Hitman 2 (2018)

Hitman 2 came out 3 years after the 2016 game and also came out like a normal game, all at once instead of episodically like the 2016 game. Honestly this was a huge hindrance, I think the game would have received much more attention, throughout the year instead of shoving it out the door during late november when everyone is covering Game of The Year and basically playing games they didn’t get around to, instead of new games. That being said, Hitman is back, and better than ever.

I really enjoyed everything about this game. The levels seemed somehow even more detailed and intricate. Starting off with a new tutorial level, the beach house, it looked absolutely gorgeous. The weather, giving off a storm at night time, the blowing of the wind and the tall grass swaying just feels amazing. That beginning level alone is a feat in master crafting a level, it is beautiful, peaceful, deadly and intricate in only a Hitman level can be.

This time there are only a handful of new levels, but with the addition of importing your Season 1 levels of the game and giving them a upgraded spit polish and adding in a couple new things like tall grass to hide in or cameras that can be destroyed, it just adds so much more content to the new game.

The new levels consist of a beach house, a raceway, a jungle, a city, a suburb and a island castle. The last two levels were probably my favorite of the real levels. The suburb is always a nice treat in games as its a location that doesn't get a whole lot of love, unless its in Call Of Duty’s Nuketown map.

Sadly there isn’t really much to say about Hitman 2 that wasn’t already said a million times over back in 2016 with the first season of Hitman. It really is just that same game again, with different levels and some more weapons. But that isn’t a bad thing, in fact it is exactly what a good sequel does, it takes the formula, adds a couple new missions, modes, weapons, levels and gives you more of what made you fall in love with the game in the first place.

The only real issues with the game are the release schedule. With the first game, each map being released every month or two, it allowed me to scour the map, checking every nook and cranny over multiple playthroughs, with the new game being released all at once, I might have played a couple of levels twice and at most 3 times. But the last few, I just wanted to finish the game and see the next level. I’d like to say I’ll come back to the game and do more missions in the levels later, but I just don’t see that being very likely. The release schedule of being episodic in nature is one of the reasons that Hitman was played so much throughout the year in 2016, it allowed people to really get their money’s worth out of a staggered release, playing each level multiple times throughout the month, then come back a few weeks later to get the new level. With this, you aren’t really encouraged to stay on the same map.

All in all Hitman 2 is more hitman, and that isn’t a bad thing, it’s quite welcome the only thing is that I do wish I was encouraged to stick with the level I was on a bit longer, instead of letting me change to the next mission, it should have required a certain mastery level to unlock the next level, forcing you to play the same level even a couple of times would have gotten much more play from me.