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The fact that we even get another Hitman game is a kind of miracle. After the developer IO Interactive was dissociated by the Japanese publisher Square-Enix in 2017, it was hard to know who would retain the development rights of the Hitman games and they would continue to do so. But in a remarkable show of goodwill and good faith towards IO and franchise fans, Square-Enix gave IO the IP Hitman to do what he could.
Surprisingly, IO found a new publisher in Warner Bros. "Games, and a little more than a year later, despite the difficulties," Hitman 2 "has arrived, and in the absence of some unfortunate compromises that have made the edition Hitman's 2016 an equally uneven course Game.
"Hitman 2" is considered a sequel, but more than any previous game in the franchise, it explicitly pursues the story that ended on a cliffhanger in "Hitman 2016". The super bald assassin, Agent 47, continues to sniff out the identity of a secret society seeking to destabilize the world to its financial advantage while learning more secrets than it had anticipated during the process. However, unlike "Hitman 2016", "Hitman 2" is a complete package from the start.
The opening of "Hitman 2" almost bluffs one with technical improvements over the last match. The improvements made to the lighting and details of the characters, as well as the world around 47, are impossible to miss, especially when playing 4K on Xbox One X (although it comes with a hitch: at different moments of the pre-version of the game, the framerate in the higher resolution mode has often plunged into unacceptable levels, which has forced the shift to the priority mode of the number of frames per second, which has allowed a much softer experience).
The looks are nice, but the whole "Hitman 2" feels better assembled from top to bottom. The slow menus and ridiculous load times of "Hitman 2016" have generally disappeared, and the bugs that tormented him do not seem to be here. "Hitman 2" also highlights the already significant improvements to the "Hitman 2016" series in terms of controls and interaction with the world. More than ever, what a human being, in a real world, has imagined as a potential solution to the problems facing him is usually achievable in the world of "Hitman 2".
Players do not need to take coins with them to missions – if you want to distract an enemy, there is always something to pick up and throw to get attention. The physical crossing also appears to have slightly less friction and / or delays than its immediate predecessor, which facilitates movement, aiming and shooting. More clearly, it seems that the game is easier than ever.
There are more discreet additions. IO Interactive has reduced the possibility of bringing a briefcase to different levels, assuming you select it in your loadings, thus allowing 47 to import larger tools like a sniper rifle or another weapon from the shoulder, if guns were your best choice. The novelty of the series is, strangely, something that seems to come directly from the latest games of Assassin's Creed: the possibility of hiding in tall grasses and crouching bushes and to hide automatically to the sight while walking to the crowd.
This is a valuable addition largely because there are many people in the "Hitman 2" levels, in general. There seems to be more people than any previous field in a Hitman game – including the Mardi Gras stadium in Blood Money – and proportionately, the spaces are huge to accommodate all of these bodies. Not to mention the actual area, each level is superior to anything that is comparable in "Hitman 2016".
The enormity of "Hitman 2" goes beyond gross and simple increases in footprints. These new spaces are more complex and bulkier than they have ever been, even compared to "Hitman 2016". Missions have several goals, which is not new in itself, but the interdependence of their patterns and behaviors give them a greater sense of relationships and credibility, which is particularly engaging. Hitman games have always given tasks to their targets – largely to provide more ways to kill them by defining Rube-Goldberg-of-Death -, but "Hitman 2" multiplies potential scenarios in which your targets can 'imply.
It's as if something within Io's design team had broken or maybe set up. After years of subtlety, "Hitman 2" is perhaps the first time Io Interactive, the creators of the series, seem to want to help all those who play it know that there is much more to be done at every level than we can not see it right away.
The heavy task here is made with a new systemic addition to "Hitman 2" that IO calls Mission Stories. Hitman games have always been filled with strange and interesting narrative moments, but they were often things you really had to look for. "Hitman 2" adds more than ever, and it links these different narrative queues more closely to the different strategies you can use to eliminate your targets beyond the classics, such as a fiberglass tumbler or a silent shot to the head.
Now, when you see weird shit – and good lord is there a wonderful amount of strange things to find – it will relate more frequently to the mission. And more than ever, "Hitman 2" will actively tell you that these story fragments can lead to mission solutions.
