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General discussionRelease: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin(172 posts)(172 posts)
(172 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 14, 2012
This time, it's personal...

Agent 47 is continuing his assault on GOG.com’s catalogue: grab the second installment of the Hitman series for only $9.99!

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin continues the story of the genetically-engineered assassin-for-hire Agent 47. Nowadays he tries to distance himself from his twisted past and has become a humble church gardener. He gets entangled into a diabolical plot by a Russian crime boss when his friend, a priest, gets kidnapped. To try and save the innocent priest, Agent 47 finds himself at the beck and call of a dangerous man, and he must find a way to not only fulfill his missions, but also strike back against the gang boss who holds his leash.
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Apart from the obvious grief and the lust for revenge, you'll get what the titular hitman is best known for: a large weapon arsenal at your disposal with multiple special hidden weapons scattered across the open-ended levels. These huge levels, each one designed as a separate sandbox, let you experiment with your approach to killing your targets. No matter how bizarre your disguise or how elaborate your approach, the end goal is simple: eliminate the target.

The Silent Assassin streamlines the gameplay and improves over its predecessor in almost every regard. The AI system has been revamped to develop new patterns and behaviours. For all the completionists and achievement addicts, now at the end of each mission you get a score ranging from a Mass Murderer (achieved for mowing down enemies and just getting the job done) to the Silent Assassin who stealths his way to the target and eliminates him without anyone noticing.

So whether you're a run and gun fanatic or you'd like to compare Agents 47’s sneaking abilities to Garret’s, now is the perfect time to pickup this masterpiece for a mere $9.99!
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: What gave you that idea? To my knowledge, all disk versions of the game include some form of copy protection/DRM (a mix of SecuROM and SafeDisk). That makes it an issue for most people who are opposed to such things.
Disc-based copy protection does not count as DRM by virtue of the fact that everything you need to exploit your rights under the EULA is present on the CD-ROM. It becomes DRM by the definition of the term when the rights become "managed" by the rightsholder.

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Adzeth: Right now I'm using Windows 7 64bit. I've tried the cd version on this computer, and a few others (XP and Vista covered). I remember it worked fine back when the game was brand new, but a few years later, when I tried to run it again, I couldn't even get it to install at first. The game itself was a mess when I finally got it running.
Then you are seriously unlucky. I've just stuck my CD (getting on seven years old now) into the drive, installed it and it works perfectly off the bat. I don't even need to set a compatibility mode.
Posted February 14, 2012
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Adzeth: I would like to report that unlike my cd versions, the GOG version works on my computer.
Do you know the culprit (e.g. OS, DRM incompatibility, graphics card...)?
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: What gave you that idea? To my knowledge, all disk versions of the game include some form of copy protection/DRM (a mix of SecuROM and SafeDisk). That makes it an issue for most people who are opposed to such things.
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jamyskis: Disc-based copy protection does not count as DRM by virtue of the fact that everything you need to exploit your rights under the EULA is present on the CD-ROM. It becomes DRM by the definition of the term when the rights become "managed" by the rightsholder.
I never said it actually was DRM, just that the games do include some form of copy protection or DRM (I don't know if any of the later games after Silent Assassin included "true DRM" as I have not personally dealt with them) and to say otherwise is at best an honest mistake, at worst, intentionally disingenuous. Regardless of what is on the disk, the disk check is still something that will eventually limit my ability to use my legally purchased software as intended; no matter how careful you are, disks you have to keep using will inevitably fail. That is an indisputable fact. Games that don't require a disk or any other form of protection are the only ones that are truly un-managed, hence why GOG's unfettered offerings are so great. GOG could close up shop tomorrow and I will still be able to install and play their games a decade from now without having to worry about authentication servers being online or a disk that has developed a bad scratch.
Post edited February 14, 2012 by cogadh
Posted February 14, 2012
Have the PS2 box set, so will have to pass. Be cool if they get Bloody Money as well.
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: a disk that constantly gets scratched and damaged every time you unnecessarily stick it in the drive, inevitably making it useless for installing or running the game, thereby limiting your ability to continue to use your legally purchased software.
this 'argument' is always brought up, yet in the 20 years or so that i have been gaming and buying disc-based games, i've never had a single disc lost or scratched to the point of unreadability.

