Ever wanted to kill someone for money? It seems like there’s no topic, theme or fantasy left unfulfilled by a game nowadays but luckily Hitman 2 is just plain fun and a quality title to show all you would be assassins just how fun it can be. As a retired Hitman you are once again drawn into the seedy world of killing when your minister friend is kidnapped by some unseemly characters who you of course, must take revenge upon.

If you want tenderness, caring and sensitivity in your games, look elsewhere, HITMAN 2 is violent, violent and well......pretty violent. It really can be a pretty nasty game depending on how you decide to play it, and that’s one of the big bonuses in this game in that you can play it however you want.

Although you are labelled the Silent Assassin, this is not always accurate. On most missions you can decide to approach it however you want. You can try and sneak your way through the mission or you can try and shoot your way through. Either way you’re in for a fun experience and aren’t really penalized either way. While you are rated at the end of each mission based on your level of stealth, you don’t seem to be penalized if you decide to shoot it out, which really adds to the replay value. If you complete the game with an all out action approach, you can still attempt it again with a stealthy approach, and it does change the game quite significantly..

When attempting to shoot your way through the game you are going to experience a very Max Payne style game (without the Bullet Time of course) and while you may find it to be nothing all that special above previous similar games, it is still highly enjoyable. If however, you decide to approach it from a stealth angle, you are presented with a very different game indeed and Hitman 2 shows some class not present in many other shooter/action titles.

The all action approach will work fine on plenty of missions, although you cannot go in with this approach as your only angle. Some missions will end straight away if you are spotted and you’ll have to change your approach to a more stealthy one. This is where the game really hits it’s stride, in some missions you will have to assassinate a person that is highly guarded and if you alert the guards to your presence, the person will escape and the mission will end straight away. So the silent assassin label fits well here, but not everywhere.

One problem you will find with the game is that some levels seem to be completely impossible to play in the stealth style that makes the game more enjoyable. There are just too many enemies occupying some sections to allow you to sneak around, so you have to shoot your way out of trouble, which is fun, no doubt, but for a game that seems to want to sell itself as a stealth game, I think that the option to sneak your way through the mission should always be there.

Who cares if it ends up being a shooter though when the physics of your enemies are so much fun. Enemies react completely differently to each weapon(of which there are plenty) and at times you’ll just start gunning down innocent civilians just to see their blood splatter on the wall from a gunshot wound, that’s not to mention how you can drag them around after you’ve killed them and the way their bodies react to every bit of the environment, pull them into a corner and their body will bend to fit, no heads disappearing into walls here thanks to dodgy clipping, you can contort their bodies all over the place.

Stealing peoples clothes is great fun, but sometimes the AI seems to recognize you for no good reason and you’ll have to shoot your way out anyway, this is fairly rare, but it is a fault in the game that was a touch annoying. The game at sometimes just gives you the impression that it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, a shooter or a stealth game.

It isn’t the hardest game you’ll ever play, but I actually took a fair while to finish it as it’s so much fun to try to perfect the missions. Played on the hardest skill level though, it is a absolute bastard. On the easiest skill level you get 7 saves per level and take minimal damage, shift it up to the highest difficulty and you’re stuck with no saves and you’ll be killed in about 4 hits, it’s tough, but if you want a challenge, go for the highest difficulty and you’ve got one.

Graphically HITMAN 2 is pretty nice. Textures are pretty sharp and the animation is very lifelike and smooth. It can look a little ‘cartoony’ at times, but not in a bad way. It never slows down and displays some nice physics when brushing through curtains etc. It’s not the best looking game on Xbox by any means, but it looks nice, even though it’s a multi platform game.

As far as sound goes, the effects are pretty good, but the music stutters and skips and is best turned off. This doesn’t seem to be a glitch in my copy alone, it seems to plague most copies. It’s not a huge problem, but it is something that shouldn’t be there.