Hi Everyone.
I've been meaning to write this for a little while. It concerns what I do in my spare time when I'm not online.
First of all, I'm kinda a casual gamer. I'm not serious about it, I just do it for fun. I'm also stuck in the PS2 era of games. Which means that I mostly play Gran Turismo 4, and several games from the Medal Of Honor series, namely Underground, Frontline and European Assault.
However, I've been playing a pretty different game from that fare (GT4 is a racing game and the MOH series on the PS1/PS2 are World War II games). The game is Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Not to be confused with Hitman 2 that came out on PC, PS4 and XBox One that came out in late 2018. Silent Assassin came out in 2002 on PC, and was ported to the existing console platforms later that year.
The whole plot of the Hitman franchise of games is that you play as Agent 47, a genetically engineered professional assassin who's known for ultra-stealthy and innovative ways of assassinating targets. 47 is a definite anti-hero, a man of unknown moral make up who performs his contracts to perfection. At least, that's how the story goes.
All Hitman games do, however, especially from Silent Assassin onward, allow the player, on most missions, to fulfill the mission criteria however he or she wants. The emphasis is on stealth, however. Unlike most shooters, but like say the Metal Gear/Metal Gear Solid games, the emphasis is on stealth, not blasting away at enemies. However, like in those games, most Hitman games do give you the option to take down only the target, annihilate everyone on map, and anywhere in between in most missions at your discretion.
There's of course the normal whole range of weapons, from knives and melee weapons, to pistols ranging from a .22 silenced pistol, to a 9mm Beretta 92, to a .357 Magnum revolver, to a Desert Eagle magnum automatic pistol, to Agent 47's signature .45 AMT Hardballer pistols (called Silverballers from Silent Assassin onward, probably due to copyright reasons). There's also submachine guns, namely an Uzi and a standard and silenced version of the MP5, carbine assault rifles like the AKSU and M4 carbine, a M60 machine gun, two double barreled shotguns and a semi auto shotgun, and various sniper rifles.
As far as shooting, it normally works as you'd expect. However, the aiming system is somewhat odd in that the bullets don't always exactly go where you expect them to. This can be annoying in crowded situations, especially when you're trying to minimize collateral damage in a fight. Also, naturally, some weapons are better than others for like say ranged shooting.
Also, though this gets addressed in later games, there's almost no hand to hand combat use in the game, though the developers incorporated a cheat code that allows 47 to deliver a devastating punch that kills anyone who he punches, mostly for dark humor value. Also, several of the ragdoll effects on enemies are overdone to the point where they're humorously absurd.
Also, the game perpetuated an inaccuracy with the Russian PSM pistol. It is depicted, like common at the time, as some kind of super snazzy, super powerful assassination pistol used by the Spetnaz and KGB as an ultra-powerful pistol that can deal with soft body armor, like most Kevlar flak jackets.
The truth is actually pretty different. The PSM was basically a baby version of the Russian Makarov automatic pistol designed as the Russian/Soviet version of the Walther PP pistol firing a unique 9mm round similar to the .380 ACP. In the case of the PSM, it was a 5.45mm caliber pocket pistol for Russian/Soviet Army Generals and some police operatives who needed a very small, modestly sized--and in truth, modestly powerful--pistol.
The 5.45mm round can penetrate certain types of soft armor, but so can 7.62mm Tokarev pistol rounds of certain specs and certain specs of over pressure 9mm Luger pistol rounds designed for submachine guns.
In game, the PSM is similar in power to the 9mm Beretta 92. In reality, the PSM is roughly equal in power to a .22 Magnum or .25 ACP pistol. It was designed to be compact for Russian Army Generals, not as a sophisticated KGB assassination weapon.
Inaccuracies and such aside, Hitman 2 Silent Assassin is pretty good game, given that it's nearly 20 years old now. Biggest issue is, like with any pre-HD TV era consoles, it's hard to play them on a modern HD TV. However, playing with brightness and some additional controls over contrast enhancement and color enhancement fixes most of those issue.
I'll likely later go on with the Medal Of Honor games and GT4 next time I decide talk about gaming. Everyone have a good one :)
