Game Guides for Non-Gamers: Hitman
So you don’t really “get” video games? Perhaps it’s a generational thing, or maybe you’ve never seen the appeal. That’s fine, I’m here to lend a helping hand. I know that sounds patronising but I’m being honest, there’s a lot of people out there who just hear about games whenever they break some sort of taboo or cause a controversy. I’m going to attempt to explain video games on their basest levels, and maybe give some insight into why people like this relatively new medium so much.
So what’s “Hitman”, then?
Unlike a lot of games, Hitman does what it says on the tin. You take on the role of a professional hired killer (or “hit man”), and you are given hits (or “contracts”) to fulfil. These contracts can be carried out in any manner you see fit, but usually you’re rewarded for keeping them “low-key”; the person paying you for the hit isn’t exactly going to be thrilled if you advertise the fact that you were paid to take out the target.
It’s just another video game about killing then. Typical.
Well, yeah. Video games are full of violent murders, but the last time I checked there’s also a lot of violent television, films, comic books and novels out there too. I know the argument is that video games are worse than those mediums because you play an active role, rather than a passive one. We’re not here to debate that though, let’s get back to Hitman.
Sure, you can run through every level of a Hitman game armed with a big gun and mow down everyone who gets in your way. If you play it that way, you’ll probably complete the game in a few hours and will wonder why the game wasn’t that difficult, having completely missed the point1. The idea is that, yes, you can do that, but the point of the game is to try and attempt to take out the target without being detected. Violence is supposed to be a last resort when you blow your cover.
You need to kill people quietly then, but it’s still just another game where you kill people. What’s the point?
Let me describe a typical level in a Hitman game. You’re presented with a setting, for example a rich entrepreneur’s mansion. You’re provided with who the target is (although sometimes you have multiple targets), let’s say it’s Mr. Moneybags who owns the mansion. Sometimes you’re even given a reason as to why he has to die, and fair play to the writers they tend to try and make the target have some reprehensible quality so you don’t feel bad about killing them2, such as they’re a terrorist or a blackmailer or they steal the lunch money off of kids.
You get to pick your weapons from an arsenal, and then you’re placed in front of the Mansion and told to kill one guy somewhere inside. You have help – the high-tech agency (it’s actually called “the Agency”) you work for provides a real-time satellite map that tracks guards, innocent bystanders and your target/s. These detailed maps are essential, and the harder difficulties of the game will strip you of some of the markers it provides.
Okay, so how do you “take out” the target?
That’s the fun part – it’s completely up to you! There’s a postman walking up the driveway, you could knock him out, take his clothes and then approach the Mansion as a postman with a delivery. You’re probably not going to get further than the front door though, so maybe sneaking around the back climbing over the fence and sneaking in through an open window might get you further. Getting hold of a guard disguise would help, but maybe the guards are all friendly and could immediately recognise you as “not one of their own” (you won’t know until you stroll into the place wearing their uniform only for them to open fire).
It’s a puzzle game, with tense moments as you wait for the right moment to slip to the next stage of your plan. It might take several attempts to work out how to most effectively take out the target, but that’s why the games allow you to save during the mission. It’s a little bit trial and error, and a little bit luck. The killing is just the result of solving the puzzle. How are you going to take out the target? Poison his food in the kitchen and let the butler take it right to him? Sneak up behind him and push him out of a window, making it look like he tripped and fell? Drop a chandelier on him? It’s all a moot point anyway if you can’t get past the front door.
In later games, evidence also racks up against your favour – eyewitnesses need to be paid off, security tapes need to be stolen, and you need to make sure that whatever equipment you take in to the mission leaves with you3. It’s like playing an assassin in a tense thriller film, but it’s down to you whether you end up playing as the Leon the Professional, Vincent Vega or the Terminator.
I hear video games supposedly have a story. These games can’t possibly have a story, can they?
I don’t really want to lose you here because the story in Hitman games is pretty superfluous, most missions aren’t directly related to each other and take place in different locations to each other as you travel where the work is4. However, there is a sci-fi background to the whole thing.
You play as Agent 47, the world’s most renowned assassin. He’s called 47 because that’s his batch number – he’s a clone. To be more specific, he’s a clone bred specifically from the DNA of four mercenary types to be unsurpassed at killing. He eventually turns on his creator and finds his own work for the Agency, a contract organisation. His “handler” (Agency contact) is a woman called Diana Burnwood, and she’s worked with 47 since he started in the profession5.
Beyond that, there’s not much else you need to know. Each game has an overarching storyline that usually gets concluded in the last mission, but I don’t want to go into too many details. The important thing is you’re a bald man in a really nice suit and not much personality who gets paid a lot of money to kill people.
