What's your opinion on this mission?

Hello! Time to talk about The Golden Handshake.

This is one of my favourite missions from HITMAN 2. I liked the level design and the verticality of the map, as an enclosed location it worked pretty well. The atmosphere reminded me of moody, rainy afternoons in the city, and I keep coming back to it.

The stories within the mission are interesting. You have disgruntled employees, people doing their everyday jobs, a journalist looking for a scoop, a couple of robbers and the target herself with her collaborators.
Athena Savalas is one of my favourite targets. I liked her story and how she acted around lol I wish we knew more about her.

There are some missed opportunities. It would’ve been cool if you could trigger the robbers to start a heist and create chaos/confusion (to sneak around). Like the SWAT team in Deadly Cargo.
And while I like the target, I think her routine is very limited.

I liked how each floor gets more difficult as you go up. Of course you can find your ways around, it’s part of the gameplay.
I understand that the data briefcase exists to make the mission less tedious to replay, but I wish it was a bit harder to gain access to it. It’s easy and then you can escape through the garage with no problem. What? lol

This mission is a good example that not every mission has to be the biggest sandbox ever. Smaller locations like this benefit a lot of good level design, and while this was pretty straightforward I think it was satisfying overall.

Have you enjoyed this mission? Would you like to see more missions like this?

21 Likes

Favorite mission in Hitman 2 for sure.

8 Likes

It was alright but nothing too special. Lots of things felt too gamey like the random chloroform vial in a locker near a vent, some weird document boxes or whatever in the middle of a staircase posing as cover or lack of real offices and the fact that the clerks on the upper floors mostly don’t have chairs. And the biggest offender is that empty room where the target goes to make a phonecall if you crash the market. I find her route too limited as well. Also, I hate the way Diana introduces her as “the bane of the middle class”. Sounds very hypocritical as well as plainly unnecessary. And yeah, sadly, lots of missing opportunities like a proper bank heist. The initial cutscene has a repeat of a scene from the last main game one that will look odd when playing the whole trilogy back to back. The final downside is the explanation of why we have to kill the target at all which is kind of dumb.
Obviously, most of these are just nitpicks and I was focusing on the negatives. I enjoyed playing it regardless and don’t regret buying the dlcs at all

3 Likes

Me too. It’s my favourite level after Whittleton Creek.

I really love the location and the target but the secondary objective got old after the first few times

3 Likes

it’s my favourite mission in the whole WoA series so far but i have a feeling dubai or chongqing might top this

1 Like

I liked the Humor in it, like in Whittleton Creek. That job interview or being the guy in the self made sweater- that was hilarious!

4 Likes

Great mission, though I wish there was an outside terrace or something to “enjoy” the rain :grin:

One particular thing I love about it is the music though. I think it´s probbaly the most playful/creative score NBN has done for the trilogy so far.

6 Likes

One of my favorite maps. The mission not so much. But it’s the map I play the most contracts because the bank is just the right size for this. What I didn’t like that much is the limited routes the NPCs take. Only Perez and Frank roam a bigger part of the map.

7 Likes

This is my tip top favorite of both new games. It was the first I mastered on the hardest difficulty. Got my own silent assassin rank. So I guess that means it’s easy. lul if i could beat it.

the music is so great too.

I played it over and over until i got all the juicy little secrets

2 Likes

I really like the mission. The “usual ness” of it was welcomed after going to a high profile race to take out a driver and her big shot father, Colombia to take out 3 people who run a major drug cartel, 3 otherwise untouchable underworld bosses in Mumbai, ark society to nab the newly anointed leaders of the group at their big annual party. It’s just a bank on a normal day.

They also did a decent job making the target unlikable without making her a cartoon character. She’s just a greedy banker who doesn’t like normal poor people.

I also just happen to like maps with only 1 target for whatever reason. The 2nd objective can be annoying but for whatever reason in the bank it isn’t. Maybe bc there are 2 ways to accomplish. 1 way is to basically eliminate the other 2 people only you’re not supposed to kill them. So that’s pretty Hitmanish (you can use nearly all the same methods you’d use to get them if they were the target except a sniper- and even that can be done if you don’t mind the rating loss) and the other is to rob the vault which is both fun and less tedious than the virus.

I also liked the scripted methods of getting to the boss. The one real missing opportunity was that there wasn’t a way to either get the love birds to try and rob the bank or maybe they would just go for it eventually on their own.

7 Likes

New York’s level design is great. Amazing setting, size, details, soundtracks. Only the bank robber disguise seemed a little underused, but overall fantastic. Maybe the location I created/played the most contracts for.

But I wouldn’t want another mission like that.
I find that one target is very limiting in terms of replayability. In fact, it plays more like an elusive target (a fun addition, but the main missions should be multiple targets IMO)
The bank objectives with the disks are pretty cool too, but I’d just prefer at least another target for NY.

Multiple targets are so much better because you can link one kill to another; sometimes killing one target limits the remaining options for killing the other(s), mission stories get more variation and often overlaps, etc.
I feel that the game is much more dynamic, creative and improvisational with multiple targets. Still, I agree with most of your post.

3 Likes

New Yorks’s great and easily my third favorite mission in the Game, right after Mumbai on the first Place and Haven Island on the Second.

The Music and Aestetic is great and pretty unique, The Target is pretty actually, because, unlike many Others she’s not really a Criminal or something like that. She’s kinda like Dino Bosco, so in much more realistic way and not so much over the Top.

Lastly, the Thing I really love about New York is it’s reuse of Assets in terms of NPC Faces from all the Maps, while also having New Ones including my favorite NPC Face of Hitman 2.

3 Likes

It’s funny how nobody in the building notices a man holding a sniper near the entrance not even hiding his presence. It’s a good map but not the best. I do like these medium sized maps.

1 Like