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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quality game with just a few flaws, 4 May 2004
By A Customer
The original Hitman: Codename 47 was an average game, with a unique premise: you WERE the hitman, known as Agent 47, sent to do contract killings. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin expanded upon this, enabling tons of open-ended ways to get your hit (and believe me, some of these ways were very inventive). Hitman: Contracts is possibly the strangest of the entire series, for quite a few reasons. The graphics, while pretty good, aren't that big of an improvement over Hitman 2. While this isn't a bad thing, per se, but IO could have easily done more with the game engine. However, what's there is definitely above average. The maps are very large and detailed, a slight step up over Hitman 2. Nice little touches like reflecting blood and the authentic look of all the guns make this even better. In Contracts, the game begins in Agent 47's hideout, where he is injured from his latest hit. He blanks out, and a flashback of Hitman: Codename 47's Asylum stage begins, setting the stage for mostly the entire game: flashbacks of Agent 47's deadliest hits, with some of them even being from the original (such as Traditions of the Trade and Lee Hong Assassination). The final level may even bring you a couple of flashbacks to the classic hitman film Leon.
The gameplay in Contracts is its shining glory. There are still open-ended stages where you can either run in, guns blazing, or stealthily dispatch your contracted hit. One great example of this system is the fourth stage, Beldingford Manor. Let's take a look at the first hit, Lord Beldingford. He sleeps in this stage, only getting up to either take a dump or drink a glass of milk. There's a couple of different ways you can do this. You can simply shoot him (silently or alerting all the guards), kill him with a melee weapon (like the new improvisational weapons like the fire poker or meathook), smother him with a pillow, poison his milk...there are many ways to finish the job. How do you get in his room easily, you ask? Take one of the guard's outfits. There are also about 40 different weapons, including secret ones you can only get by earning the Silent Assassin ranking on each mission. Hitman:contracts is more of the same, but just as fun if not more fun than its predecessors. If you liked Hitman 2, buy it. If you didn't, this probably won't change your mind, but try it out anyway. I guarantee you'll at least have some fun with it.
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