While the latter games in this series are undeniably more polished experiences, Blood Money still manages to be a memorable time. Maybe it's the jank that makes me love this so much. There's something exhilarating about pushing people, and the melee combat--hilariously broken as it is--only adds to the amusement factor.

That might not seem like high praise, considering one man's trash is another man's treasure and vice versa. But even if you aren't a fan of just how 2006 the whole thing is, the variety on play here will keep you interested long before the credits start rolling. The Hitman series has almost always nailed level variety, and Blood Money is no exception.

But what I really love about this game is that the cheats that are secretly built into it are really, really stupid. If you want a good example of why, here's me beating the game in less than twenty minutes using nothing but cheats, and here's me doing the same thing but with slightly more attitude attached. This is more or less an excuse for me to shamelessly plug some of my "work," but even if you aren't trying to break the game in record times, it almost creates this sandbox within the already established sandbox. A couple of the cheats are broken: if you're playing past the 1.0 release, don't use Give All. Using it more than once causes your game to crash. And if you decide to use a weapon that's not in the level you're playing, you're probably going to crash, anyway. The timemultiplier cheat is funny because it breaks all of the animations, but it requires a key spammer if you're going to use it past a certain speed. Other than that, it's a bizarrely enjoyable experience for those of us who still think that cheating in games is the funniest thing.

Reviewed on Aug 09, 2022


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