The graphics in Blood Money are excellent. Obviously, the Xbox 360 really shines, but the PS2 version is only lacking in a few areas - screen and texture resolution, optical effects such as diffraction and draw distance. The sizes of the crowds in the Mardi Gras level are really impressive, literally hundreds of people crowd the screen, even on the PS2, each one going about their own business, avoiding each other and Agent 47 as they do so. The sound is usually functional, music reflects the mood of the situation and sound effects represent the environment accurately, but sometimes it is inspired, with character conversations revealing some of the back story to the level or giving hints to the overall story that underlies the game.
Hitman: Blood Money is a game with two sides; one good, one bad. There is the intellectual challenge of getting into places you aren't meant to be in, performing a task and getting out again undetected.
This is highly rewarding and loads of fun. Unfortunately, there is also the side where an hour or more of undetected watching, planning, sneaking and killing is ruined when an alerted guard starts shooting at you for no reason you can discern. This side of the game is frustrating in the extreme. The issue is especially irritating on the higher difficulty levels where your notoriety really starts to affect how you are able to play the game - one slip and you may not be able to clean up after yourself making the next level difficult or impossible to complete without more frustration and increasing notoriety.
The controls can also be frustrating. On the Xbox 360 it is sometimes quite difficult to garrote someone with the razor wire, Agent 47 can just stand up straight instead of killing the target, this problem is almost non-existent on the PS2. However, the PS2 version does suffer from imprecise analogue controls that can easily cause you to run at an inopportune moment, drawing attention to yourself and scuppering your Silent Assassin rating, again causing notoriety issues.
When each level can take hours to perform silently, once you factor in reconnaissance and planning, having it all blown due to dodgy controls can be especially galling, even more so than seemingly random AI suspicion.
With all that said, Blood Money is obviously the best of the Hitman series and shows a great understanding of what its core audience wants from their adventures with Agent 47.
IO Interactive have increased the possibilities for play in a game system that was already more open-ended than almost any other action game out there. With all the options available to the player, this game is more like a three dimensional game of chess with intelligent pieces. You can play the game as if it is a third-person version of Doom, but you will find more rewards and satisfaction from sitting back, analysing and planning, and only then performing the bare minimum of actions that will guarantee a successful mission.
SPOnG Score: B-
Hitman: Blood Money has so much to recommend it that you can almost overlook the small, but annoying, flaws that can leave a player frustrated and angry. Ultimately, the series appeals strongly to a certain set of gamers and these people will love this incarnation, others may find Hitman a difficult game to love.
