Gamewise staff's favourite Hitman games - Hitman HD Trilogy OUT NOW!

Hitman HD Trilogy from Square Enix and IO Interactive is out now! To celebrate, here are the Gamewise staff's favourite Hitman classics!

The HD Trilogy brings together 720p remastered versions of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Contracts and the legendary Hitman: Blood Money. If you haven't played any of these truly outstanding games, then now is the time! The HD set is available now on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. If you're a PS3 owner, then this is your first chance to experience Blood Money in glorious high-definition. If you're a stealth fan, you simply must play it.

The original Hitman: Codename 47 (not featured in HD Trilogy) introduced gamers to the world's deadliest, baldest, baddest assassin. Innovative stealth mechanics, such as taking disguises from enemies, were introduced for the first time. Hitman surprised many gamers with its innovative take on a genre which had previously been dominated by titles like Metal Gear Solid. You even had to avoid members of the public and innocent bystanders on your quest for the perfect hit.

Its sequel, Silent Assassin, took criticisms of the first game to heart and improved upon them in nearly every way. Special care was taken to produce better level design and AI. This made for a game that was more accessible and provided a more refined killer experience! The series' signature sandbox style was cemented in this game as too. Massive open levels offered all manner of ways to pull off the kill, from using traditional weapons like sniper rifles, to sneaking around to poison your target's food!

Contracts was released soon after and revisited many missions from the first game as flashbacks. This allowed IO Interactive to improve the level designs from the original game and include more complex AI and better controls. This explains why the HD Trilogy includes Contracts instead of the first game. This game also increased the difficultly level again, which resulted in some negative comments in reviews. However, the growing community of hardcore Hitman fans loved the challenge and Contracts remains a fan favourite to this day.

Then came the ultimate professional killer sandbox, Hitman: Blood Money. This game took everything that the developers had learned from previous titles and resulted in a title with a now legendary reputation. Achieving the ultimate "Silent Assassin" rating became a huge challenge, with 47 now tasked with covering up his own evidence in order to conceal his identity, by stealing CCTV tapes or bribing officials. Missions even ended with newspaper reports detailing your crimes, right down to the number of shell casings found on the scene and descriptions of 47 from living witnesses. The more mistakes you made, the more notorious you became, making later missions more difficult. It was a truly phenomenal game and it's the Gamewise team's favourite in the series.

Last year, we had Hitman: Absolution, which brought many more modern game mechanics and design tropes to the series. The controls were overhauled and the "Instinct" mode (think Batman: Arkham City's Detective mode) made the game much more accessible to new players. The graphics were mind-blowing too – perhaps some of the best on the current consoles. Some die-hard 47 fans were underwhelmed by the new features and slightly more linear gameplay, but Absolution certainly brought new players into the series, many of whom will pick up HD collection and get to experience the intense satisfaction of the earlier games for the first time.

What do you think of our favourite Hitman game, Blood Money?

Let us know which games in the series you loved the most. Give us your thoughts in the comments and rate the games in the Gamewise database by clicking on the tagged games below.

Hitman HD Trilogy is out now on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Buy in UK
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Buy in USA
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