maybe i'm just extra careful, but i think this is a pretty poor argument against a simple disc check.

besides, if your discs become useless due to scratches it's entirely your own fault. you don't get to blame the disc, DRM in general or the publisher for that one...
Post edited February 14, 2012 by Fred_DM
Posted February 14, 2012
I've also never had a problem with game discs I've bought. Game backups I've burned on the other hand...
Post edited February 14, 2012 by keeveek
Posted February 14, 2012
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Adzeth: I would like to report that unlike my cd versions, the GOG version works on my computer.
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timppu: Do you know the culprit (e.g. OS, DRM incompatibility, graphics card...)?
Not for certain, but I've wondered that it might be some sort of a copy protection problem. The game won't install from the disc, so I have to use a weird "pack the cd in a zip" trick that I think I already mentioned earlier in the thread. After it's installed, there's almost no sound, and the little sound there is comes many seconds late. The same audio bug happens on 2 computers with different specs and OS's. It also crashed a lot.

The GOG version crashes when I try to run it in 800x600, which I did before I remembered that the config tool is a separate executable. After upping it to whatever, it runs fine.
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: a disk that constantly gets scratched and damaged every time you unnecessarily stick it in the drive, inevitably making it useless for installing or running the game, thereby limiting your ability to continue to use your legally purchased software.
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Fred_DM: this 'argument' is always brought up, yet in the 20 years or so that i have been gaming and buying disc-based games, i've never had a single disc lost or scratched to the point of unreadability.

maybe i'm just extra careful, but i think this is a pretty poor argument against a simple disc check.

besides, if your discs become useless due to scratches it's entirely your own fault. you don't get to blame the disc, DRM in general or the publisher for that one...
You have been extremely lucky, since it doesn't matter how careful you are, just inserting a disk into a drive causes microscratches that will build up over time and eventually cause read errors that break the disk check. There is nothing anyone can do to prevent that from happening, the fault lies in the way disk drives are designed and is completely out of user's hands. I also have games as old as yours that I have gone to great lengths to properly store and care for, yet despite the fact that I have only ever installed the games a handful of times, I do have two or three that have begun to fail to launch on the first try due to disk read problems. Heck I have games that aren't even that old, like Knights of the Old Republic 2, that have trouble even installing due to scratches caused by the very case the disk came in (those awful 4 disk cases that allow the inner disks to spin freely and rub against the edge of the inner case). Is it my fault if the publisher used substandard packaging that doesn't adequately protect the medium? Nope, but I'm still the one that gets stuck with a game that I paid good money for and won't work unless I jump through a bunch of hoops up to and including committing illegal acts to obtain replacement copies for install purposes or illegal cracks to run the game. Not to mention, the disks themselves, even if not used, will degrade over time; CD/DVD disks are not permanent storage at all. I can blame the publisher for making that disk a requirement due to their use of an unnecessary disk check that is completely reliant on a storage medium with an inevitable expiration date that I will never know about until it has passed.
Posted February 14, 2012
OMFG 9.99 for a game, this is madness.
Posted February 14, 2012
I might get it when it's sale. I didn't like this game back in 2002 but I had different tastes then so I'm willing to give it another try.
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: You have been extremely lucky, since it doesn't matter how careful you are, just inserting a disk into a drive causes microscratches that will build up over time and eventually cause read errors that break the disk check. There is nothing anyone can do to prevent that from happening, the fault lies in the way disk drives are designed and is completely out of user's hands.
Ridiculous. If that were the case then many music CDs from the late 80s would be completely unusable by now in spite of their due love and care. If your DVD drive is scratching your discs, get a new drive - yours is defective.

