Hitman: Codename 47

Rating:
Summary: A great, original game that delivers!
Review: Despite mixed reviews, i was intent on picking this title up. And i was very pleased with it.

The concept is exactly that: You are the Hitman. Your Codename is 47. You start by escaping a mental institution. How did you get there? Who is helping you get out? Questions that are answered later as you make your way out. Afterwards, the fun begins!

Know this before you play: This is a thinking man's game. It requires intelligent thought and rational planning. Don't go running in with your guns blazing. You will need to use covert tactics.

There are many different weapons to pick up, and you can change into the uniforms and clothing of most of the people you 'take-out'. Many times, the success of the mission will depend on dressing up as a member of an organization or a bodyguard to get as close as possible to your target. And remember, there is ALWAYS more than one way to success.

Many complain of the complexity of missions and having to know everything by playing the level several times. That simply is not true. It is very easy to beat the level on your first time through. You just have to be able to use your brain. Its as simple as following instincts. You are given enough information in your pre-mission briefing, and the map is clearly marked for you on where you are supposed to go. After that, you go and wait for your opportunity. There is always more than one way to complete a mission, which adds to the gameplay. Complaints about the game moving slow are nothing more but impatience. You MUST be patient in this game. If you are not in the mood to think and act, then you will NOT enjoy it.

Missions definitely do get more complex later on, but again, their is always information available to help you through, and once you get the feel for being the Hitman, it is easy enough. As far as story goes, there really isnt much. Your first few missions are pretty straightforward: You are Hitman. Go and Kill. But soon Hitman starts having flashbacks in between missions that evolve the story. Overall, the concept is very good, and the last mission finally brings sense to the story. However, as with most games these days, the ending leaves alot to be desired. Lets hope for a sequel, because this game was alot of fun.

There are quite a few problems i discovered. Namely, the 3rd person angle gets quirky. The camera has a habit of going in all directions at times, making control very difficult. Sometimes you will end up getting stuck on objects in the level, requiring either mass button mashing to get yourself out, or a restart of the level. There is no mid-level save, which is very annoying, because if you die, you can continue only twice, and once you continue, the target will most likely be aware of your presence, making the rest of the mission difficult. However, if you are very skilled, you won't die too often. There are also many graphical problems unless you are using a Voodoo 4 or higher. Anything less, you will experience many graphical problems. I recommend going with a GeForce 2, or possibly a GeForce 3. Although the game seems to be optimized for Voodoo graphics cards, the company went out of business, so now Nvidia would be the optimal choice with their GeForce chipsets.

All in all, a great game with a great concept. If you are buying a new computer and are looking for a few games to start out with, i strongly recommend picking up Hitman. IF you are patient and willing to put your mind into a game, rather than run in with guns blazing, then this is the game for you!

Rating:
Summary: Hitman CodeName 47
Review: Hitman Codename 47 is a third person action game with groundbreaking graphics and well desinged missions. Hitman supports Direct3D, OpenGL, 3dFx/Glide, I have played it on both D3D and OGL and they look really cool with no problems. The gameplay is orginal and it has a orginal story. You play Tobais Fleeper, He is assinged missions to kill gangsters. Who is he ?, Where did he come from ?, Play hitman and find out. HC47 has a very intresting gameplay, All the 12 missions are very well desinged with loads of admosphere. The game has high replay value, I played almost all the levels 5 times and i am still not bored, There is never a dull moment. The graphics are fantastic the guys at IO interactive have done a fantastic job. The sparks when bullets fly through with smoke comming out of the guns, The graphics depth and detail of the rain forest mission "Find the Uwa Tribe" is simply outstanding, Same goes to the atmosphere in the hotel mission "Traditions of the Trade". Hitman has the best graphics engine ever. Hitman's physics is also superb they must be seen to be belived. The sound is also superb and the music is just right for a game like this. The charecters are well animate and look real and the voice acting is great. Hitman does not have a save game option but that was not a problem to me, Besides the mission "Plutonium runs loose" in which you need to complete the mission in a short period of time, It was almost impossible. Every other mission can be completed without saving, In this game you are not a terrorist, You are a hitman if you plan your moves carefully you will succeed in the game.

