Blood Money is IMO the very best in the Hitman series. Not just that, it's one of the best games in general - ever! Of course, Absolution has better graphics, effects, cinematic sequences and polish - but gameplay- and story-wise THIS is it. The absolute apex of Hitman games. I love it how many options you have to complete the mission and how you can combine different approaches during the same mission - giving it really high replay value. Even a shoot'em'all is always an option - though your score and monetary reward will be abysmal in this case. OTOH, you can finish most missions without actually killing anyone (except the hit target - and even THAT you can mask as an accident). Of course getting the Silent Assassin rating in every single mission is pretty difficult, but achievable with careful planning. Getting this for $2.82 at the current sale rate is an absolute steal.
Very polished and bug free for an indie title - nothing amateurish about it. Perhaps just a bit short (thus my mark of 4.5/5). Anyway, I don't usually care much for platformers where you have to jump with single pixel precision (esp. when they sport floaty instead of pinpoint-exact controls). Fortunately this game isn't like that at all - platforming is quite forgiving. Mind though, there *are* some sections where you need to move quite fast an not make mistakes so the game isn't all just leisure adventure-style clicking around and does require good reflexes now and then. That can be avoided up to a point by cleverly slapping stickers on your enemies at the right moments, but this still requires repeating the section quite a few times and studying how they react. Nothing too difficult really, since checkpoints are not far apart and death doesn't cost you anything. Apart from platforming, rest of the game consists of enjoying the (silly and funny) story and figuring out the puzzles (what sticker to use where). Puzzles are mostly on the easy side, since reading people's minds give you a pretty good idea what you have to do, though one or two did stump me a bit and required trying everything on everyone to see what would stick (literally). The story itself is simple yet cute and warmhearted and made me laugh out loud a couple of times - which doesn't happen often. I like the graphic style too. If you're among people whom happen to dislike it though (check the intro video), perhaps better to skip the whole game as it would suck too much fun out of it. Soundtrack is great as well (wish it was available for DL). If you're a fan of original, different, genre-defying games, or just want to have an afternoon of warmhearted fun, I really recommend this.
