Hitman: Blood Money

Plot synopsis:
The game begins with a flashback to an abandoned Baltimore amusement park, where many people were killed in an accident caused by negligent maintenance of a Ferris wheel. The father of one of the victims contacts the Agency and orders a hit on the park owner, Joseph Clarence. Agent 47 carries out the hit, and following that assignment, he receives a string of contracts from American clients eager to retain his services.
The bulk of the game takes place as flashback sequences that occur concordant to the present day, in which a journalist and the former FBI Director, "Jack" Alexander Leland Cayne, discuss 47's hits over the past year and a half (2004–2005) and his involvement in them. The reporter, Rick Henderson, arranged to interview Cayne concerning a recent attack on the White House, but it quickly becomes clear that Cayne's real intent is to discuss 47. Cayne lies about many details, such as stating that 47 stole cloning data from Ort-Meyer to sell to the highest bidder, or that 47 was working with a group of assassins known as the Franchise to kill the Secretary of the Interior (though it was really the exact opposite). As the story progresses, it is implied that the Agency's employees are being gradually assassinated by the Franchise. The situation degrades to the point where 47's handler, Diana Burnwood, informs him that they are the only ones left. Eventually, Diana shuts down the Agency and divides the remaining funds between them. After completing his final assignment, 47 is approached by an old acquaintance, CIA agent Carlton Smith, who 47 had rescued earlier in the game. He offers 47 a high-profile mission, paid for using several million dollars worth of diamonds, to prevent an assassination attempt on the president of the United States, Tom Stewart. The assassins are Franchise operative Mark Parchezzi III and Vice-President Daniel Morris, both of whom are working for Alpha Zerox, a shadowy political organization that seeks to monopolize the cloning technology used to create 47. As the President intends to legalize cloning, ruining their plans, the company hopes to replace him with the much more controllable Morris.
47 successfully eliminates Morris and Parchezzi in the White House, exposing the Franchise to the public. Hunted by the police, 47 flees to his hideout. Without warning, he is visited by Diana, immediately arousing his suspicion. Diana proposes a plan to 47 to help them both escape. As 47 mulls over the briefing she hands him, expressing his misgivings as to the likelihood of its success, Diana injects him with what seems to be a fatal poison. 47's body is surrounded by SWAT officers, and Diana, announcing that killing 47 was "surprisingly pleasant", is formally inducted into the Franchise by Cayne, its founder.
The story then shifts to the present day; 47 is scheduled for cremation so his bone marrow cannot be harnessed by cloning rivals, forever destroying anyone else's chance of producing a non-defective clone. Diana drapes 47's custom pistols over his chest during his hasty funeral, kisses him after applying fresh lipstick, and leaves the funeral grounds. It becomes apparent that the "poison" she injected was actually a fake-death serum 47 had used in an earlier mission, with her lipstick containing the antidote. The funeral begins and the story then concludes in one of two different ways. In the first, it is presumed the antidote fails to work, and 47 is sent to the crematorium. In the second, canonical ending, the antidote is successful and 47 awakens (by tapping the movement keys/using the left analog stick), slaughtering everyone in the church. With both Cayne and Henderson dead, 47's identity is kept secret.
Sometime after the funeral bloodbath, Diana uses the Franchise's assets to reopen the Agency in a building overlooking the Copenhagen harbor. She receives a call from a client she refers to as "Your Majesty". The voice cannot be heard, but Diana replies that the Agency has lost track of 47. Meanwhile, 47 is seen at an unknown establishment engaging in conversation with a traditionally-dressed Asian man. They discuss a service that can be found 'in the back'. The story ends with the curtain literally closing on the two.

Tags: violence

Review:
Some things might take some getting used to for some fan boys but in the long run they make the game more fun.
Fans of the old series and new players will find the game-play very immersing and at some points challenging.
With there being about five ways to perfectly complete one level the player gets a sense of freedom and control of Agent 47.
Hit-man: Blood Money (played on the PS2) creeped me out right from the start.
Not in a manner quite like Contracts, the 2004 installment of the awesome series, but in a different way.
This is just one of the many ways that Blood Money twists with your mind and makes you question your morality and sanity.
This is, no doubt, one of the best games of the year so far, and aside from a few glaring flaws, is the best installment yet in the Hit-man franchise.The major flaw in Blood Money is the way it begins.
