I
’m a Hitman purist. The ideal
playthrough involves a few people
getting food poisoning and passing out,
before there’s a terrible accident where
someone nasty dies in an ironic way.
Less a murder-simulator, than a death-by-
misadventure-simulator. I think it’s why the two
movie adaptations leave me cold. If I was directing,
it’d be all choking on vol-au-vents and you wouldn’t
see Agent 47 at all. But when my daughter plays, she
embraces the film aesthetic. She goes in shooting...
become death, destroyer of worlds.While the body count is impressive, it’s not what you’d
call efficient. There’s a real ammo issue, and often the
target flees once the big guns come out. However, while I
usually restart after the automatic weapons kick-in, I
wondered if it was possible to hit all the targets and then,
wipe everyone out. Hitman is a passable shooter and with
pacifist playthroughs all the rage, I’m pulling a 1 80.
Everyone is going to die. All people.
I also wondered about the notion of innocence in the
game. If you’re a soldier of a corrupt regime, you’re fair
game really, especially if you get in the way. Maybe
security guards are too, on that basis. But if you’re a
guest at the party of someone who can at best be
described as evil? By your friends may you be known, I
suppose. What if you’re just setting up the sound-
system? This complexity makes precise rules woolly or
unfair, and I’m leaning on the latter.
Rule One tends to preclude going in all guns blazing.
Rule Two is where it promises to get complicated. I’m
also cheating slightly and doing the first season of
Hitman, as this has the locations I know best. I’m going
to abuse the automatic weapons I’ve earned and never
used in a normal playthrough. Rule Three is about
looking like an angel... an angel of death.
Paris’s The Showstopper is the Hitman level I know
best of all, having played it endlessly, waiting for the next
episode to unlock. It’s a beautiful, immersive simulation,
that is a honeycomb of stacked puzzles. The armed
intervention, which I’m calling The IAGO Farrago,
threatens to fracture this delicate balance, and as such
it’s a proof of concept.There are plenty of horrible people upstairs at IAGO’s
auction of state secrets, while Dalia Margolis and Viktor
Novikov’s actions cost innocent lives. Screw them, they’re
all going down with the goons. Then there are the
employees, but they should probably know better, and
finally, there are the guests. I’m making the call that
they’re all awful people, which they seem to be if you
listen in on their conversations for any time at all.“J’FAIS DES TROUS...”
Full-frontal assaults in all those crowded, open halls
proves suicidal so I’m driven to experiment, with healthy
doses of sneaking and drainpipes as usual, but leaving atrail of dead, which is new to me. I find myself trying to
hide bodies out of habit and being rumbled, when the best
bet is just headshot everyone who might see the body.
Whittling down the armed guards by constant flanking
through different rooms, picking up new weapons as you
go, is the strategy that works best. Every time they send
someone to fill body bags, I just make more work for
them. Eventually it’s just me and my quarry.
So, I turn to the auction guests. I work through them,
pleased by the dropped IAGO invites that tell me I’ve
nailed another monster.
It was here that things take a turn that I wasn’t
expecting. It’s one thing being Leon the Professional and
cutting a swathe through goons and monsters like a
slow-moving ghost, leaving the fallen behind you like an
arrow for the foolish to follow. It turns out, it’s quite
another gunning down a stream of pleading, crying
waiters and models. I begin to find it difficult, even
upsetting. I try hardening my heart. “You’re all terrible
people, neck deep in corruption and exploitation, with
horrible dress sense,” I cry. But a little voice inside me
wails back, “Should not these wayward souls be given a
shot at redemption? Are they not people too? If you
prick them, do they not bleed?”
Well, yes, but that blood is just lines
of code, just as they are. They aren’t
real. This is a video game. But my
buzz has been totally harshed.
Thanks a lot conscience.
It takes another hour to complete
the wholesale and complete
slaughter of every single NPC, and
find Victor in the safe room where I
started. I wanted it to feel like a
triumph, and it was definitely a
thing, but I just feel drained.
This means that by the time I
reached the sunlit Amalfi Coast for
The Mansion Fumigation I’m
already conflicted. I declare
everyone in the mansion and lab as
the enemy, deciding to deal with the
rest of the town later. I spurn the
tempting thought of doing the whole
thing as the Plague Doctor and startFULL-FRONTAL ASSAULTS INALL THOSE CROWDED, OPENHALLS PROVES SUICIDALEXTRA LIFENOW PLAYING (^) IUPDATE (^) IMOD SPOTLIGHT (^) IHOW TO (^) I DIARY (^) I WHY I LOVE (^) IREINSTALL (^) IMUST PLAY
Suit and Chrome
by ICA. RS- 15 ,
model’sown.
THE RULES
- All targets must be
eliminated and tasks
completed. - All police, military,
security, employees,
and contractors must
die, plus guests.
Everyone, basically. - All in the Requiem
Suit... because style
matters.