Wait a minute, I think I heard about these games. Wasn’t there a bit of controversy over them?
Yeah, let’s get these out of the way. One of the earlier games featured a Sikh Temple which obviously angered some people because, as mentioned before, you can just open fire and kill everyone within it. As if that level didn’t anger enough people, some others picked up on the fact that another level in the same game has you open fire on a U.N. motorcade; this latter one was particularly misunderstood as the level actually failed you if you hit one of the U.N. soldiers, the target was just riding with them.
The game that followed managed to avoid controversy, although that one level where you infiltrate a rave party at a slaughterhouse where everyone is dressed in gimp suits did raise a few eyebrows6. The follow-up to that didn’t appear to directly offend anyone, except for a few distasteful posters.
The most recent game apparently decided to stir up controversy on purpose, and I think it was intentionally bad-taste marketing to get some interest. The game included scantily-clad nuns with guns, and one of the promotional materials was an app that sent a threatening message to your friends on Facebook. While the latter was just stupid, the former isn’t anything special – it’s a running gag that various sultry seductresses attempt to appeal to 47 only to fail because he’s practically asexual. The only interests he ever shows are in killing people7, and some games intentionally expect you to succumb to your red-blooded desires so you approach the woman leading you on only to immediately get killed. It’s about being professional.
It’s a game with killing in it, but you have to think about the killing. You can’t rush in willy-nilly. It’s not about politics, or religion, or making a point, it’s all about the money. That’s what these games do, they put you in places that are a little bit controversial8 or shouldn’t be broached in order to represent that you go where the money is, because that’s what hitmen do and there really are people like this out there9. That’s quite mature, I think. You can be very immature while playing, admittedly, but at least it gives you the option. The games have a good sense of dark humour too – some of the ridiculous costumes you can steal and the locations you find yourself in make the games not too dry to digest10.
Okay, okay, we get it. You like these games. Where would you recommend I start if I did look into it?
I’d purchase the excellent bargain Hitman HD Collection and play through Hitman: Contracts, Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin in that order. Then I’d read the article I wrote about Hitman: Absolution and decide if I wanted to play it. I’d avoid the original Hitman: Codename 47 PC game like the plague (it hasn’t aged well!), especially since most of it is recreated in Hitman: Contracts.
Just out of interest, how would you take out the target?
My motto is that if you’re taking a gun into a Hitman level, you’re doing it wrong. The quietest way to do it is get behind the guy and use a garrotte to strangle them. However, I do like to use a strong sedative if I can, and then once the target is unconscious I dump them over a high railing. Makes it look like an accident or suicide as there’s no poison in their system and they will have died from the fall.
You worry me, sometimes.
I aim to please. I like you though, I might have to take you out some time.
…Especially if you mention that awful Hitman movie that got made a few years back. Ergh.
- I guess you could say that’s how not to play Hitman. ↩
- Some levels will intentionally make the target some poor schmuck who’s just angered the wrong person, simply to remind you that you’re a hit man and that you don’t get to choose who you kill. Money talks! ↩
- It’s all very well having that snazzy suit, but there’s nothing more galling than having to pay five grand just for someone to retrieve it from the scene of the crime. ↩
- The memorable slogan for Hitman: Blood Money was “Death is his business. And business is good”. ↩
- Diana is just a disembodied voice in your earpiece most of the time, but later instalments have her playing a more active role in assisting 47. ↩
- It’s one of my all-time favourite Hitman levels too, coincidentally. Not because of the gimps, it was just a very memorable iconic level. ↩
- He did have a canary, once. We don’t talk about the canary. ↩
- The later games tend to try and aim for archetypes – hotels, mansions, cruise liners, etc. The targets are sometimes thinly-veiled caricatures of real world people, like the one level where you basically take out Hugh Hefner or the one where you track down an athlete-turned-assassin. ↩
- They’re probably not suspicious bald men in posh suits, admittedly. Unless they’re Jason Statham. ↩
- One of my favourite subtle running gags is that Agent 47 is so socially awkward that he never accepts a drink when offered despite the fact it would really help his disguise by accepting it (for instance, when meeting a nervous sheikh while disguised as a white supremacist or while greeting a Russian Commander while disguised as an arms dealer. You had to be there!). There’s another one where 47 keeps bumping into the same unlucky captured CIA agent over and over again, and the guy has less hair on his head at every encounter. ↩
Post by Sean Patrick Payne+ | February 8, 2014 at 11:00 am | Game Guides for Non-Gamers, Video Games | No comment
Tags: Agent 47, Hitman, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Absolution, Hitman: Blood Money, Hitman: Contracts, Square-Enix