Recent reviews by HairlessMage

You are Agent 47, a bald assassin. Your job? Professional assassination. Your methods? Entirely up to you, and that's where the game shines. Whether it's infiltrating the house of a mobster-turned-informant dressed as a birthday clown, sniping a Chilean drug lord as he looks out from his balcony over a waterfall, shooting out the bottom of a pool suspended over a colossal drop and watching a son whose sexual exploits risk damaging his father's political campaign fall hundreds of metres to his death or assaulting a costume party with an SMG and dual pistols, the amount of freedom this game gives you is insane.

All of your equipment can be upgraded and improved via an upgrade system that perfectly rewards you for playing well. The less of a mess you cause - ideally, you kill only your target, do it with an 'accident' and leave the area in the suit you arrived in - the more money you are awarded at the end of a mission. That money can be spent on better lockpicks, larger ammunition clips, more effective telescopic sights and so on.

Without spoiling anything, the story is nothing to speak of. It ties the game together and the voice acting is decent but it's not Hitman 2.

The graphics still hold up extremely well even nearly 11 years after the game first launched, as do the controls and menus. I barely even noticed I was playing something ancient by gaming standards - Hitman: Blood Money feels modern, much more than something like Death to Spies (which you should also totally play) which is around the same age.

On top of all that, you can get it on sale for less than £2. But it's totally worth the full price. So scroll up and press buy. You will not regret it.

I am literally lost for words to describe how good this game is. Just trust me. Play it. You will not regret it.

This isn't for the faint of heart, or those easily frustrated, but if you're persistient enough it's a great stealth game and well worth a buy.

The game is set in the context of an interrogation by a Russian intelligence officer of the protagonist, Sermion Strogov, as he recalls several missions he was involved in during WW2, in various different countries and with different goals. That isn't a spoiler, as the story is completely worthless and adds virtually nothing to the experience, it's just there to provide context. Your average Call of Duty game is more story-focused, so don't get this if you're looking for a deep, intriuging narrative experience.

The level design and stealth system are both great. Levels are fairly varied, though a few missions are quite similar to one another. Trial and error is crucial - this is a very hard game, and you will die, or be discovered, or fail, a lot. Constantly dropping saves before doing anything risky at all is strongly advised - it is not a pleseant experience to have to reload back 5 minutes because you messed up avoiding a single guard.

The health system is BRUTAL - no regenerating health or bullet sponge hero here. Strogov will die extremely quickly under fire, and there is no cover system so being discovered is essentialy a death sentence. Trying to just shoot everyone is pointless - you'll just die over and over again.

The graphics still stand up in 2016 - it looks dated, but not awful.

The controls are fairly bog-standard, and as someone who is primarily a console gamer I found them surprisingly good. However, you have to constantly correct Strogov's movement - for some reason, he walks diagonally by default.

There are a few irritating animation glitches, but nothing gamebreaking and certainly not what other reviewers are sugguesting.

Whether or not you get enjoyment out of this is basically down to how much failure you're willing to put up with. Just use your head, think what the logical solution is and you'll fail slightly less.

The Westport Independent is a good game, but it's too short. I plan to do another playthrough but there's only really two or three major ways to play the game, so this is not good value for money and therefore a Don't Buy.