Hitman Codename 47

I really wanted this game to be a diamond in the rough. Unfortunately, it was just rough. This game was frustrating from the very beginning. The default controls were setup for the number pad -- WHAT?! That would be so awkward. I have a small desk, so that would mean my left and right hands would be almost on top of each other. But fear not, it has a "wasd" option as well.  Oh wtf is this, "w" is walk forward and "2" is run? Why isn't run a "hold to sprint" kind of deal? Whatever. After about five minutes, I found something that was relatively comfortable to use. By the way, this wasn't a bad console port. It was made for Windows...It just has weird-ass controls.

My biggest problem with this game is the lack of polish. Twice, on the two longest levels, I was steps from completing the mission, and I got glitched in the floor. I was unable to move and therefore had to start over.

I have not been this frustrated by a game since Star Fox Dinosaur Planet or as it's better known as, SFDP.  In SFDP, there was a stupid button mashing tug of war section that my 13-year-old self could not beat.  I was pissed that it wasn't optional and in the game at all.  Unfortunately, Codename 47 was riddled with these annoyances.  The A.I. is really bad -- not bad as in rudimentary due to its age, bad as in inconsistent.  Some guards could see for miles through fog, some had eyes in the back of their head, and some just had a sixth sense.  I took out one guard with the silent fiber wire (my favorite weapon) inside his own room with two closed doors.  The guy hits the ground and some Bruce Willis charges in and starts shooting.  I did this four times.  On the fourth time, there was no Bruce Willis. I don't get it.  Also, the game does a bad job of explaining how the identification system works.  Almost every mission requires you to get at least one disguise.  Apparently these uniforms have name tags.  If the body of the guard you killed is found, EVERYONE knows you did it.  This can be fixed by picking up any other uniform, even if it looks EXACTLY the same.

A few of the levels were absurdly large for the sake of being large. There is a jungle compound level that takes you five minutes just to walk around the fence to get to the entrance. This was completely pointless and boring. This was magnified by the fact that you can't save mid-level. This particular level was very long, and there is a pretty good chance of dying before the end. Therefore, you had to walk that stupid boring fence five times. It made me so mad that I just killed the first guard I finally got to because I was so pissed, but then I got fucked by all of the guards and had to do it again.

This game becomes a trial-and-error affair because of the no save feature. You do a mission multiple times just to learn the layout and know who and how to kill. Once you can figure out a method that works, it works every time -- except for floor glitches and Bruce Willis appearances. This makes for a boring, tedious, and frustrating game. You play through super easy content that you know by heart for a couple minutes of new content just to be killed and then have to do it all over again. It's like integrating some bitch-ass function by hand. I don't integrate in my free time. So why did I finish this game?  For you.

Oh yeah, the body drag mechanic would have been crap too if it wasn't for a nice glitch that allowed you to strafe-drag and run with a body.  It looked really weird, but it was a lot faster than the normal drag.

The voice acting was also bad, but I wasn't expecting much.  It is a pretty old game and the first in the series. The story was all right -- a little generic, but enough to keep you interested in 47. He starts to have flashbacks a few missions in. As you assassinate your targets, some of them have letters on their bodies that provide some hidden story. You can piece together some kind of in-fighting between all of these connected people. I love Easter Egg story items. The game ends where it started, which fits nicely with the recovering memories theme. The story was the one part of the game that wasn't glaringly frustrating. Its stealth to action balance was pretty good, if only the A.I was more predictable so that being stealthy was more reliable. Some of the missions were actually fun too -- delivering poisonous soup, using a stripper as a diversion, and unpacking your sniper brief case for a nice clean kill.

I am excited to play the other games in the series. This game did a good job of setting up the sequels. I mean, there is no way they could be worse (right?). It was interesting enough to make me actually want to play the next ones. Not to mention I got three of them for $6 on Steam.