Page 2: Gameplay/Lasting Appeal and Conclusion
<!--Start here--><b>Gameplay/Lasting Appeal</b>
One of the nice features of the game, is the ability to choose your weapons for each mission. Before the mission you start back at the monastery in a garden shed where you store all of your weapons that are collected throughout the game. You get to choose your weapons, then get briefed on the mission, and finally get to play. The monastery lets you have some practice shooting at targets like the scarecrow, some pigs, birds, and some other things before you go on the mission. I have to admit, in order to "test" out the realism I waited till the birds that were on the ground started to take off, whipped out a gun, and shot them. And yes, they do fall out of the air, it's quite amusing. When you play the game you have a life meter in the upper left corner, along with a suspicion meter, that will change depending on how suspicious the people around you become during missions, in the top right is your weapons list, and bottom right is your ammo. A few other important tools in the game, are the map, which allows you to see all enemies, targets, weapon pickup locations, and hostages in realtime(i.e. you see where a guard is headed at any given time). It is a very good addition to the game, too bad it took me 4 missions to realize this even existed in the game. Another nice feature, is the game allows you to play in either 1st person view or 3rd person view, so you can pick whichever view you prefer, or switch back and forth in the game with the press of a button. <center> </center><br/>
As mentioned in the overview, the game comes with three options of play, Normal, Expert, or Professional. I reccomend starting off on the normal level of gameplay to get a sense of how the game works, and what you have available to you in each of the 20 missions. The levels of difficulty basically correspond with how the game becomes increasingly more difficult. For example, in the Normal level of difficulty, if you shoot someone with a gun you might have one guard that walks out looks around and goes back in, not caring much. In contrast to the Professional level if you shoot someone with a gun that isn't silenced, you can guarantee that you will have 5 guards there in no time, investigating what just happened, alerting the other guards, and ready to kick your ass any time they see you. The professional level of the game is meant to be played like the title says: Silent Assassin. You don't use many guns, if any at all, and rely on your trusty fiber wire, or anasthetic to knock people out, and using the disguises and sneaking up on people is a must.
Playing the professional mode might seem like it could be boring, but it's definitely more realistic. You have to compensate for gun recoil manually, and the guards are much more aware. Professional is basically how the game was intended to be played though:sneaking up on people and using other people's clothes as disguises.
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There is a definite lasting appeal to the game. Each level has on average 4 or 5 different ways you can beat it, whether it be via different routes on the level itself, or different disguises and so on. This alone makes the game better giving you the ability to do close to whatever you want to do to beat the level.Sadly the game doesn't include a multiplayer level, which I think would be very cool in this type of game, but the variety of ways to beat the single player missions makes up for the lack of multiplayer.<center>
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<b>Conclusion</b>
Hitman 2 is definitely a different type of game. It's not your normal shootem' up type of game where it's all killing. It requires skill, and planning of how to complete your mission successfully. I think more games should be like this and turn away from the pure shooting and killing like most new games have. I would definitely reccomend this game to anyone looking for a new game to play.
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One of the nice features of the game, is the ability to choose your weapons for each mission. Before the mission you start back at the monastery in a garden shed where you store all of your weapons that are collected throughout the game. You get to choose your weapons, then get briefed on the mission, and finally get to play. The monastery lets you have some practice shooting at targets like the scarecrow, some pigs, birds, and some other things before you go on the mission. I have to admit, in order to "test" out the realism I waited till the birds that were on the ground started to take off, whipped out a gun, and shot them. And yes, they do fall out of the air, it's quite amusing. When you play the game you have a life meter in the upper left corner, along with a suspicion meter, that will change depending on how suspicious the people around you become during missions, in the top right is your weapons list, and bottom right is your ammo. A few other important tools in the game, are the map, which allows you to see all enemies, targets, weapon pickup locations, and hostages in realtime(i.e. you see where a guard is headed at any given time). It is a very good addition to the game, too bad it took me 4 missions to realize this even existed in the game. Another nice feature, is the game allows you to play in either 1st person view or 3rd person view, so you can pick whichever view you prefer, or switch back and forth in the game with the press of a button. <center> </center><br/>
As mentioned in the overview, the game comes with three options of play, Normal, Expert, or Professional. I reccomend starting off on the normal level of gameplay to get a sense of how the game works, and what you have available to you in each of the 20 missions. The levels of difficulty basically correspond with how the game becomes increasingly more difficult. For example, in the Normal level of difficulty, if you shoot someone with a gun you might have one guard that walks out looks around and goes back in, not caring much. In contrast to the Professional level if you shoot someone with a gun that isn't silenced, you can guarantee that you will have 5 guards there in no time, investigating what just happened, alerting the other guards, and ready to kick your ass any time they see you. The professional level of the game is meant to be played like the title says: Silent Assassin. You don't use many guns, if any at all, and rely on your trusty fiber wire, or anasthetic to knock people out, and using the disguises and sneaking up on people is a must.
Playing the professional mode might seem like it could be boring, but it's definitely more realistic. You have to compensate for gun recoil manually, and the guards are much more aware. Professional is basically how the game was intended to be played though:sneaking up on people and using other people's clothes as disguises.
<center> </center>
There is a definite lasting appeal to the game. Each level has on average 4 or 5 different ways you can beat it, whether it be via different routes on the level itself, or different disguises and so on. This alone makes the game better giving you the ability to do close to whatever you want to do to beat the level.Sadly the game doesn't include a multiplayer level, which I think would be very cool in this type of game, but the variety of ways to beat the single player missions makes up for the lack of multiplayer.<center>
<center>
<b>Conclusion</b>
Hitman 2 is definitely a different type of game. It's not your normal shootem' up type of game where it's all killing. It requires skill, and planning of how to complete your mission successfully. I think more games should be like this and turn away from the pure shooting and killing like most new games have. I would definitely reccomend this game to anyone looking for a new game to play.
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