Hitman could be a ground breaking game if it wasn't for all it's problems. The third person view is a bad choice for a game like this as the hitman's head and back block half of your view and it is not nice to see the bald head all the time. I dont know why people make action games in the third person view, Of all TPS games i have played only Heretic II and Tomb Raider were good and and a nice choice for the 3rd person view. HC47's keys are a big problem too, You need to both the keyboard and mouse to play the game. There are no hot keys for weapons or the inventory, The weapons and everything you pick up are kept on the inventory and to pick up a weapon you need to click on the inventory button, Use the scroll wheel and point to the weapon and press the action button to pick up. And besides this for just opening a door you need to right click on it and a small window would appear you need to use the scroll wheel to point on the "open door" option and click the action button to open it. When you kill someone you cannot carry the body like Thief, You need to drag the body that is very difficul as you have to bend and walk backwards and you cannot see clearly. The AI is not that very good, When you are dressup in hitman's clothes everybody gives you a suspesious look, When you have a weapon in your hand they are alert, That's good. But when you have a fiber wire in your hand people far away would scream that's unbelivable. Hitman's biggest problem is that there are lot of in game cutsences, And all in the wrong place, It causes a problem in the mission "Say Hello", You are to kill pablo, When i shot him there was a useless cutsence, He said he is stronger, by the time i managed to get my controls and aim he shot me twice, Is shot him again and another useless cutsence, For every shot a cutsences. Haven't the guy's at IO interactive played action games before. Cutsences takes the control away from the player and by the time you get the controls you will be killed. What idiot would have cutsence in a middle of a firefight. It is really sad that it has all these problems, It could have been a very enjoyable game if it is in the first perso view, with no in game cutsence and a better controls. Still hitman is a great game and i would recommend it, It is really worth a look. Finally after the credit titles it is written "Dont call us we are on vacation", What's that suppose to mean.

Rating:
Summary: Reviewed by a Playstation Fanatic
Review: The Hitman (code name 47) was cloned by a scientist for the purpose of assassinating worldwide terrorists, gunrunners, and drug lords. Mr. 47 works under cover of a mysterious agency that assigns him on missions around the world to takeout the most wanted criminals, and is rewarded with large sums of money per hit that can exceed thirty thousand dollars. But this is no takeoff of any James Bond movie. 47 is much too inhuman to thrill-ride all the ladies, and was designed to feel no emotion, or desire in an underground laboratory.

Now some details on game play itself. Expenses at times are taken out of your income if you accidentally-or purposely-kill unnecessary targets such as police officers or civilians that often stand in your way (can't buy all the best guns if you blow all your money on just killing people, which includes sniper rifles, and an assortment of automatics, some of which come with silencer attachments to further improve your performance as a professional killer). The game encourages you to find alternate ways that are not always so obvious to make your hit. Encouraging stealth and perfection. Hence, the game's primary challenge. Besides, if you just open fire on anything that moves in this game (like what we see with too many other games) you'll maybe live 10 or 15 seconds after the first shot. Stealth is the key. Every mission can be beaten without you ever getting shot, or spotted (I know people don't believe that, but believe it or not I can make those Columbian levels look as easy as the very first mission). Ways to avoid detection include hiding the bodies of the people you kill, dressing as the enemy (gangs and terrorist groups alike often have certain dress-code and you can take the clothes of any person you kill in this game) poisoning, waiting for certain patrolmen guarding your main target to separate and taking them out one by one with a silenced pistol. And many other ways, depending on the situation.

The AI of all moving people in this game is superb. You can literally hide behind any given object (dresser, tree, bookshelf) after you have been discovered, and the enemies won't know where you are until they see you, even when they are in the same room. In most games they just come right to you. If their backs are turned you can sneak up on them to either slit their throat or strangulate them, which I've seen in a few other games, but not to this astounding degree. If you sniper someone from afar, people will gather around the body (which could be helpful if the congregated group of people are all people you prefer dead). Your un-silenced weapons will be heard if fired and frighten civilians or alert the enemy. People turn their heads to look at you if you walk by. If one yelps too loud in the instant it takes you to pull out your gun and shoot him, others will come. The thing is, they REACT! They are not just mindless, close-knitted colored pixels on the screen. They react to sound, to your presence, and to the things you do. In fact, the AI is too good. There have been incidents where I was following someone too close and the draw of my weapon was actually HEARD, causing the person I pursued to turn around, to see the gun in my hand, and to draw a weapon of his own in the second it took me to shoot him smack-dead in the face.

Close one. Amazing how many miles per hour your heart can accelerate in a matter of seconds...

This game can be sick, challenging, exciting, and most of all, engrossing. You can just kiss all the hours of a whole weekend away playing this beautiful game. The only drawback is that there is no in-game save. It saves automatically after you complete each mission. Hitman 2 is just as good, if not better (some of the quirks in the AI in Hitman 1 was corrected in Hitman 2, the graphics are ten times better and there is in-game save in Silent Assassin). Hitman 3 is out this Spring. Don't neglect this series. Buy it now. Hitman 1 is available for PC only. I would have never played it if it were not for playing Hitman 2 on playstation, the best game console ever.

