(Reviewing the trilogy as a whole as I played the entire story for the first time in Hitman 3)
The moment I fell in love with this game was during the very first level of Hitman 1 (you can play all the levels of Hitman 1 & 2 in 3 through DLC access packs) in Paris. As you take control of 47, a news crew starts filming a piece and so, of course, I had to walk right in front of their shot to see if they reacted. They did. Aggressively. So I kept doing it and after the third interruption, they both cussed 47 out and walked away. It's so simple and yet, it perfectly encapsulates what makes this game so great: Anything and everything you can think of, the game has accounted for and its world will react accordingly.
Hitman 3 awards creativity unlike any other game I've played: You can follow the Mission Stories to setup a somewhat contrived but fun scenario to kill your target quietly or you can devise your own plan. The more ways you kill, the more challenges you complete - which unlock new tools, starting areas in each map, outfits and other unlockables, making the game nearly infinitely replayable.
Now, it isn't a perfect game: The always-online requirement forced me to reboot the game on several occasions after it lost connection to the servers, it can be somewhat janky with characters dying and the pricing for the entire trilogy + DLC is The Sims-levels of insane but none of those detracted from the utter blast I had playing through it.
I've only beaten the main campaign of the trilogy but there's still so much I've got left to do: The side missions, player-made contracts, sniper missions, Elusive target missions and I cannot wait. Unless a very late contender appears at the last minute, I believe I've found my game of the year for 2022.
The moment I fell in love with this game was during the very first level of Hitman 1 (you can play all the levels of Hitman 1 & 2 in 3 through DLC access packs) in Paris. As you take control of 47, a news crew starts filming a piece and so, of course, I had to walk right in front of their shot to see if they reacted. They did. Aggressively. So I kept doing it and after the third interruption, they both cussed 47 out and walked away. It's so simple and yet, it perfectly encapsulates what makes this game so great: Anything and everything you can think of, the game has accounted for and its world will react accordingly.
Hitman 3 awards creativity unlike any other game I've played: You can follow the Mission Stories to setup a somewhat contrived but fun scenario to kill your target quietly or you can devise your own plan. The more ways you kill, the more challenges you complete - which unlock new tools, starting areas in each map, outfits and other unlockables, making the game nearly infinitely replayable.
Now, it isn't a perfect game: The always-online requirement forced me to reboot the game on several occasions after it lost connection to the servers, it can be somewhat janky with characters dying and the pricing for the entire trilogy + DLC is The Sims-levels of insane but none of those detracted from the utter blast I had playing through it.
I've only beaten the main campaign of the trilogy but there's still so much I've got left to do: The side missions, player-made contracts, sniper missions, Elusive target missions and I cannot wait. Unless a very late contender appears at the last minute, I believe I've found my game of the year for 2022.