Originally published November 2016

Welcome back to my series of initial impressions on the various Hitman games I've never played, namely, all of them. Previously, I discussed the humble beginnings of the franchise, Hitman: Codename 47. Then, I moved on to its direct, or maybe not so direct sequel, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Today, I'll be looking at what I found to be the most perplexing game in the series, Hitman: Contracts.

Disclaimer: Rather than playing through to completion (because I just can't do it), I've played a few missions in each of these games to give myself enough of an overall impression. If the games suddenly get better at the end, I don't know. What I do know is how long I was willing to tolerate the archaic game design before giving up.

Hitman: Contracts

Hitman: Contracts is both better and worse than Hitman 2. It's better because the maps are far bigger, more complicated, and more densely populated, allowing for more paths to and from your destination. The methods of eliminating your targets are far more complicated and creative than before, relying on you to use multiple disguises and techniques to complete a mission. However, despite all of the added layers of complexity, the somewhat restrictive and limited nature of the game's engine also creates a false sense of freedom in choice.

What I mean is that in each mission I played, I got the sense that there were multiple methods of killing your target indiscreetly and there was only one "real" way to finish the mission correctly. This one way required a significant amount of trial and error to figure out. Part of the strength of Hitman 2's simplicity is that trial and error was more acceptable. It didn't take as long to figure out where the weapons were, where the interactable objects were, and how to get to the target without being seen. With such bare-bone maps, the developers couldn't hide things that well.

Hitman: Contracts, on the other hand, is too complicated for its own good. The maps are much bigger and there's more variety to the gameplay, but you still need to go through a lot of trial-and-error failure runs before you can figure out the "right" way to kill your target. Scouting is often recommended in these games, but since very little information is available to you, what they mean by "scouting" is to fail over and over again until you figure it out. By the time I was done scouting the levels enough to figure out the method of murder, it wasn't satisfying when I finished the job.

I'll give some examples. The first real mission had me attend a gothic drug party where I needed to rescue a girl, kill a fat mob boss, and kill some drug-addicted scumbag. After a number of failures, I finally figured out what to do. First, I had to dress like a meat packer and lose my guns before I got to the bouncer at the door so I wouldn't get immediately found out when he frisked me. Once inside, I needed to find a knife in the kitchen, and then hide the knife in a turkey. I then had to take the turkey up to the fat mob boss and remove the knife after passing his bodyguards, but before handing over the food. While Jabba ate the turkey with a comical effect, I'd lock off his room and stab him. From there I had to go back downstairs to the party, knock out a drug server, steal his outfit, and pretend to give the other target some heroin while I injected him with something more lethal. Finally, I had to locate the girl (what was left of her) and bring her down to the extraction point.

This scenario, "simple" as it is, took a number of tries. One reason it took so many attempts was that the game didn't inform me ahead of time about bouncers frisking me or the fact that if I had any weapon on me other than the garrote wire, I was instantly an enemy of the state. You don't get a chance to turn around and walk away once it starts, either. If you get too close to them with guns in your pockets, your chances of completing the mission without much suspicion are immediately gone. The game doesn't teach you much in the "tutorial" level about hiding weapons discretely either. Perhaps I should have been grateful for another Dark Souls-like experience where the game respects me enough to not hold my hand... but then I played the next mission.

In the next level, 47 starts off in the back of a cargo plane in the frozen wasteland of a military base. Eventually, I learned that I immediately needed to obtain a disguise so I could go into a building where one target was, grab a hot poker from the fire, and place it in the bathroom. Then, I had to poison the target's soup so he had to run to the bathroom. While he was relieving himself, I'd introduce him to the hot poker (not a euphemism) and take his outfit so I could go on to meet the next target in his private chambers. After killing the next target, I needed to blow up a military sub by getting explosive charges from its radioactive center and placing it on the side of the sub before finally escaping on the plane. How did I figure this all out? Trial and error x 20 until I just looked it up.

None of the locations, disguises, or strategies are given to you. It's just your job to f*ck around and figure it out. This is fine in the later games when it gives you a better idea that you're doing something right, but in Contracts, it's not very clear. Just finding a disguise to get into the mess hall with the first target of the second stage felt like I was doing something wrong. In one failed attempt, I ended up killing a guard, taking his uniform, and wandering the entire map for an hour looking for "methods" of completing the mission before I finally gave up and looked at what I was supposed to do because just systematically murdering the guards wasn't working. The map was huge too. It had multiple sections to it that required the right disguise to pass peacefully. There was also the submarine I had to get inside to blow up. It was radioactive and required a hazmat suit to enter, but I never found it, even after looking at maps online. It may have glitched out, I don't know. I just ran into the area and did what I needed to before I died from radiation poisoning.

In these examples I mentioned, the game told me very little about how to achieve these goals and it was all too easy for the enemy AI to discover my identity, even with a disguise. It took hours and lots of failures to figure out the maps, find the disguises I needed, and learn the sequence of events necessary to complete my goal. The series doesn't have to give you a strategy guide to work well, but having some idea of what tools are available, or some hint of where to go would have been nice. In fact, if the game had just felt better to control, it would have at least improved things enough not to be so frustrating as I wandered around aimlessly looking for the right methods. Obviously, I could still run and gun my way through everything, but that's not the reason to play the Hitman games. Besides, if you kill too many people in an obvious way, you pretty much fail the mission anyway.

Hitman: Contracts gives you the illusion of choice in your methods of completing your goal when there is actually very little choice or room for error. Enemies see through your disguises too easily. The methods of figuring out what options work best to give you the opportunity to eliminate your target are far too obtuse to be much fun. Stay away unless you're really curious.

Do you agree or disagree? Is the Hitman series a special favorite for you? Tell me what you think in the comments here or on Facebook.

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