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cogadh: Nope, but I'm still the one that gets stuck with a game that I paid good money for and won't work unless I jump through a bunch of hoops up to and including committing illegal acts to obtain replacement copies for install purposes or illegal cracks to run the game. Not to mention, the disks themselves, even if not used, will degrade over time; CD/DVD disks are not permanent storage at all.
Funny you should mention that - I had the same problem with a Steam game on disc a couple of years back and I said the same thing with regards to Steam.

Servers do not stay online forever. Companies do not exist forever. Hard drives have a comparatively short service life compared to optical media. One day your games will be gone, and unlike CDs or DVDs, you will not have the choice of installing those games again.
Posted February 14, 2012
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cogadh: You have been extremely lucky, since it doesn't matter how careful you are, just inserting a disk into a drive causes microscratches that will build up over time and eventually cause read errors that break the disk check. There is nothing anyone can do to prevent that from happening, the fault lies in the way disk drives are designed and is completely out of user's hands.
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jamyskis: Ridiculous. If that were the case then many music CDs from the late 80s would be completely unusable by now in spite of their due love and care. If your DVD drive is scratching your discs, get a new drive - yours is defective.
You seriously think I'm still using the same drive for the last 15 or 20 years? All disk drives scratch their disks a little bit, that is a fact of their design. You can't place a disk on a tray or in a slot loading drive without the surface of the disk getting abraded some, it's that simple. Over time and repeated insertions, those abrasions will build up and can eventually lead to disk faults. And in case you didn't know, there are plenty of CDs from the 80s and later that stopped working through no fault of the owners, our landfills have tons of them. I've even bought a few from used music stores before. CD/DVD disks really only last 25-50 years before they begin to seriously degrade, much less than that for writable disks (in some cases as little as 2 years).
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cogadh: Nope, but I'm still the one that gets stuck with a game that I paid good money for and won't work unless I jump through a bunch of hoops up to and including committing illegal acts to obtain replacement copies for install purposes or illegal cracks to run the game. Not to mention, the disks themselves, even if not used, will degrade over time; CD/DVD disks are not permanent storage at all.
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jamyskis: Funny you should mention that - I had the same problem with a Steam game on disc a couple of years back and I said the same thing with regards to Steam.

Servers do not stay online forever. Companies do not exist forever. Hard drives have a comparatively short service life compared to optical media. One day your games will be gone, and unlike CDs or DVDs, you will not have the choice of installing those games again.
Well, you obviously didn't finish reading what I wrote and don't know how to properly back up your digital media. Sure, hard drives fail, that's why you make a backup and replace that backup on a regular basis. While it is true that my hard drive will inevitably fail, I will always have a back up and will always be able to install my games on any of my computers, even if eventually I have to use emulators like DOSBox to run them. This is why the way GOG does things is better than any other method out there. No physical media to maintain, no external application to run, no reliance on external servers, no DRM or copy protection to work past... just an executable file that I keep a copy of on my PC, on an external hard drive and even on a DVD for the extreme emergency (a DVD that will only get taken out of its box in the extreme case of a double failure of both my PC and external backup).
Post edited February 14, 2012 by cogadh
Posted February 14, 2012
Is this one any good? People told me it wasn't as good as the first one so I skipped it.
9.99 is steep though, especially because it's cheaper on Steam...
Will probably wait for at least 50% off.
Posted February 14, 2012
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deshadow52: OMFG 9.99 for a game, this is madness.
There definitely seems to be a kind of dichotomy between how these forums view older games, and how they view the prices. Like, on the one hand it's "The golden age of gaming, timeless classics that are as good or better than modern games!*" and on the other hand it's "Mind you, $10.00 is a lot of money for an old game."

I personally don't think the price is outrageous; it's the same that Gamersgate and Steam are charging. This isn't really my kind of game, though.

*I admit that I have never heard anyone say this about Hitman 2 specifically.
Posted February 14, 2012
9.99 is too expensive. The retail version of the bundle of 4 games sells for about the same price.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin(172 posts)(172 posts)
(172 posts)
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