This may shock some long-time fans at first. The default state of "Hitman 2" is to guide players through mission story queues containing markers and prompts, practically spelling out some of his most complicated murders and traps. This continues an accessibility trend that the Hitman games have been pursuing since "Hitman Absolution" in 2012, which added the instinctive mechanics allowing 47 to see enemies and goals through the walls.
You can turn off all that and have a much more painful experience if you want to succeed. The default Mission Stories settings may give the impression of information overload. By recalling the information provided, players can find the mission stories themselves.
Even in the absence of all the user interface tricks and all the navigation tracks, Mission Stories makes players be much more curious than ever before in a Hitman game. There has always been a hint of voyeurism in Hitman games, but there are times in "Hitman 2" where the player can feel, somehow, like a stalker. Mission stories add an incredible amount of replayability and discovery clearly articulated to "Hitman 2", even more than the challenges introduced in "Hitman 2016", and making the right connections and seeing things unfold was extremely rewarding.
Mission stories are often linked to specific attacks that, in turn, block other mission narratives, meaning that you will never be able to get everything at one time; If, for example, an industrial cement mixer was used to blow a target into a pit on a construction site, they would not be able to maneuver it into a compromising romantic position with another target to kill two birds with one stone – and if they were both killed together, they could not feed one of them to their misguided exotic animal. And it's not clear that IO would like you to replay these missions to find more things and to try other solutions, at the end of the mission, after having gone through all the challenges you missed or finished, the game invites you to play it again. they discover other mission stories.
This results in one of the most obvious tradeoffs in "Hitman 2". While "Hitman 2016" was delivered episodically, it ultimately contained eight missions: two initiation / training scenarios and six appropriate levels. "Hitman 2", on the other hand, offers an introductory level that, although beautiful, is very small and has five appropriate locations. It's not quite fair to say that the content is light – the levels of "Hitman 2" are gigantic and they are full of things to see in a much more incentive than ever. These are some of the best-known levels in the series, incorporating the smartest elements of most of Hitman's greatest hits, and some of the greatest bravery of his best moments. These are the most beautiful fully realized spaces of all Hitman games. There are not a lot.
This minimal number of missions can share a fundamental cause with the other odd element of "Hitman 2" – cinematics. The cutscenes in "Hitman 2016" were dramatic, well interpreted and well animated. In "Hitman 2", these cinematics are largely static, with still characters on slightly off-set backgrounds and a voice-over accompanied by the absence of lip sync. These are stylistically coherent, but it's such a profound and profound change for a game that so clearly wants to be treated as the second season of the first game that it can not help but be breathtaking.
There are, of course, new cooperation options that there was still time to put to the test at the time of printing, including the ghost mode, a rather promising semi-passive and competitive assassination exercise. There is also the Cooperative Sniper Assassin mode, which, although entertaining, is not really what most players play Hitman for. Much of the post-Hitman 2 content – until the promised expansion – will be hard to reach over time. These were often fun and creative additions to "Hitman 2016", but we'll have to see how things move when the first one comes out "Hitman 2" in a few weeks.
If the package "Hitman 2" was all there was, it would be easy to recommend it, even with these qualifications, but more things are happening here. In a particularly fan and business-friendly move, IO returned to "Hitman 2016" and moved the entire game into "Hitman 2", including its bonus missions and its expansion campaign, as 39, purchase in game
These missions have benefited from visual improvements based on "Hitman 2" engine enhancements, as well as new mechanisms such as briefcase. And among the most radical additions to these missions, all the content of this return has been fully adapted to the Mission Story system. Even for players who have finished the 2016 version, there is now a reason to go back and try again. And in the most user-friendly move of a gaming studio in 2018, if you own "Hitman 2016" and its downloadable content, all this content updated and remixed in a convenient way is completely free and completely integrated with "Hitman 2 ".
It's a cliché to say that this or that game is a love letter to … whatever. But after a time when the future of the Hitman series seemed uncertain, where his most recent predecessor felt compromised and shattered due to the dire financial realities and constraints of the modern gaming industry , Hitman 2 is difficult to interpret other than a letter of fierce love to the fans of the series. It is not a perfect relationship, none will ever be. But basically, "Hitman 2" manages to be the most successful articulation of all the things that the series has always done well.
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