Rating:
Summary: Oh well, the thought was nice
Review: i'm going to guess these people make console games or wish they did

This game is 3rd person, a *really* bad choice for this game. The camera is often stuck behind things

This game is hard. That's OK, but you can't save a game, and you *will* die thanks to some surprises, so expect to get bored playing the same thing over and over

There are only 11 maps i think, and most are _very_ small. The game is short, although they stretch out the game play by preventing you from saving the game

It's a minor complaint, but why don't any of these Asian gangsters recognize a tall, white, albino, bald guy with a UPC code on his head? Is his disguise of a shirt and pants really that good?

There are numerous bugs. Or maybe they aren't bugs, just bad design choices. For example, you can't walk through a guarded gate unless you first touch someone who has walked through it - bizare

This could have been a really good game, but it isn't.

Rating:
Summary: A beakthrough game, but not perfect...
Review: Hitman is basically a very well designed game, that has a few unfortunate flaws. Chief among them being, lack of savegame feature. Although I feel this makes the game seem more realistic, it also makes for a much more difficult time. This game is truely great, there are easily hundreds of ways to complete it. And Despite what others may say, Hitman has great replay value, as you find yourself returning to the missions trying to find an easier way, or get more money. As for the claim that you need a really powerful machine to run this game, that is not true. Trust me, I have a celeron, with a 32mb graphics card, and the game runs superbly. If you allow the small flaws to cloud your judgement, you fail to see how cool a game this really is. As far as I'm conserned, the thing I liked least about this game, is the title (Codename 47, c'mon...)

Rating:
Summary: Is it really worth your money? read on!
Review: I got this game cause my cousin gave it to me. The concept sounded awesome - like you're this hitman going around doing missions and killing people. To be honest, I have not finished the game. The action is very slow paced. You have to plan things out. There's no way you can finish a map the first try cause you have to know the pattern. For example, when the limo driver makes his routine routes, or when the bad guys go inside the shops, or when the bystanders are not looking, etc.... At first it starts out really fun - like everyone has mentioned. But as I progressed in the game, the missions got a lot bigger, harder, and more complex. Even the maps get more bigger and it's so big that it takes forever to get around. sometimes you have to do 6 sub-missions on one map, which can suck because if you screw up on the 4th sub-mission, for example, then you gotta start all over again. basically it's a lot of trial and error. I'm more into fast paced games like Half life and counter-strike and Unreal tournament and Delta Force so this wasn't my type of game. I basically got bored of this game and it does get frustrating. Maybe it'll be better with a cheat or whatever. But I'm going back to playing counter-strike and Unreal Tournament. It's time to pass this game to my other cousin.

Rating:
Summary: About time someone perfects the 'Stealth FPS' genre!
Review: I see a lot of people complaining about 'slow-paced action' and 'increasingly difficult' missions -- well, that's a prime indicator that they did an *excellent* job! True, this game isn't for those who frequently cut their teeth on the blast-em-up FPSs a la Unreal Tournament. This is a game of patience, and a game of skill. Luckily, unlike real people in this 'profession', you have the ability to restart! That's the only thing that sets this thing apart from reality. I clock a good three hours daily with Hitman 47. The gameplay is very fluid and easy to pick up -- no holding an insane amount of key combinations to perform basic tasks (*cough* Metal Gear Solid *cough*). The artifical intelligence is amazingly realistic - I have never seen so 'human' reactions from AI. The NPCs stare at you as you walk, and you wonder if they know something...If you pull out a gun in front of them, they will run and hide, and not dance around stupidly like in most games. If they see a police officer walk by, they will run up to them and tell them what they saw. No game I have seen has this level of realism.

If you've ever wanted to be "The Professional", you'll love Hitman. Eventually you start getting 'hitman-smart', and realizing "oh, wait, I shouldn't do that because .....". While a lot of the game is stealth observation and cunning action, you also get your fill of fierce firefights and daring escapes using some of the coolest tactical weapons on the planet (sorry, no missile launchers here folks, this game takes place in a little place called 'reality')

The cold-blooded trigger happy will enjoy the fact that you are not limited to 'being nice' in this game. You are more than able to pull out a gun and blast every civilian who walks by -- although I wouldn't reccommend it! Someone's bound to catch up with you, not to mention 'The Boss' doesn't like you leaving a mess. Little things added to the game like the concept of switching clothes and stashing bodies are what make it so entertaining to replay. It makes you look before you leap, so to speak. If you very effectively take out an armed guard...no what? You're standing in a hostile building with a dead guard at your feet, and more are bound to be patrolling -- bet you wish you would've thought this through first, huh? Quickly you drag the downed guard into an empty store room nearby. Then you switch uniforms with him, and leave silently. You can now walk amongst them safely =) Just as an example.

