Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

I have no doubts that, at the time, this game was a hit (hah). It was building on the success of the first game, and managed to improve on a lot of things. However, not every lesson was learned. I can take boring missions. What I cannot take is inconsistent AI and... missions that are essentially impossible without gunning down at least a few henchmen. The Japan missions are one such example: starting out with a banger, only to flip the script and make the disguises essentially useless, only to make them useful again in the castle. I had my fun playing this, but I think it'll be better for me to play Contracts and onwards.

Hitman 2 is the first real Hitman game in the series. (Codename 47 is more of a prototype than an actual enjoyable product in my opinion.) Hitman 2 is a great game, albeit it leans on the more trial and error side of stealth games; which in my opinion is just fine. All that saving and reloading does lead to assassination mastery to the point where you will know the game like the back of your hand by the time you are finished. I would say IO was on point with almost everything this time around. Music is some of the best I have ever heard in a video game. It brings an unbelievable amount of atmosphere to the game and it always seems like it know when to kick in to make you feel really good about sneaking past a room of guards or accomplishing a task. It's the kind of music you will want to listen to in your free time and speaking of. I use a hifi solution to sound when I play and the sound quality is really superb. I never noticed any crackling or muffled sound. It's crisp. The graphics hold up so well. Applying some supersampling to the graphics really cleans up any aliasing. It honestly looks like a game that could release today at times, hard to believe for a game that is almost 20 years old. The gameplay is trial and error based, but when you are pulling off a mission flawlessly, it feels amazing. That said, the nature of how disguises work can be a bit wonky. For example if you run while disguised, guards will shoot you, no questions asked. A bit silly in my opinion but it just reaffirms something that is very core to Hitman 2. This is a very slow game. You need to walk almost everywhere. Sneaking up on moving targets is near impossible and waiting is often key to completing missions cleanly. I can see how it would be frustrating to the modern gamer, but there is something to be said about how playing so slow makes you really get into the mind set of a cold blooded killer. That's all I really got to say. It's not for everyone but it's a classic nonetheless.

First off: win 10 may encounter issues during cut scenes - there's a fix on forum, so check it out if it hits you. As for the game itself, it's a big step-up from the first instalment of the title. The first mission has overreacting AI, but it can be forgiven since 47 is infiltrating a Mafia where everybody should recognize each other. There are some bugs (Hidden Valley, apparently can be fixed by lowering the frame rate of the game), luckily the game offers an alternative route, or you can just shoot your way through. Other than that, it's a solid entertainment. With great music (Jesper Kyd), and nice locations (my fav. being German embassy and the hospital in Malaysia. Loved the architecture. Generally a nice place to wonder about, pretending we are hard at work on our soon to be operated on contract).

favourite hitman game of mine

I had to change an entry in an INI-file from "DrawDll RenderD3D.dll" to "DrawDll RenderOpenGL.dll" but then it worked smoothly.