Hitman Episode 2 Review
By Lee Marcussen
A Vacation to Die For
If you haven’t check out the first episode find it here! http://www.player2reviews.com/hitman.html
The first episode was really fun and very in depth with tons of replay value which is a big plus for this series. Episode two recently dropped and it’s even better than the first. This episode takes place in the small coastal town of Sapienza, a fictional town located in Italy. The mission titled “World of Tomorrow” has Agent 47 called to take down a man named Silvio Caruso, a bioengineer in charge of developing a virus, as well as his fiancé Francesca De Santis who is his lead lab attendant. 47 needs to destroy the virus as well.
The town Sapienza is a lot different than the previous location in Paris where you were limited to just the building and some spaces outside the area. This mission is more open and gives you the ability to blend in better. Both Francesca and Silvio live in a big mansion which has about 5 levels but the really cool part of this map is the extra apartments and store fronts. You can enter these and find items and other helpful things. This really adds to the feeling of being an assassin. The bigger map also brings up more opportunities than before, which can be seen right from the start hearing a conversation between a sister yelling to her brother on his balcony about needing to be on time for his cook job in the mansion, from here you can dress as him and enter the mansion as the cook. That is just one of the so many different opportunities that arise with the map being so much bigger. Io-Interactive did a great job graphically with this game and really makes it feel like you’re in a costal Italian town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecbYQ3VnMVg This video really shows you how well put together this map is.
The first episode was really fun and very in depth with tons of replay value which is a big plus for this series. Episode two recently dropped and it’s even better than the first. This episode takes place in the small coastal town of Sapienza, a fictional town located in Italy. The mission titled “World of Tomorrow” has Agent 47 called to take down a man named Silvio Caruso, a bioengineer in charge of developing a virus, as well as his fiancé Francesca De Santis who is his lead lab attendant. 47 needs to destroy the virus as well.
The town Sapienza is a lot different than the previous location in Paris where you were limited to just the building and some spaces outside the area. This mission is more open and gives you the ability to blend in better. Both Francesca and Silvio live in a big mansion which has about 5 levels but the really cool part of this map is the extra apartments and store fronts. You can enter these and find items and other helpful things. This really adds to the feeling of being an assassin. The bigger map also brings up more opportunities than before, which can be seen right from the start hearing a conversation between a sister yelling to her brother on his balcony about needing to be on time for his cook job in the mansion, from here you can dress as him and enter the mansion as the cook. That is just one of the so many different opportunities that arise with the map being so much bigger. Io-Interactive did a great job graphically with this game and really makes it feel like you’re in a costal Italian town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecbYQ3VnMVg This video really shows you how well put together this map is.
This episode gives you more opportunities to pick and choose on how you want to go about the mission. Episode one gave you two targets where this new episode changes it up. You can destroy the virus first or kill Silvio or Francesca however you want, it’s your decision. Also there is a lot more options as far as disguises and options to escape, which I really like being able to sort of customize your Hitman experience based on what you want to do. The Sapienza mission really puts on a new spin to the Hitman abilities. I really enjoyed this episode and I’m super excited to see what Square-Enix and Io have in mind for the next!
I didn’t really touch on it as much in the last episode review but since then there was an update and the addition of the Escalation missions. They are a series of 5 small missions that add on to each other as you get into the next level, which are a separate side missions that give you a new way of going about the Hitman universe. An example is that the first escalation missions that came out with episode two involved (1) killing the head chef by melee, (2) hacking the laptop in Francesca’s office, but (3) also not being able to pacify anyone. These all add along as the levels go and it gets significantly more challenging but is a really good spin on the gameplay. I bitched a ton about the Hitman Online going out while playing the first mission which was infuriating but since I started episode two I got booted off once in the over 5 hours of gameplay I’ve put in. THANK YOU!!!! That was my biggest complaint and it has been fixed.
Overall episode two is great, certainly better than the first. More objectives, more disguises and so much more in general making for just a way better episode. I really love the map and the open buildings that you can go through. The added challenges, feats, assassinations are great and add so much replay value to this episode. I was very pleased and love this episode and am looking forward to the next.
*Note: A copy of the game was provided for the purposes of the review.
I didn’t really touch on it as much in the last episode review but since then there was an update and the addition of the Escalation missions. They are a series of 5 small missions that add on to each other as you get into the next level, which are a separate side missions that give you a new way of going about the Hitman universe. An example is that the first escalation missions that came out with episode two involved (1) killing the head chef by melee, (2) hacking the laptop in Francesca’s office, but (3) also not being able to pacify anyone. These all add along as the levels go and it gets significantly more challenging but is a really good spin on the gameplay. I bitched a ton about the Hitman Online going out while playing the first mission which was infuriating but since I started episode two I got booted off once in the over 5 hours of gameplay I’ve put in. THANK YOU!!!! That was my biggest complaint and it has been fixed.
Overall episode two is great, certainly better than the first. More objectives, more disguises and so much more in general making for just a way better episode. I really love the map and the open buildings that you can go through. The added challenges, feats, assassinations are great and add so much replay value to this episode. I was very pleased and love this episode and am looking forward to the next.
*Note: A copy of the game was provided for the purposes of the review.
FInal Score: 9/10
|
+Larger and more diverse map
+Fixed issues from previous episode +Variety adds to the replayability |
Release Date: 3/11/2016
Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: Square Enix Ltd
Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: Square Enix Ltd