The beginning is dark, melodramatic, and moody, taking place at an abandoned amusement park, but the structure isn't as smooth as levels in the other Hit-man titles, and the game leads you by the nose for the entire level, effectively removing the open-ended nature of the series.
But when you are past this training level, it's Blood Money to the Big Leagues time, with 47 taking no prisoners in a dark, violent tale of conspiracy and intrigue.
It's a very compelling story, combining the international appeal of Silent Assassin with the brutish, disturbing nature of Contracts.One of the best additions to the game is the Accident system.
This will change the way you play Hit-man.
These 'accidents' (ranging from pushing people from balconies to fake suicide, to forcing chandeliers to fall large heights before hitting anything remotely resembling a target) play perfectly into the Notoriety system, which tracks your mission stats and compiles them into a faux newspaper clipping.
These stats, including your hit ratio, number of times seen, and the amount of people killed, factor into how well the enemy will recognise you in the next mission.
It's a great concept, but don't worry about this one in the lower two difficulty levels; Notoriety is barely recognizable on the Normal setting, and doesn't even exist on Rookie.Hit-man: Blood Money is a very good game in danger of being overlooked by the average gamer this year.
Hit-man: Blood Money, however, should not be overlooked; it is a near-perfect example of how to do a game right.
Hit-man sets the bar for maturity, and all other games strive to that mark.
Jesper Kyd's orchestral-eletronica soundtrack is also phenomenal (as always), being the best thing to hit my ears this year.If you play any games at all, and care for intelligence in your entertainment, by all means, play Hit-man: Blood Money.Now..
You get such a satisfied feeling when you flawlessly complete your mission and see that "Silent Assassin" rating on the screen.
The reason this is different from other Hit men games is that it has many new things.
All in game saves are wiped when you leave or even restart the level by accident.(although, I usually beat each level and then saved, making it less of a problem to me.) Even though there are many guns in the game, a "silent assassin" will never need them for more than using them to grab a human shield to knock people out.
(One person busts you, and everyone knows.) Games like Metal Gear Solid solved problems like this years before by simply giving guards radios.
Good: Very satisfying when done right, lots of problems from first games fixed.
The first one maybe a bit better in some ways than the second one, but that's irrelevant and everyone can decide by themselves.Anyway, I think that "Hitman: Blood Money" is a nice upgrade to the series.
One of the newer things is killing the targets by making a fake accident.
That's great, but basically it could make you feel a bit that "it's the only real" or "right way" to go with the mission.
That might limit the freedom a little, but of course you can still kill your targets in the old fashioned way.
That's still absolutely only your choice, and the accident is only one more way to eliminate your personal VIP.One interesting thing is also the newspaper that appears to the screen right after the mission.
That's one thing I noticed to be a bit annoying, since even if you don't kill anyone and make the murder look like an accident, they still magically know that it was a murder.However, in the end, "Hitman: Blood Money" is a great game.
I'd recommend this to everyone who wants to be a virtual hit-man for a while, as well as to everyone who likes previous "Hitman" games..
Hit-man: Blood Money.
I've had it for years and usually play it on my laptop when I just want to relax.CONTROLS 10/10 The controls in the game are very easy to understand and using them for me is not a problem.
Controls are customisable.FUN FACTOR 9/10 Most of the levels in this game have no time limit, and this means you can take your time to do what you need to do.
The missions have a very good story line, and not once in the game do you feel like you are playing a slight repeat of a different mission.
I have played every mission countless times and each time I will try something different each time.GRAPHICS 7/10 This game was released in 2006.
Another thing that caught my attention was that nearly every man in the game looked extremely strong.
Every time you re-play a mission, you are very likely to do something different.SOUND 8/10 The game has an exclusive soundtrack by Geoff Zanelli.
The music is orchestral and suits the game perfectly.Although, I have heard snippets of certain scores in Hit-man: Contracts.
How about the possibility of making your hit look like an accident?
Hit-man: Contracts came in at the tail end of the standard definition era of video gaming.
The killing and gameplay is still very similar and the game doesn't offer anything new in that regard.
