Hitman 3: Contracts

Hitman Contracts is a dark, moody game that is often looked at as being one of the more controversial entries in IO Interactives flagship series, with many fans of Silent Assassin dismissing it as being a rushed sequel trying to cash in on the unexpected success of its predecessor. With a lack of any real overriding narrative binding the missions together as well as featuring fewer missions then HM2, about half of which were expanded remakes taken from Codename 47, it's understandable why people tend to regard Contracts as being the dark horse of the series and an inferior followup to Silent Assassin. And yet, in spite of its shortcomings, I consider Hitman Contracts to be the second best game in the series with 1st place being reserved for the excellent Hitman Blood Money. I've found the missions in Contracts to be of a much more consistent quality when compared to those of HM2 wherein for every genuinely good level like 'Basement killing' there was a frustratingly tedious and poorly designed one like 'Hidden valley'. In contracts, every mission is an expansive mini sandbox that facilitates numerous ways to discreetly, as well as not-so discreetly carry out your hit. Indeed, one of the best things about this game as well as the series in general is the freedom in which you are given to carry out any given mission with more patient players being able to slip in and out of a level like a ghost, killing only the target, while more trigger happy players are still able to gun their way through the entire game. The tone of the missions themselves feels appropriately dark for a game that revolves around a contact killer, with many of the levels taking place at night in the rain, and the morbidly ambient soundtrack is once again provided by the excellent Jesper Kyd. To conclude I think that Hitman Contracts was a great entry into the franchise, and one that offered more refined and and generally better overall quality of missions then its predecessors.

This is nothing new for older games where the in - game physics are tied to the frame rate, if your running on more modern hardware PLEASE BE AWARE that you will have issues with the physics in game as well as trying to move main character, Agent 47 around and good luck trying to cap the framerate in your GPU's control pannel because it won't work at least not on an Nvidia GPU since that's the GPU I had when writing this very comment. Also if your going to change the in-game resulution please be aware it may crash the game so you may need to change the text INI file in the games directory to change the resolution. So in summary unless you running on time period hardware your going to want to get MSI Afterburner and make sure you download Riva Tuner during the install and set the cap to 60fps even if you have a 60hz monitor monitor becuase anything higher will cause the in-game physics act wierd, this will mean everytime you wan't to run this game you will need to load up Riva Tuner everytime and make sure it's capped to 60fps if you wan't the best way to run this game as far as i'm aware there might be a better way but I don't know, so keep an eye for any community patch, or mods that adress this but I couldn't find any at the time. I hope this dosn't put you off from buying this game it's still a very good game and I would definitely would recomend this if your a hardcore Hitman fan this games is not to miss.

If I had to sum up Contracts in a few words, those words would be "dark, brooding atmosphere". This game comes in as a close second best after Blood Money for me, for many reasons. First off, this game is mostly a collection of remastered levels from Codename 47, but built with the technology of Hitman 2. While that does put a damper on the value slightly, depending on if you've recently played through the first game, it does enough significant changes that it really warrants playing again. Aesthetically, this is my favorite Hitman game. Since every level is taking place in Hitman's mind while he bleeds out on the floor, every level takes on a dark and almost sinister atmosphere. After shooting your way out of the asylum, the first contract is at a BDSM party at a meat factory, further cementing the games gritty vibe. As for the missions themselves, they can range from brilliant to tedious. The biggest highlight of the game, for me, has to be Traditions of the Trade, a remake of the level from Hitman Codename 47. The hotel is so fun to explore, and there's plenty of secrets to be found. On the tedious end of the spectrum, you have The Bjarkhov Bomb, which spans a huge map that makes traversal seem like an eternity with nothing really pleasing to look at. AI is aroud the same as Hitman 2, but enemies are a bit more forgiving of suspicious actions. There's plenty of weapons in this game (even an unlockable minigun) to play around with, and each one is satisfying. The music takes a break from the orchestral style of Hitman 2 to be more synth-like and dark. It's still brilliant as always, but not quite as memorable as 2 or Blood Money. The only real negatives I can think of are some inconsistent AI problems, a few tedious mission objectives, and the fact that the game doesn't really progress the overall storyline. It almost rivals Blood Money in greatness, but Blood Money just had more missions with almost zero tedium, so Blood Money slightly edges this one out.

This is the first one in the Hitman franchise that was really polished, beautiful and pretty much bug-free, even though you'll always come across the odd complaint about the AI. For me it was a remarkable experience. I remember the dark setting, the music, the flashbacks, the excellent reboot of the missions that had been pretty crappy in Hitman 1 (Hong Kong Blue Lotus, the ship in Rotterdam, the hotel in Budapest and the Asylum), the final mission with a clear hint at Léon the Professional and other beautiful missions like the Russian submarine, the Meat King, the English Manor.