Recent reviews by Ms Moneybag's Money Management

The game is definitely worth getting, sheerly by the fact Flash support is ending in December 2020. But not only does it preserve the series, it updates the graphics and sounds to be quite a bit more modern. (Plus a full remake of the first game, which sorely needed it.)

(Quick summary of the games; they're fun games specializing in references and visual comedy. You're presented with a handful of options, (most of which lead to failure) and the fun is often in ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up and seeing what happens. Plus, the correct answer is usually really off the wall.

This game is weird, man. Really weird.

Firstly, sniping is like one of those timing minigames where you have to press the button when the light is in the middle. That's because the wind speed goes from 0M/S to 6M/S in less than a few seconds. On the Beaufort scale, that's considered a violent storm. Then it goes back down to zero, and up again. Thankfully, you have a hit indicator, but it flies across the screen with the changing wind. On top of this, sometimes you just randomly miss, and you also have weapon sway to deal with. (No button to hold breath.)

Secondly, the AI is wack and stealth is very inconsistent. I shot a guy, his friends shoots me. Okay, reasonable enough. I quick reload, shoot his friend first, and he doesn't notice me. What is this? Sometimes I round a corner, and three guys roll up and blow me away.

The mission scoring system makes no sense and is never explained. I got 66% accuracy, but my score was "100". (See my screenshots for that one.) Another mission, my accuracy was 70% and I got 70 score. Every other mission I got 100.

You're in the Red Army, but everyone speaks with a British accent and the game was made in Poland? On top of this, the voice actors sound either bored, or like aliens.

There's no plot, except in the opening for one mission, it says if you succeed, you'll be put into a squad of the finest marksmen the Allies have. Neat. Next mission, you're in that squad. They get killed by a tank. That's it. The game ends with two paragraphs of text being narrated by some guy.

The graphics are really, really, really bad for 2008. This game doesn't even support resolutions over 1024x768p officially. The sound design is pretty poor. The gun sounds seem good (I listened to a podcast while playing), but one mission has you loading AA guns with explosives, and it's strangely quiet.

Really, that's it. It won't last you, with numbers ranging from eighty minutes to three hours. There's satisfaction in clearing out an area with your sniper, but that's mainly because I like sniper games. Many games can provide this feeling, but better. I played this only because I haven't played a bad game in a while.

tl:dr this game is really strange. and bad. Don't bother.

It's a great game, well executed, albeit things are a bit dead these days.

A monument to Bethesda's past success, and contrast to their current excess.

Nah.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

What the f*ck is the sh*t? (I'd rather censor myself than Steam do it for me.)

I mean, if you don't know Hitman, you don't have an expectation for open ended social stealth, and not a mostly linear sneak from A-to-B game, then f*ck it, you'll probably be fine, just don't play on a high difficullty so you can crack some skulls and have a silly old time if you get sick of the stupid disguise system. (I much prefer that of Hitman 2, where a guard will be suspicious more if you get close enough for him to see that you're not Frank! Or if you start whip out a gun, start beatboxing and drop a couple of N-bombs, or if you're crazy enough to run. Also, Hitman 2016 has a better system in that some guards are more perceptive than others, so those guards will notice that Du ist nicht Herr Frank, but not every single person in that outfit, effectively making said outfit useless.)

So, overall, my feelings are thusly;

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I'd rather play Hitman: Codename 47. Well, actually, I think if I could only play Absolution or Codename 47, I'll just stare at my desktop.

If you time is short, and you need a quick idea of the game, let me say this; Hitman 2 is a good game, but you may not like it, and that's fine. Getting to grips with the game, and its suspicion system especially, will be tough for the modern Hitman fan, but if you have patience in spades, want a fairly hardcore stealth game, and can come to peace with the fact that one level is absolute trash and that getting Silent Assassin on it is almost pure luck, I'd say go right ahead. It's cheap enough that buying it isn't a risk, and you'll get 20 missions, the most in all of the series.

Now, if you have time to spare, I'll tell you why I think this is a good video game.

Atmosphere is a fickle thing, but this game, has buckets. The music, in most levels, is cold. It makes you feel like you're outside, in the cold, alone. You're here to hand out a death sentence, and should the people around you come to know this, they will return the favour. As if that wasn't enough, the suspicion system blinks faster and faster the more suspicious guards are, making you tense up everytime you find yourself close to a guard, hoping they won't see you for what you really are, or that they won't turn around before you can make this day their last. And this tension is amplified by the limited save system, meaning every mistake counts. Naturally, after a few failures in a row, this fear will turn to frustration, but that's not a problem this game alone faces, and the fear felt before isn't something easily forgot.

But something I haven't mentioned is what happens when you kill a target. The music changes, from cold to truimph. The first time I managed to kill the first target without anyone knowing, when the music turned to trumpet fanfare, my blood turned to pure adreanaline. I felt so pumped as 47 slowly slinked away from the slumped corpse of a man who had a small army surronding him, and yet that didn't stop me. It's not a feeling I can share with words, but what I can do with words is tell you that it's a feeling worth feeling. All the frustration faced in getting here made it even better too.

Now while all the above is great, without good levels to facilitate it, it means nothing. Thankfully, the levels in this are good. In fact, some are really good. They're open, without handholding and singposting, which might leave you unsure at the start, but half the fun in a Hitman game is exploring and figuring out the workings of each level. Like, what is where, where guards do and don't go, etcera, and coming back with all this knowledge in tow makes you feel powerful, effective, and most of all, in control. Despite this glowing praise, there are some levels which aren't so good, one in paticular which is so bad it will make your day infinitely worse, especially if you're a perfectionist who wants Silent Assassin on all levels.

