Hitman: Hitting Men

Ballsed up Sean Bean. Got impatient. Entirely my own stupid fault too. Damn it.

Two days later and I’m still annoyed.

With the whole “Undying” thing they’ve set up, every Elusive target this season is going to be Sean Bean… right?

Maybe not all, but I'd love to see him pop up again.

Spoiler - click to showThere is quite a bit of dialogue from him in Miami, though, to suggest that the previous "kills" were set up by him, and this one is genuine; he discusses on the phone to some partner about having a stand-in corpse ready or something, as he's planning another spectacular assassination of his own; he even talks about having "sent an invitation to the ICA", and how this time, "maybe they'll send him… if he even exists. I hope he does. I'd quite like to meet him." So he's aware of 47 by reputation, if not appearance. I think I might have Share-buttoned it, I'll see if I can post it later.

How often do the Elusive targets appear? Do they roll straight into the next one or is there a gap?

They weren't entirely consistent with the timing in season 1, but I don't think they ever ran back to back. I'd expect one every couple of months, maybe?

I finally started this Saturday night, mainly just to check out the menus and download the Legacy stuff (which I didn't realise you have to grab through Hitman, not Hitman 2, if you want to not pay for it).

Spoiler - click to showI explored the beach house and basically poisoned/tainted every glass and food stuff I found, not realising how things were going to play out. The bad guys came back, the bloke immediately had a sip of vodka and dropped to the floor, the lady ran upstairs to the panic room and, in the panic, I shot her in the face. Then I managed to escape the house down the back stairs, only to be caught escaping across the beach because, 100yds from the extraction point, there was a jeep I didn't spot behind a dune and the guys there gunned me down. Balls.

I think I need to be more patient and observant. Especially if I want that trophy for using the pillow.

The pillow one is actually fairly straightforward, it just takes a lot of patience.

Yeah my first attempt at every level is usually a hilarious comedy of errors, shooting people in the face then pegging it for the exit is often all I can hope for. It takes several plays to really work out some of the more involved strategies (and all the other levels are vastly bigger than Hawke's Bay). Note that holding down R1 for Instinct mode highlights items and enemies (even through walls) which helps greatly in terms of planning out a route.

One thing I've noticed is that the Mission Stories are greatly simplified on the Hitman 2 levels. In the Legacy Pack you have to follow the whole story through, following the clues and completing every step. In the new levels you can basically just fulfil the main requirement, for instance on Miami:

Spoiler - click to showYou can do the pyrotechnics one simply by playing around with the pressure valve, you don't even need to engineer the assassination. That can be done in about 20 seconds if you use the Podium starting location.

Also on the subject of Miami:

Spoiler - click to showGot the Silent Assassin route locked down now, I reckon a pyrotechnics assassination for Sierra and a Florida Man poisoning for Robert will get me two clean accident kills and let me get away scot free. I haven't got even the beginnings of a strategy for Suit Only, though, you can't go anywhere on this level in your civvies.

Robert's pretty easy to Suit Only, if you can get the route; I had an idea for Sierra last night before bed, but I've forgotten it now.

The podium is probably sneak-able, though…

I remembered my idea.

It worked!

Spoiler - click to showSnuck all the way back to the medical area, and managed to poison Sierra's IV, and turn on the tap to get the other guy to pee before the guy I distracted came back from investigating the baseball bat I tossed. Target down. Got back to the public areas, and basically replicated the thing from that video Mart posted.

Silent Assassin, Suit Only down; maybe it's finally time to have a look at Columbia.

I've got an alternative approach for Sierra:

Spoiler - click to showSet up the blackmail meeting by giving the mascot his car keys back, then sneak round the back of the hotel via the race marshal overpass and hide in the bin in the alleyway. She sends her guards away and is an easy target - with the sewer exit right there too for a hasty getaway.

Robert, though, no idea.

Spoiler - click to showI did Suit Only by planting a micro-explosive and sabotaging his race car, but it wasn't exactly Silent.

Spoiler - click to showDoesn't the mascot see that approach for Sierra? I've only ever done that meeting as the mascot.

No:

Spoiler - click to showIf you let things play out, she pushes the mascot down the maintenance shaft, and saunters out on her own, unguarded.

Oh, okay. I guess kills by people other than you don't count.

A brief foray into Colombia, and… bloody hell, I thought Miami was big.

There's a lot less verticality in it (or the bits I've been in, at least), but it sprawls for miles, with a village, jungle, and a mansion that looks bigger than Sapienza's.

I've laid eyes on one of the targets so far, and found a couple of disguises and possible approaches, but… this is going to take a while.

Got SASO on Miami! Inordinately pleased with myself.

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The last game's holiday event was killing the thieves from Home Alone in Paris. Interested to see what they come up with this year.

Jingle All The Way. Has to be. Especially given the explosive robot thing. :)

This game kind of bleeds into your subconscious in a very disturbing way. I spent my walk into work this morning noticing small staircases and CCTV cameras I’d never seen before. Then there was a moment when I came down in the lift and there was a single security guard, with his back to me, right next to an open atrium and just for a second…

I know what you mean, I had to stop playing Burnout when I started driving actual cars.

They're not games, they're training software.

I haven't noticed it with Hitman, but I used to get the security camera thing when I first played GoldenEye.

