Hitman Blood Money – Xbox 360
I got Hitman with the console as part of a bundle, or I must say I never would have got the game.
However, with hindsight, it’s the best game I have for the console.
Straight from the beginning I began to feel drawn in. Your character is cool, calm, you feel good to play him. There is so much variety to how to play the missions. You have to take out a number of targets, and sometimes collect, say, a briefcase full of diamonds or something. There is no set way to do this, you check the map, look for attention icons which indicate areas that may be of use to you, and figure it out.
For instance in the first mission you can drop a suspended crate onto your target, or you can sneak up behind the guy and strangle him, or disguise yourself as a business colleague and follow him to a private room and take him out. Or perhaps you prefer to take on the whole place with guns blazing. But there’s a lot of guards that come after you if you don’t use stealth…
The game emphasises stealth, encouraging you to sedate people when they are low on their guards, and take their clothes as a disguise. But you must hide the body of the sedated individual, or it may get discovered and your cover will be blown.
You are free to climb up drainpipes, pick locks, poison beverages, seduce, disarm, strangle, push down stairs, push over cliffs, snipe, sedate, etc to your heart’s content. All the levels are beautifully designed, with tonnes of attention to detail. The level variety is fantastic.
In one level I sedated the preacher, and carried out a wedding between my target and his bride. The game didn’t lead me to do this, I just tried it, and the game offered me the choice when I reached the wedding altar. Then when everyone turned around I shot the target. It was interpreted as an accident as at the time everyone was shooting their guns in the air in celebration. I got away undetected.
The first level had me pointing a gun at a man’s head. He was on his knees begging for his life. As you left him hanging there, he spouted plea after plea, and I felt more and more reluctant to pull the trigger. It was interesting to see how I felt. I felt evil, I wanted to turn the game off, but at the same time I loved the game, and wanted to play on. In the end I distanced myself from my task and pulled the trigger. I love games for this very reason, I can play out ways of living I have no intention of ever trying for real.
Finally, the Xbox 360 achievement system quadroupled the longevity of the game for me. I completed the game within a couple of working weeks. I then spent the next few months trying to get all the achievements. In the Xbox 360 world you have a gamertag, and gamerpoints associated with it (see my blog, right hand side). When you log on to Xbox live it advertises your points and reputation to everyone. It’s like trying to get a highscore at the arcade. I got all the points in the end 
If there wasn’t points would I have completed it on professional difficulty? Got 5 silent assasain awards on all difficulty levels? No chance, I have better things to do with my time…