Hitman Contracts

by Eidos

Product Features

• Action game set in shady underworld
• Eliminate bad guys all over the world
• Use stealth and firepower to achieve objectives
• Interactive environments include improvised weapons
• For 1 player

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001ANRMC
• Item Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: April 20, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,515 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Explore the dark psychology of killing for a living as you delve into the mind of the most ruthless and efficient contract killer. Hitman: Contracts delivers more action-packed and suspenseful missions with a greater variety of ways to make the perfect hit and an increased arsenal of firearms and close-combat weapons at your disposal. A new graphics engine showcases your 'work' in brutal detail and brings the dark and disturbing world of the hitman to life.

• Travel the globe from England to China and eliminate international terrorists, crime bosses and corrupt politicians from your hit list.
• Complete your mission objectives with an increased number of tactical approaches.
• Improved enemy intelligence that will use squad-based tactics to communicate with each other to bring you down
• All-new arsenal for Agent 47 to use including: Micro Uzi, stun gun, syringe, and an assortment of blades and firearms.
• Interactive environments dense with "improvisational weaponry" allow unprecedented freedom to pick up objects like meat hooks, pool cues, shovels, pillows and more for use as weapons.

Product Description

One way or another the job gets done!Product InformationEnter the world of a hitman - a world of crime sin and greed.  Delve intothe mind of Agent 47 and encounter his greatest adversaries completing the workthat made him so brutally efficient and shaped him as an assassin. Eliminate your targets by any means necessary.  There are no rules...onlythe contract signed in blood.The professional assassin is swift and silent.  Eliminate your targets froma distance.  Assume the identity of your victims.  Improvise on thejob picking up environmental objects like meat hooks shovels and pillows touse as weapons.  In the hands of the ultimate hitman everything becomes aweapon.The professional assassin is also bold and ruthless.  Utilize an increasedarsenal of firearms to make quick work of your victims.  In the mind of theultimate hitman nothing mattes except the target.  Do whatever it takes tofulfill the contract.Product Features Travel the globe eliminating international terrorists and crime bosses from your hit list. Complete your mission objectives with a wider variety of tactical approaches. Improvise on the job picking up environmental objects to use as weapons. Advanced enemy intelligence uses squad-based tactics to try to stop you. New silent weapons: stun gun syringe pool cue meat hook fire poker and more. Increased assortment of firearms: assault rifles sniper rifles SMG's shotguns handgunsSystem Requirements Windows 98SE 2000 XP (Admin rights required for 2000 and XP)  (Windows 95 and NT are not supported) Pentium III 800MHz (or Athlon equivalent) processor 256MB of RAM 100% DirectX 8 compatible Sound Card 2GB free hard drive space 4X CD-ROM Drive or higher 100% DirectX 8 compatible 32MB Direct3 Card with TnL support 100% DirectX 8 compatible keyboard and mouse NOTE:  You may need to update your hardware drivers before playing the game Recommended Requirments Pentium

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More intense action with good ol' Agent 47!, October 4, 2004

By 

Andrew C. (USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Hitman Contracts (CD-ROM)

Hitman: Contracts is another solid addition to the very entertaining Hitman series. It maintains the tension, open-endedness, great graphics, and convincing atmosphere of Hitman 2 and adds a few improvements. Overall, Contracts is not as good as Hitman 2, which is one of my favorite games of all time. Contracts offers only 12 missions, has inferior music, has some minor technical issues, and a few other problems. The game is not completely open-ended, since you do have set objectives and cannot progress to the next mission without completing them. However, you do have some options regarding how you approach a mission. It's really a game that's worth playing at least twice just to take advantage of the alternative ways of completing the various missions. For anyone who is a fan of the Hitman series or likes stealth games, I recommend Contracts (but try to get it at a discounted price). However, it is best to play it after playing Hitman 2, which is the real star in this fine game series.

Gameplay: Much the same as Hitman 2. The controls (mouse and keyboard) are easy to learn, and you can play the game from 1st- or 3rd-person perspectives. The game encourages stealth and conflict avoidance and rewards you for clean kills and limiting "collateral damage." However, you can approach a mission any way you'd like: you can go in with guns blazing, use a mix of stealth and aggressive tactics, or go for the coveted rating of "silent assassin." The sneak ability is improved over Hitman 2, allowing you to move faster while in stealth mode. Also, some of the levels are rather large, and you'll have to replay them in order to just get a feel for them and to determine possible strategies. Contracts is darker than the previous games, both in regard to weather (it's always raining or snowing) and the subject matter. Curiously, some of the earlier missions are harder than later ones. I found that the SWAT missions were the most intense, and the Hong Kong missions were the easiest to achieve the "silent assassin" rating on. On expert (medium) difficulty, the game lasted about 27 hours for me, as compared to Hitman 2 which lasted over 40. You could probably finish it in less than half that time if you didn't care about your rating and went in shooting everything (which does not always work).

The game does have its flaws. My biggest problem was the fact that you couldn't bring weapons that you found in one mission (or earned through getting the "silent assassin" rating) into new missions. This was a BIG oversight on the part of the developers, and one of the reasons that Contracts is clearly inferior to Hitman 2. On the bright side, your weapons are nicely displayed in a greatly expanded training area, and you can choose to use whichever ones you'd like if you replay completed missions. Also, you can conceal a sniper rifle in a carrying case in some of the missions. Still, one of the most impressive things about Hitman 2 was the freedom to choose your instruments of death and not have to just accept the ones that the game gives you. Another problem is the AI of characters. On a few occasions, my cover was blown for no apparent reason. At other times, I could sneak by guards who appeared to be looking right at me. Overall, Contracts just didn't seem as polished a product as Hitman 2. In places, the game ran slower on my machine, even though it more than surpassed most of the recommended specs. (I think this was mostly due to some of the lighting and weather [snow] effects.) Also, the game crashed to desktop 5 times during my 27 hours of gameplay, for no apparent reason.