I think it is time that Hit-man starts introducing gorier deaths that obliterate victims or feature noticeable damage instead of the ragdoll effects after a sudden burst of red.I liked this game, but for Agent 47's first jaunt into HD I would have preferred new methods of killing that would benefit from the better resolution.
I love this game so much and the music is amazing and the missions are so fun and you can do whatever you want..
There isn't enough missions and that will result in you actually finding all the ways to kill your target, I was sadden to play the last mission because it showed that that was all you can see until the next game comes out.
Now we gamers have to play the same missions and kill the same boring people over and over again until we bang our heads on the Monitor/TV until it breaks.
Hit-man Blood Money is great.
This game is possibly the best of the series, of course Hit-man 2 is still better in my opinion and Hit-man Contracts being the worst.
You of course have to kill every witness, and the game ends.
I really wanted to play Hit-man Blood Money and when I had completed it I loved it!
Most certainly the best game I've played in my entire life.
The chandelier's chain will blow up and it will fall down and crush the target making it look like an accident.
It is so violent it makes Grand Theft Auto look like a game for a 3 year-old.
I recently played Hit-man Absolution and despite the either loved it or hated it reactions, I actually thought it was pretty good with open-ended game-play and a good story to boot and get me interested for the time.
Well, I know I'm going to get a lot of hate but I actually prefer 5.Before people start jumping all over me let me explain all the elements of game-play that is better than Hit-man Absolution (because there is a lot): The disguise system isn't like in 5 where every single guard seemingly has a photographic memory of every single person.
The open-ended game-play is even more open-ended here but unlike in 5 where everything is presented clearly, you have to do constant replays of the same mission to get everything right (Although when you do get everything right, the payoff is brilliant!) and the upgrading and weapons of choice is something I can EASILY see why Hit-man fans were angry at when Hit-man 5 didn't include it.The problem for me is the storyline.
Told in Flashback by another Agency of equal "Cloak and Dagger" techniques as the one 47's working for tells the reporter everything about his final assassinations leading to his, and the agency's demise.I have a big problem with how it's told, There's a subplot about how The Franchise is taking out agents until it's completely gone and I wouldn't mind it if they focused a couple of levels on doing your best to take them out too.
It's like "Here's your target 47, by the way, we're all that's left" in later levels.
The Franchise also has no weight as bad guys because aside from the final boss (which I took out in 5 seconds with an SMG) all their actions take place off screen and when the post credits stuff comes round, that's the only time they're a threat to you and that's basically by means of there's 3 dozen of them and one of you with only one weapon.But aside from that it actually is a fun game.
The open-ended nature is fantastic for exploration, the newspapers may seem like a nice touch but the problem is that after a while you'll notice that every single one of them basically says the most obvious things except for how many shots you fired and how many hit, which you can learn through the screen beforehand.
But with that nitpicking aside I challenge you to tell me the name of a video game where you assassinate people by means of placing a bomb in a box of doughnuts.So I really think the story did drag this down, but unlike Absolution the game-play really works here to being probably the best I've seen in a stealth game once you get used to it (because while I do think Absolution had a worse combat system, it is much more user-friendly).
The creative level design, AI, manipulating the environment, tools and balanced all these things together to form a great game that you can easily immerse yourself inYou are thrust upon a small sandbox to experiment with.
your mission; use your tools, knowledge and things you discover to assassinate a target.
accompanied by its own cutsceneI was standing outside a villa thinking there's a drain pipe..leading to a window but surely it's just graphic decoration and 2006 games are restrictive maybe I shouldn't even try...and omg it let me climb it!In the opera level someone is performing Tosca(i think).there's a scene where a fake gun is fired at the target.
The anticipation before taking the risk of executing the final part of the plan (that might not be in the mechanics of the game-but surprisingly is) and the thrill when it goes to plan is what makes this game unique even to other hit-man gamesAnd you don't have a silly radar- you have to physically look at who's around you.
Things go a bit dodgy when other goons start muscling in on you due to the events surrounding your hit-man's incarnation.
Sure it's violent, but it's called a hit-man, as said, some goon killing people, it's bound to be, that's why it's got an 18 certificate.
If you want carefree murderous fun, and to control an avatar with a barcode on the back of his head, then Hit-man's Agent 47 will not disappoint.