This level needs its own paragraph, and so here it is. Its name is Hidden Valley, and its game is reminding us that perfection only exists in dreams of a better world. See, the strength of Hitman always was how its many systems and the player interact, this interplay allowing player choice in moment to moment gameplay, and sometimes leading to unique situations not intended by the player or the developer; But ironically, it's this very interplay that causes Hidden Valley to drop the ball. The prime example is a mechanic unique to this level, and the two after it. Guards can check your ID, and will as soon as they see you, but since you can't ever get ID, this leads to an instant detection. It wouldn't be so bad if how far guards can see was clear to the player, and consistent, but it isn't, so in the middle of a snow storm, covered head to toe in snow gear, you see a guard in the distance, but fairly far away, so you keep on walking, giving him distanc- "You! Stop!" He runs up to you. "WARNING: Guard is checking your ID." He grumbles a bit, before emptying his MP5 into your chest. Restart. You get much close this time, unnoticed, for a time. He sees you. He shouts, you stop. He shoots, you restart. Rinse and repeat for a level stuffed with guards, snipers who might or might not shoot you, and you'll slowly begin to hate this game for only one level. I spent at least an hour in this hateful cycle, before using a silenced SMG I stole to fill the snow goggles of any guard who dared say "ID" with holes. I was happy the level was over, but the following level is only a somewhat better version of the same level because it's smaller, more easily navigated and the guards can't see quite as far. If you survive the valley, At The Gate will seem like an only slightly annoying walk in the park. Survive all this, and good news, you've been canonized as a saint!

After that point, all the levels are pretty good, pardon The Motorcade Interception is somewhat annoying because your cover is as fragile as stained glass, (Which is fairly realistic, given that you are a very white man in a turban, some robes and carrying a massive sniper rifle while pretending to be Afghan Muslim.) and what you get to take the shot, it's pretty luck based. The only other level I feel needs mention is the last one. No spoilers, but you can't sneak. Not at all, and you start with nothing but a fibre wire, so you need to pick your time, and run to raid a gun supply and the murder more people than you have over the course of the entire game if you got mostly Silent Assassin like me.

I know I've focused on the negatives for a bit there, but it sticks out so vividly in my mind because Hidden Valley, and At the Gate to an extent, are so much worse than everything else, which shows how good most levels are. They are comparable to Hitman; Absolution in how much I suffered at their hands. (I hear Hitman; Absolution is a good action game, but I tried to, shockingly, play it like a Hitman game.) So, despite the negatives, give it a play. It's rough at the start, but don't play it like a modern Hitman game where you can walk beside a guard, no, give the distance, or look for little holes you can hide in when they pass, it really makes the game a lot more fun than getting shot over and over by a bodyguard who realizes that I'm not his friend of 18 years, George.

So. If you've read this far, I hope I've piqued your interest in playing this little gem of a time gone by, a game that took what good things the first one had; concept, and character (47 and Diane are the only real characters who stick about, we don't learn as much about the targets in this game as we do in later titles.); and turned them into a game worth playing not just for fans of the franchise, but fans of the genre.

Now that you have your assignment, good luck, Agent.

It's free, and fun as can be, There is no downside which I can see!

XL - this game and my pants size after playing this. The explosion are so manly, I erupted into muscles and ripped all my clothes. As such, the price of this game is a lie, you have to fact in the price of replacement clothes and however much it costs to keep witnesses silent.

Really though, it's a fun time. Blowing up stuff is awesome, simple fun that'll make you go wow, but eventually that wears off, and when it does, it becomes a bog standard action game that's poorly optimised and has crap gunplay, but really nice graphics and explosions.

The story is functional and will get you from A to B effectively, but I wouldn't bargain on much more. The characters are pretty cool, but you can't really get invested in them because they're not very remarkable and you only see them before, in the lead up to and after the big explosions, and, let's be honest, that's why you're here, and that's what you're paying attention to. I liked the story, but I have a lot more patietence than the average person, hence the forty hours.

The gunplay is bleh, through and through. It lacks punch and frankly, explosions and environmental hazards are the way to play. Really, the guns only purpose is to aid each explosion or you causing said explosion. Use them as you'd normally use them, as tools of war, and you'll be bored quick.

Really, that's my main problem with the game. The first maybe ten hours were great, but, as one of the few people to finish the game. (Check the achievemnt percentages.), I know the rest was a slog. I found satisfaction in liberating every town, but mostly because it meant I was done. Oh, and the boss fight was a fancy helicopter, not very interesting. SPOILER WARNING

If you like the boom booms, get it on sale, full price is only worth the POTENTIAL playtime of 50+ hours, but frankly, you'd have to be mad to play that much, so the wise will only squeeze 5-10 hours of fun out of it, plus maybe coming back to it every now and then. That probably is the best way to play it and wrack up hours, but I was never really that type of gamer, so I didn't have fun, but you? Maybe you are, so maybe you will have more fun than I did.

It looks like ♥♥♥♥, it plays like a watered down Human Revolution, you can magically spawn items into your backpack, the plot is an uninteresting adaption of a video game book and bodies disappear within ten seconds of killing/knocking enemies out. Yet I still I had fun.

WIll you?

Probably not, it's a bit ♥♥♥♥.

Graphics are pretty mucky, and it's a Telltale game (Whether or not that's good depends on you.), but the voice talent is quite good, the story's fun and it's nice to see more of these characters if you're a fan of the movies. The puzzles are usually very easy though, ocasionally being moderately difficult, and the price isn't too bad for 12 ish hours of content, although you'll probably never replay this. (unless you're like me and played them before quite a long time ago and hence don't remember much.)

So really, ask yourself this; Do I like Telltale games (Simple point and clicks with dialogue systems, though in this paticular case, said system doesn't affect the story and just slightly changes the dialogue.)? and; Do I like Back to the Future?

Answer yes to either and you have a purchasing decision.