Graphics: The game looks quite good. All of the scenary was convincing and immersive, and the weapons looked and behaved as you would expect. Agent 47 walks as cool as ever, and his sneaking looks better too. However, I hope that Hitman 4 does a better job with the way he runs, which still looks...uncool. Cut-scenes are all nicely done and tie the various missions together. Character models are well illustrated, and weather effects create a gloomy mood. Lighting effects are great, but will slow down game performance in a few places.

Sound: Convincing for the most part. Voice acting is good and has the appropriate accents. Ambient sounds are done well, as are the sounds of weapons. The largely techno soundtrack by Jesper Kyd is not nearly as good as his excellent orchestral work for Hitman 2, but it will do. Overall, there are no notable sound issues in this game.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not prefect, July 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Hitman Contracts (CD-ROM)

Hitman Contracts is not a prefect game by a long shot but it did offer a few improvements to the franchise.

Improvements:

Graphics were improved to some degree, mirrors reflected (they did not in Hitman Silent Assassin) and basically a face lift

Some sound effects has improved (Rain)

The Music was definitely better than the previous two, it was dark and some times exhilarating

The storyline has improved also, it moved away from the science fiction of the first, and the heroic stance of the second. It was more dark and intriguing. The ending did not answer all the questions as if paving the way for a fourth installment.

The mood is also more enjoyable, the dark and sadistic atmosphere was at least more enjoyable to me (a women with all her limbs cut off hanging upside down, the ability to poison some annoying horses!)

There were really no filler levels like the previous installments

There are more locations than any of the other installments (Romania, Russia, England, Netherlands, Hungary, China, and France).

The map was improved (now it showed dead people).

More weapons and reintroduction of some that were dropped by Hitman Silent Assassin (Mini Gun, and sniper rifles in suit cases)

The training was better than the previous, it is now completely optional. You can come back to it to try out different weapons you acquired on missions and you can even try your skills and weapons on real people!

The people are not as strict and let you run around more instead of having to annoyingly walk everywhere.

There were things that have not improved:

The annoying interface (I want my saved games separate from my auto saves).

The AI is still quirky at best.

Normally police ask you to freeze before blowing the daylights out of you.

AI still does not recognize pools of blood or inconsistent races (case in point a Hong Kong triad boss will usually not be a white, blue-eyed westerner.

It is still too easy to blast your way through (come on, give us some incentive to use stealth).

There were steps back also:

Certain sound effects are dampened or missing (fiber wire), I do have their recommended sound card (an Audigy 2 ZS).

Certain sound effects are buggy if you do not update your drivers.

Some missions are exact copies (about 5) and some are rather similar (about 3) out of 12 missions this makes most of the world familiar and in some cases extremely easy to accomplish your missions because you already know what to do from Hitman Codename 47.

Only 12 missions, the only reason Hitman Codename 47 got away with it is because it is super hard and it did not repeat it self.

Verdict

Fun but the flaws cannot be overlooked for it to get a perfect score. 8/10 or 4/5 stars.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best By Far, May 6, 2004

By 

Thomas Fox (Brentwood, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitman Contracts (CD-ROM)

I have played Hitman 1 & 2 and have just finished Contracts and I can honestly say this is the best one so far. Eidos took everything that was extremely well done in 1 & 2 and combined them into this installment. I especially enjoyed the new missions this one had to offer as well. I found them to be very well done and more realistic as opposed to some of the suicide jobs in Silent Assassin. Although I was a bit surprised to see several of the missions taken from Hitman 1 but redone and put into contracts. However I didn't find this to be a negative because I personally thought they improved upon them greatly. Another positive of this installment is the tremendous amount of freedom you are given to assassinate your target. You are allowed to use items found in the environment, such as a pillow to smother your victim in his sleep, or the old fashioned technique of a silenced berretta to the head. Speaking of killing I greatly enjoyed many of the improvements they made on the subject. For instance now knives and edged weapons are more powerful then in Silent Assassin, your sniper rifle can be carried in a briefcase again like in Hitman 1, and when in sneak mode you are able to move a lot faster, which helps tremendously. Eidos also made many new improvements and additions to your weapon inventory as well. Such as the new mini Uzi's, a 357. Magnum, and if you are really bored a meat hook. The graphics in Contracts are the best I have seen in the series. The textures and characters look very smooth and realistic, as a game could make them. The sound is incredible once again, from the sound effects and voices, to the boom and patter of lighting and rain. And as always with this series, the musical score is once again fantastic.
I found this game very enjoyable and a worthy sequel. I would greatly recommend this game for anyone who is a fan of the Hitman series and for those who are just discovering it. I would also highly recommend this game for people who have only played Silent Assassin so that they can experience the redone missions without already knowing how to complete the job.
: Parents Beware: This game is rated Mature for a very, very good reason! There is a very high level of sexual content, and the violence is to a great extreme. This is by far the most Mature and sexually and violently outlandish of the three. For instance: in the first actual assignment you are at a bondage/fetish party complete with lap dancing hookers and an opium bar where people are getting as high as a kite. So I say again if you aren't sure whether to buy this for your kids research it thoroughly, you won't be sorry.