You'll see when you attack gun-wielding pigs with nothing but a shovel).Furthermore the notoriety feature is also something to care about, if you leave mayhem and a gaggle of witnesses you're going to be suspected on the next assignment, unless you bribe people, which you may not have the money for.
If you want a way around this, I suggest killing everyone if you think you've screwed the mission up, no one alive, no witnesses.
And it seemed that if I did too much of this I would find the game crash as I tried to hit someone, after which many people had been killed.
The numerous ways of completing a silent hit, and the four different difficulty levels mean you can attempt it in various modes, and in various ways.
Making the 'serious' game play rewarding, mature and something that won't become boring very quickly.
Hit-man Blood Money immerses you once again into the world of Agent 47, a sneaky assassin without morals.
You need to do anything to kill your targets and get out of the area, most of the time without being seen.
A new system introduced to the game is the notoriety system, if someone sees you murder another person, they become a witness.
The game also offers the player with different ways to kill their prey.
You are able to go ballistic on the entire mission area or just keep yourself stealthy, just as long as you kill your target.
if you take a difficulty level with the notoriety system activated, a composite sketch of 47 will be in a newspaper article at the end of each level also including a small article about the targets killed, and your mission stats.
47 and the ICA would bugger him and superiors over and over every time." But enough comparisons there, ironically in Blood Money, the ICA, the agency that employs 47 is getting taken down left and right by a mysterious organization called the Franchise, and this time around 47 will have to face other assassins.It's worth pointing out that a tie-in occurs here that connects the third mission,"Curtains Down" with the events seen in between missions and the last mission of Hit-man:Contracts,"Hunter and Hunted".
A new engine with better graphics, upgradable weapons, a notoriety system that assesses how easily you may be spotted in later missions,the ability to conceal bodies in containers or throw them over the rail into the river etc.
A splendid addition is the ability to grab people as human shields before knocking them out, thereby saving you on anesthetics.The game also plays on the mind, because as the you complete more missions, the game's menu screen changes.
Ultimately as you approach the last missions, we see that it is 47's funeral that is shown in the background.Plotwise, Blood Money has all the aspects of the earlier games.
The targets in the missions all have their own background info, so you aren't just killing some random person without knowing why someone wanted him/her dead.
The game follows a somewhat similar path to Contracts, with the missions told as flashbacks during an interview between a reporter and a scared and wheelchair bound man.
Ultimately it becomes repetitive and you can see a pattern in the manner of the reporting that can be boring later on.Another aspect that disappointed me about the Blood Money is that it mostly takes place in the US.
In Blood Money, there's only two missions that don't take place in the US.
While playing Blood Money, I felt like I was watching lots of Hollywood movies due to the varying American accents.
And it goes further here with the ability to make hits look like accidents.
Too bad even if the target gets killed in an accident, the post-mission newspaper reports still report it as a hit.All in all, a good game with some minor flaws.
This is a great game, to say the least.Shortly summarized, you play a cloned human working as a hit-man.
"Blood money" is the latest part of the Hit-man series, taking place mostly in the US, with a few missions abroad.The sneaking around part may be "easier" than, say Splinter Cell, but it offers a lot more in its own way.
Each mission offers a lot of different ways to complete them, at 4 different difficulty levels, meaning that you don't get bored with this one after a few days.
Always a lot of new things to discover.A rival Hit-man bureau is trying to take agent 47 (you) down throughout the game, and you follow the storyline from their point of view as well as they sum up your recent hits, trying to catch and kill you.
It doesn't end the way you think it does the first time you play through it; notice the mission "flatline", and you get the picture.
If you don't get it, check out a walk-through on the internet, they're readily available.The game: keeping a low profile, staying silent and unknown are the secrets to making the most money and having the most fun here.
The key is to minimize fuzz and public attention.You can kill your targets in a wide variety of ways, and the more it looks like an accident, the less witnesses, no evidence no nothing, the better your ranking, the better your pay.
Having the ability to upgrade your weapons allows you to carry out missions quicker, cleaner and more effective.This game got a rating of 18 years and above in Norway, something like and R in the US.
Make no mistake, if you play it that way, this game can be extremely violent, very graphic, and definitely NOT intended for kids.
Lots of well created details, monologues, great choices of personnel by Eidos for the voice over.So if you fantasize about being a hit-man, aren't bugged by blood and gore, and are above 18 years of age, I highly recommend it !