Every now and then I surf the available games on the XBOX ONE,
and sometimes I find something I hadn't seen or played in a long
time. This is how I found out SQUARE ENIX has dressed HITMAN in
a nice, shiny new suit.
HITMAN has been around for a long time — but I really like
the makeover its been given. And SQUARE ENIX changed their model
from a single, standalone game to a more episodic approach. Now,
like television, they offer the option of buying single missions
("episodes") for $10, or buying a bundle of missions (a "season").
That's nice for people who want to try the game out (at $10) before
committing $60 for the equivalent of a full game.
Another thing that really struck me about the new version: during
the introduction screens, SQUARE ENIX has included a brief blurb
about how its company is comprised of people of different derivations
and religious beliefs. I think that's a very nice touch — it
underscores that they've produced this game as a work of fiction
without malice toward anyone (despite the subject matter).
Indeed, the different scenarios
seem to occur in different places around the globe — I'm playing
a scenario set in Morocco with targets that include a Moroccan
army general and a financier from somewhere in Scandanavia.
Before that I had to get rid of a European male and female at
a fashion show someplace in Europe, and an engineer holed up in
his family's estate in Italy.
For the uninitiated, HITMAN may seem like a standard kill-kill-kill
kind of game. It's not — not really. It's a puzzle game, just with a
grisly subject matter. Your objective is to eliminate a target —
but how you do it is up to you. You may be direct and use a weapon,
or you may get creative and, say, loosen the bolts holding a
giant speaker on the wall, or unhitch the winch suspending
the chandelier, to get the same result with the appearance of an
awful accident instead of outright murder.
That doesn't necessarily mean HITMAN is fun for the whole family --
apart from the subject matter, the language can be coarse, and its
obviously violent.
HITMAN is a treat for the problem-solvers, but it's not a game
I'd play while my mother is visiting or kids are about.
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