In 2000 a little Danish company named IO-Interactive created a PC title called Hitman. It was a stealth game... with a twist. Instead of sneaking in the shadows, picking off your enemies with silent precision, you were stalking your prey in the open, hiding in plain sight. This was a new kind of gameplay. The title sold moderately well, and a sequel was soon commissioned. Later installments proved to be far more successful than the first, progressing through Silent Assassin and Contracts to where we find ourselves today, Blood Money. Putting us back behind the barcode of Agent 47, a clone and the world's greatest assassin. But this time, he may have met his match...
From the start, it's clear that this is something special. Instead of a title screen, we hear the strains of Schubert's Ave Maria, and descend slowly through a peaceful countryside while the birds sing in the background. It's wonderfully atmospheric, and the atmosphere will only improve as the player progresses through the game. In fact, what Blood Money does better than any other game I've ever played is create an atmosphere for the player to immerse themselves in. The graphics are PS2-superb, in fact a lot better than many current-generation games, and there's never any lag or texture overlap. Music is all-round awesome (more on that at the bottom). The plot unfolds through cutscenes, with most of your missions occuring as flashbacks, not directly tied to the main story but providing you with clues to work out the overall scheme. And it's a cracker - no spoilers here, but it's definately game-changing in the Hitman universe, and the ending definately leaves questions to be answered.
Everything about this game is just better than in any of the others that came before it. Level design is a thing of perfection. Part of the fun of the series has been discovering the multitude of different ways to perform any given hit - but Blood Money takes that to the next level. For example, there's a mission on a Mississippi paddleboat where you have seven targets to eliminate, but it's not just about the quantity of hits. There's just so much variety. One totally new invention is the ability to disguse your hits as accidents - for example, to set a bomb on an opera house chandelier, causing it to crash down upon your target but leaving you totally unsuspected. Or pushing the aforementioned paddleboat crew over the sides to die in the icy river, or rigging a barbecue grill to explode, or... the possibilities are myriad. And the cleaner your kill, the better your ranking, and these have a purpose in Blood Money beyond pure mental reward. The game introduces something called the Notoriety system, tracking how well you perform on your mission - taking into account how many civilians you kill, how much noise you make, how many times the alert is rasied, and so on. If the score is high enough, your next mission will be made that much harder by your increased Notoriety... unless you can find a way to pay them off. It's a great addition to gameplay, forcing you to think long-term rather than just about the hit at hand.
But the core reason why Blood Money is top-three material is the feeling it gives you when you play it. I'm not saying that contract killing is something to be admired, but videogames have rarely bothered themselves with moral quandries. When you play the game, you are Agent 47, and that's what matters. The involuntary jump you may have when a guard looks at your disguise, the split-second wondering whether he's onto you, the urge to reach for your Ballers and solve the problem - no other stealth game treads such a terrifyingly thrilling line between excitement and fear than this. And for the clever and astute player, there'll never be a Game Over. Quick thinking will get you out of a tight spot, allowing you to continue your mission - but your current disguise may be compromised, or the guards may be more alert. It doesn't matter. The professional carries on, adapting to the circumstance and clinically coming through. It's all part of the game. And there is nothing like the satisfaction of a Silent Assassin rating, the reward for a perfect hit. This is a rank reserved only for the best.
I have one small issue with Blood Money. Again, no spoilers, but at the end of the game, in the Requiem level, you are asked to do something that many players will find distasteful. Thinking as 47, it's perfectly understandable, but some may feel that it crosses the line between avatar and player. It's by no means anything to drag the game down from being utterly amazing, but unfortunately the tiny niggle is still there. Still, Requiem is the least interesting level in the game, so many, I am sure, will just ignore it after completion.
Blood Money was released in 2006. At the time of writing, Hitman 5 was confirmed to have been delayed until Christmas 2011 at the earliest. This isn't actually a big disappointment for me. I've spent the last four years wondering how IO are going to top this, and if they want to take a year more to do it, that's fine by me. (Plus I don't actually own an X360, so I wouldn't be able to play it anyway...) In the meantime, Blood Money will more than suffice for anyone searching for not just a great stealth game, or even a great game, but just an all-round amazing piece of entertainment, full stop.
Oh, and the soundtrack is one of the greatest compositions ever. Buy it.
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