Hitman: Blood Money

The title for this post is actually “Why Hitman: Blood Money is not only the best game in the Hitman series, but is one of the best games ever, and why Laurence is wrong and I am right.” but it’s just not at catchy or search engine friendly. It’s also a bit confusing. It’s confusing because it’s obvious, isn’t it? Of course Blood Money is one of the best games ever made, and all you clever people know it. Right? Right?! Good. The problem is though, in the dank corners of the internet lies someone called Laurence. Someone who defies our opinion and outlandishly voiced his own contrary thoughts on these very webpages. So, Laurence, this is why you are wrong and Blood Money is one of the best games ever made…hence the title.

I’d better back up. Blood Money is the 4th 3rd game in the Hitman series. It started with Codename 47 in 2000 Silent Assassin in 2002, followed by Contracts in 2004, and finally Blood Money in 2006. The series follows a professional hitman known simply as ’47′ as he carries out hits on targets set by ‘The Agency’ for money. And that’s about it. There is the odd recurring character and the hits are generally strung together through some sort of (rarely compelling to be honest) narrative, but for the most part it is a simple case of doing missions as 47. However, this is vastly underselling the Hitman franchise because firstly 47 is the best protagonist in gaming and secondly the missions he does are in some of the most original, interesting, and memorable levels in the history of levels.


Hitmen are awesome, in fiction and our minds anyway. The silent mercenaries who just get the job done. Ruthless and efficient they summarise the modern day rogue, willing to commit the biggest taboo there is for cold hard cash. They are dark, mysterious, fascinating. And they are professionals – killing silently and swiftly, not leaving a trace and not attaching themselves to anything that could possibly hinder their work. 47 is the epitome of this sort of Hitman – the professional. He’s dapper yet inconspicuous, stylish yet subtle. Being a Hitman isn’t his job, it’s what he is. It’s what he was born (cloned actually – factual ed) to do. It couldn’t be summarised better than when, in Blood Money, he kills his only friend – a tiny, innocent pet Canary; because he suddenly needs silence.


47 is also practically mute, only speaking when needed to get him closer to his target. Many articles have been written on the benefits of having a silent protagonist, but let’s just paint with broad strokes here and say that if the character doesn’t express any thoughts, you get to make up your own mind what that character is thinking, and then can impress yourself into that character. With 47 this factor is omni-present, you become 47 and 47 becomes you. Because he doesn’t say anything and as you start meticulously thinking like a cold, hard killer you realise how involved in the role you are, and then because of how the levels and mechanics work, you realise that 47 has also become you, with your very own personal style of killing people.


I’m a minimalist. I try to make as little fuss as possible as I go through the mission, then take out the target with a single shot from my Silenced Pistol. Yes, garotte or poison is quieter and cleaner in terms of gore, but it isn’t as efficient. The pistol feels right for me, and it’s stylish if not completely iconic. Also, where possible, I try to avoid disguising. I like my trademark suit and it feels wrong to blow someones brains out dressed as a bellboy or something as equally camp or ridiculous. I am 47. I use a silenced pistol and wear my suit. I know for a fact though that other people are different. Some people prefer to stage accidental deaths. Some will do whatever it takes to be as silent as possible. Some will just blow the fuck out of anything that moves. All of these representations are canon because 47 is always a cold blooded killer, but always significantly you as well.


It’s testament to the franchise that you can play 47 is so many different ways, but it’s only really Blood Money that let you explore who you could be with 47. I mean, really explore. In the first three two games each level had two ways you could go about it. The first was in a strict puzzle like fashion in which you figured out how to do the level in the proper way. The second was all guns blazing, everybody dies. And these were fine, but then Blood Money came along and you could freeform. In Blood Money, each level is much more sandbox in it’s approach. You can explore and play your execution much more freely. You can infiltrate silently, or disguise, or just snipe. What I’m trying to get across is that Blood Money gives you endless options for how you want to do your mission, and it’s some of these options that exaggerate the dark, often hilarious, brilliance.


In one mission, you can disguise as a clown. In another you can disguise as Santa. And in another a Bow-tied shrink, giving council to drug addicted mafiosos. In one mission you can kill a porn baron only to have his little yapping dog bounce around him barking. You can push idiotic red-necks into a river full of alligators before stealing clothes from a comatose drunk. And you can drop stage lights onto a group of mourning Thespians. There is loads of this, and while it might seem grim, it comes across as the blackest humour, but that’s the best kind of humour. Even if 47 never smiles, you know he finds it funny. Well, he does, because I find it funny, and it’s funnier because of the people you are doing this stuff to.


Before Blood Money, the majority of the people involved in a Hitman mission were bland guards mixed in with the odd Ninja. And that was ok because the older games were more focussed around ‘infiltrate the base’ rather than killing people in public. That move was brilliant in its self because it forced you to be a more focussed Hitman – you can’t deal with screaming members of the public, there are too many of them, especially in the middle of Mardi Gras where the streets are literally full of people. But it also meant that you got dragged into the Hitman world; the public are stereotyped, and this is how you need to see them. You need to know whether they are a threat or not and because you haven’t got years of experience in killing people, 47 does it for you. At a glance you can tell apart who might have a gun, who might try to fight you if they realise who you are, and who might just run away screaming at the glance of a gun. Tom Francis describes it as Hitman Vision, and it’s something that he goes into wonderful detail over.


Making non-generic characters pales in comparison though to the levels themselves. Not once in Blood Money do you infiltrate “Desert Base” or “Sewer System” or “Abandoned Warehouse”. It was nearly the same with the old games to be fair, but they still ended up in the same old bland, generic feeling levels now and again. Blood Money though, that hit out and brought in new, inspired levels that you just don’t see in gaming. The streets of New Orleans in Mardi Gras, a grand Theatre, A club split into two halves – Heaven and Hell (one at the top of a sky scraper, the other in the basement), a Steamboat chugging along the Missippi, The Whitehouse. These are interesting places to be, hand crafted beyond generic grey walls and the odd setpiece. They, just like everything else in Blood Money, are filled with character – and that’s what set’s Blood Money apart, not just from the other Hitman games, but from 99% of the other games out there.


The first…god dam it…three Hitman games laid a beautiful foundation. They initialised 47 and the feel of the series. The teams behind them had the ideas, the style, the character, but they never quite got the execution. They certainly got better as they went on, but Codename 47, Silent Assassin, and Contracts were all missing a special flare. They were a bit too linear, strict, hard going, and a bit too clinical. Blood Money though, that understood what makes a Hitman game. It’s dark, funny, more freeform and bursting with character. It’s the amount of possibilities and allowance for experimentation that keeps me coming back to Blood Money – each time playing through in a different way. It taps into my personality and feeds it into its self. Blood Money was the goal that the Hitman franchise was trying for, and it’s one of the best games ever made.