I think what really intruiges me is you aren't spend hour after hour trying to find that ONE way to succeed -- you can accomplish each mission in a variety of ways - catered to the 'style' of the hitman. Quiet kill, or gung-ho blastfest? Your call =)

Rating:
Summary: H:C47 Is A Hit!!!
Review: Ever wondered how it is like to be a hitman, especially genetically programmed and optimized to kill? It is a one-of-a-kind experience for PC. This game is unlike others, but if you like the concept of stealth, deception, and undercover, you'd love this game.

It is tough to be an assassin like the character you play as in this title, that is why the gameplay is difficult and frustrating, that is why I would recommend to buy the strategy guide and stay focused on the mission, because there is a minimum of shooting in most of the levels, maximum of THINKING and paying attention on all the clues, as well as learning your environment, enemies and other obstacles. If you follow those basic guidlines you will more than enjoy playing hitman, it will quickly become one of your favorites.
Pros: brilliant graphics, variety of levels and level types, wide variety of equipment, enemies, and objectives; nice storyline, lots of realism, and interactivity.

Cons: some bugs in big missions, one of the levels is screwy and is just plain sick, minigun is not so got in hands of a hitman (because he becomes any easy target as he can only walk with it), visibility sucks in jungle missions, very complicated for some gamers

Conclusion: Hitman is a unique game, with numerous but minor flaws. It is a masterpiece with its own special style, vast environments, and some humor. A game that showcases the life of a hitman and does it realistically.
This is not the end of hitman...

Rating:
Summary: Really enjoyed this game
Review: Hitman Codename 47 is a very complex game. If you are looking for a game you can fly through, this is probably not for you. If you like a mental challenge, I promise you won't be let down. The graphics are outstanding! The plants sway when you walk by them. The people glare at you when you walk by and their movements are very realistic. The use of the keyboard and mouse together is a little tricky, but I had it down in no time. You can slow down the speed of your mouse pointer in the options. I had to do that because I would move the mouse too far and get off target. Some of the levels have several objectives and there is no in game save feature. It can be very frustrating to redo a level over and over, but I found great satisfaction in finally completing it. I thought this game would be too hard for me to play and I almost quit trying, but now I am almost finished and I have truly amazed myself. I'm not going to go into all the specifics of the game. The other reviews have said it all already. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this game. Just make sure you have a high level of patience because the answers will not come to you right away.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible beginning to a great series
Review: Especially if you have already played Hitman 2, or Hitman: Contracts, do not buy this game. Perhaps it would have been fun, or less frustrating, had I -not- played the other two awesome games. This game is riddled with bugs, flaws, and just stupid design decisions.

The first is that it does not work on a great many newer computers. Fortunately, it works on mine, but I have tried lending it to two different people. Neither one could use it, and the Eidos Support page is very helpful, essentially saying it's Microsoft's fault, and they have no intentions of releasing a fix to make Hitman more compatible with newer systems.

The map is useless, showing only you and your exit point. It is even more frustrating than that, but there aren't enough words to describe everything, so I'll move on.

You cannot save; you must complete the entire mission before it will autosave for you.

You cannot check during the game to see if objectives have been completed; if you're unsure, for example, if you've properly hidden a body, or placed something at the scene of the crime, or maybe if you went on a rampage and aren't sure if you hit your target or not, you need to go all the way back to your Exit point to see if the objectives are marked as complete or not.

Many of the buttons and commands require you to be in a very specific location to access them. You can be looking directly at a button, moving the cursor around in front of it, but it may be that you need to be standing a few feet away, facing in the opposite direction to use it. Time-wasting trial and error is wonderful, especially when you can't save the game.

Finally, the AI is just great. I loved pulling a silenced gun a ways behind a civilian, sending him immediately running, as he obviously heard me pulling the gun from my coat. The old man then soaked three shots to the body. So these civilians are psychic -and- sporting body armor!

In conclusion, Hitman 2 was amazing fun. I opted for the Silent Assassin style myself. Hitman: Contracts was not as good as Hitman 2, but still great. The original, Hitman: Codename 47 shows me that the design team was lazy, the support team ineffective, and the game ended up being more frustration than it's worth to play. Buy one of the other games, and play it twice. Skip this one.