IO's new game is an endeavor based on many little things that work comprehensively. It's more accessible, looks better - significantly so on Xbox 360 and PC, anyway - and is worth your hard earned money if you're a patient and obsessive stealth gamer. What we're left with is a good, familiar game of Hitman. In other words, IO built a lot of good features around the core play, which was tinkered with and enhanced a little, but it basically left the 47's fundamental game alone. So while fans of the series will notice all the new features in subtle ways, the gameplay is essentially like playing any of the previous games in the series. The newly added features don't, however, alter the fundamental experience much beyond Contracts. The results are solid - the new notoriety system functions smartly, the upgraded currency system encourages players to be pennywise, and the text-sensitive controls and up-close fighting systems make this often very un-accessible stealth game more forgiving. The+screen+splits+to+show+off+important+actions. This fourth game does several things to improve the series, both from a presentation and a playability perspective. Contracts looked good enough and explored a dark, devious theme that hadn't been done before, but it played like all the others.

With the third game in the series, Hitman: Contracts, IO hit a lull, as the team was simultaneously working on Blood Money and creating the newly fangled engine on which this new game was built.

Perhaps equally important, IO gave birth to a long-lasting, brooding iconic antihero with Agent 47. IO has designed a stealth game that, while suffering from some easy-to-notice flaws here and there, boasts some of the most distinguished and well-honed level design in any game of its kind. The world, especially Europe, loved Hitman, and rightly so. IO Interactive made its mark on the videogame world with the first Hitman game in 2000 and planted a flag with Freedom Fighters in 2003.

Hitman blood money ratings