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW YOU BASTARDS

1v1 me, scrub.

Adventures in Sapienza:

Spoiler - click to showManaged to complete it first time through with the most ungraceful Hitman attempt ever, gunning down absolutely everybody after being caught sneaking around the top floor of the mansion in a completely inappropriate disguise. Gave me a good idea of the layout though and I've done several of the mission stories now, including the golf coach, the private investigator and the church. Great level.

I'm a bit stumped by the Hostile Environment story though - it's surely to destroy the DNA sample, which I've done without having my cover blown, but as with my Paris issue I'm not sure where the story actually starts so it's not registering. I definitely prefer the Hitman 2 way of approaching these stories.

(It's also a bit disappointing that there's really only one way to approach the DNA sample objective, which means each attempt at the level basically ends in the exact same way - unless I'm missing something fundamental. It's a bit out of step with the rest of the game, I think).

There are a few approaches to the virus.

Spoiler - click to showThere's the laptop on the lab opposite, which you can use once you get the dongle from the woman at the morgue; you can walk in in a hazmat suit (or without, if you turn the vents on) and just fuck with the controls; you can shoot a stalactite on the roof, causing it to fall through the lab; or you can even just shoot the container through the window, if your aim is good enough.

They all do require you to get into the lab in person, though, so it's fairly restrictive in any case.

Ah, OK. More ways than I’d assumed then. And there are a couple of ways into the lab too. Not as restrictive as I’d initially believed.

My favourite route into the lab is Spoiler - click to showbehind a weak wall in the alleys by the marina; you can open it up with any explosive (though if you can unlock the breaching charge, it's nice and quiet).

Ah, I found that one from the other direction - didn't have any explosives with me and didn't know where it came out.

Spoiler - click to showI usually take the seaside cliff entrance, though the one through the garage is pretty straightforward too.

There's one from Spoiler - click to showthe observatory building, too.

Santa Fortuna complete, round 1 of… lots. I think I'd have Silent Assassin'd it, but I fucked up on one of the targets, so I don't think it counted as an accident kill, and then someone stumbled on his corpse.

Oh, well; round 2, here we go.

This is under £20 on Amazon already.

Ouch.

EDIT: Mind you, it's such a niche game; doing the big, grand AAA tentpole launch was probably always destined to disappoint.

Looked it up out of curiosity, and on PS4, only 23.9% of people who've played Hitman 2 have finished the first mission (Hawke's Bay). It's a similar result (23.7%) on Steam.

Even if it did sell like gangbusters, I think a lot of people would just bounce off it when they discovered it wasn't an action game.

Don’t forget those figures would include everyone who downloaded the demo but didn’t buy the game, as the demo awards trophies.

Oh, okay, yeah.

It's pretty hard to get a decent sense of how people are engaging with it from the outside, I guess; only 11% competed freeform training, but a lot of folks who played Hitman 1 would probably have skipped that straight to the new stuff (I did not). Though, weirdly, 3 times as many (36%) completed the final test.

So who knows?

Started playing the first game on Game Pass and, on the training level, I got a rare achievement for killing someone three different ways. I think it was explosion, garroting and gunfire. But that was an achievement for the whole game. And only 7-point-something percent of players had unlocked it.

The game is brilliant, incidentally. And I've still only done those two training missions. I wish I'd gotten on board at the time, when it was being released slowly. Replaying one level hammers home how much of a puzzle game this is. On the training level (cruise ship, two guys having a meeting) I poisoned the target's drink on a first run, then blew him up, then when I realised you could dress up as the guy he was meeting with I let out a genuine belly laugh.

Yeah, I’m deliberately going for full mastery on each level before moving to the next, it’s so obviously the way it was meant to be played. 18/20 on Sapienza now, just need to work on those Suit Only runs.

I've been going back to the Hitman 1 levels in between runs on the new stuff.

I've done SASO on Paris and Sapienza (first run!), and I've got full mastery on Marrakesh but no SASO as yet. I really want the silenced pistol from Bangkok back, though, it's great.

Hitman 2, I've managed SASO on Miami, but still figuring out Santa Fortuna.

This is under £20 on Amazon already.

The week after I buy it, of course. F–k sake.

Whatever you paid for it, it's worth.

Unless you bought the stupid £100 ultimate edition with the rubber duck.

Also: 1v1 me, scrubs.

I'm nowhere near being ready to do this competitively. I spent all of yesterday lunchtime just wandering around Paris, following the targets to figure out routes, discovering areas and equipment, and testing which outfits get me into which sections of the level. I managed to take the targets out on one attempt, but with about a third of the point score of you and Gar on the leaderboards (and zero stars).

The idea that there are, what, five other levels of this stuff before I even make it to the second game is honestly mindboggling.

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This would be like Face/Off. Who is who? Is Ninchilla aniki? Is aniki Ninchilla?

We can stream it, see if you can work it out. :P

Spoiler - click to showI'll be the one in the lead.

If you're in the lead it could be one of two outcomes.

How does this even work in multiplayer? It’s the most resolutely single-player experience I’ve ever seen.

It's fundamentally a race; a target is assigned on the map, and once someone kills them, the other player has 20 seconds to do the same. Unnoticed kills give a point, and first to 5 wins.

You can see each other, but can't interact, and what one player does won't affect the other's instance.