and will be able to equip yourself before most missions. You're not allowed to carry an unlimited amount of weapons, which is actually realistic unlike a lot of other games, so choosing your weapon can bring some strategy into the game each time through.
The sound in this sequel helps you feel the atmosphere in each territory you cover throughout the twenty plus missions. All the weapons have a unique sound. The characters within the game have memorable voices and this adds to the atmosphere of the dark job of judgment of other souls.
There isn't a multiplayer component to Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, but there definitely is a lot of replay value within the game. Having multiple difficultly settings and being able to go through each mission with total stealth and not being seen adds a lot of difficultly to any mission. After each mission, you're given a score sheet telling how many shots you've fired, how many people you've killed, and how much "stealth" and how much "aggression" you used for each level, among other stats. With this unique score sheet that adds up after every mission, you'll be able to keep track and hopefully beat your score each time through.
Although there are many high points to Silent Assassin, there are some low points. When having to sneak up on your enemies, Mr. 47 moves extremely slow. Yes, this may add difficultly to the game, but having to make each "stealth" kill perfect because of timing can be frustrating. One other aspect of the game that didn't shine was the fact that once the guards were alerted in one part of the map, guards were alerted in every part of the map. This can truly happen, but this was definitely a change from the first game in the Hitman series where the A.I didn't know if you had fired a shot on the other side of the map in a disguise.
But overall, if you liked the first Hitman game, you'll enjoy Silent Assassin even more with new innovations, weapons, and strategies; you'll have hours of fun throughout the twenty plus missions of the game. Newcomers to the series will enjoy Silent Assassin because of how well Io Interactive put the missions and levels together. The story throughout the game keeps intact as you make the rounds as one of the best assassins in the world. Can you hold up that reputation?