Picked up my copy of Hitman 3 today at retail stores (Australia tend to come a day early). Wanted to see what everyone thought about each level. BELOW WILL BE FULL DISCUSSION OF EACH LEVEL, SO BE WARNED.
Dubai: I was super impressed with this map. Initially worried it would be too small, the map felt the right size. Targets were interesting, lots of kill opportunities and mission stories beyond the 3 displayed. Really tight well designed level like Hokkaido. 9.5/10.
Dartmoor: 1 really good target feels much better than something like Ken Morgan and Jordan cross where one feels unnecessary. Optional objective is complicated, quite a big map, best mission story in the series. 9/10.
Berlin: I suspect this will end up being my favourite mission in the trilogy. Amazing setting. Seemingly infinite repayability. I also think it may be the biggest map I’ve seen. Huge and complex, with a lot of fun opportunities. 11 targets completely changes any runthrough. Sort of like sniper assassin but on foot. No complaints atm. 10/10.
Chongqing: May be controversial, but I think this is a relatively bad level. Beyond aesthetics I find the design unusual. Climbing a 5 story thin apartment building does not feel fun to me, like the Marrakech school. ICA facility is nice, but way too much hacking for my liking. Escape at the end I’m not fond of. Feels like it barely uses the city dynamic as well. Beyond the rain, I’d probably give it 6/10.
Argentina: Really surprised how much I like it. Vidal serving as Diana’s escort is a super cool premise. Both targets were interesting. Visually stunning, huge map. Can’t wait to explore it more. 9/10.
Romania: Great way to end the series. Can see it being very boring very quickly through. I appreciate it for what it is though. 5.5/10.
I have only done one play through of each map so far, as my progress is going to get reset, so no real point doing all the challenges now. Brief overview I’ll get into later (literally playing Mendoza this very second), so my biased rankings of the maps so far, favourite to least favourite:
Berlin: Fun, massive, tense, replayability, just as 2016 had Hokkaido and 2 had Miami in terms of creativity, 3 has Berlin.
Chongqing: the verticality, atmosphere and difficulty alone make this a great map. Like an unholy fusion of Bangkok, Hokkaido and Mumbai, but not as painful as that might sound.
Dartmoore: The murder mystery isnt that complicated as much as getting to the clues lol. Outside of that I sense a lot of potential from this map. Major New York Bank vibes from me.
Dubai: This isn’t really fair since I beat it so quick, but I don’t have much to say about it as a result.
More conclusive review later when alive actually finished, but I’m feeling way too hype right now to not give my 2 cents.
My first impression after 10 minutes of playing is that this is DLC as expected. No changes to anything really and the AI is still awful. I turned on a music system and an npc reported me which lead to me being shot without warning. Same old same old but with new locations . I’ll still have plenty of fun playing it I’m sure but it sucks to see more wasted potential for a third time running.
Dartmoor - awesome both in terms of opportunities and also exploring and routing the area
Berlin - I expect this to be a lot of people’s favourite, esp if you don’t like just following mission stories. Feels the most real out of any other level, my favourite do far.
Chonqguing - The level itself is awesome but I was dissapointed there was no good kills around either targets apart from the main ones. I think this will be my favourite in contracts mode.
Mendoza - My second favourite. A classic sandbox thats interesting to explore, the kills are very thought out, lots of stuff to do
Romania - Surprisingly good. For such a linear mission you can do a lot and I can’t wait to try out a suit only no ko run.
The story is actually good and the first one in the series I actually liked. Good job characterizing 47 without going over the top.
Romania surprised me perfectly! When you open that door and the music kicks in… completely stunned me! Tough, cool last level.
Since I couldn’t connect the entire time, I didn’t complete any challenges/unlock anything… but still had a great time playing!
Just finished my first playthrough, and thought it was fantastic. As I only played each level once replayability is still to be determined though (I loved a couple of missions in the previous game on first playthrough only to like them less and less over time due to replayability / design).
Instinctually I wanna say it’s the best of the bunch, though obviously I can’t really say that yet. All of the missions are stunning and have their own distinct identity. From a purely aesthetic point of view I think I like Chongqing the most. The neon light in the streets are just absolutely gorgeous.
The game has at least two really fun sniper kills, though one of them has me wondering if it really had to be so restrictive you have to be disguised as a gaucho in Mendoza… why?
Gameplay hasn’t changed massively, but it feels polished, and I appreciated some of the small quality of life changes (like opening doors and dumping bodies now being different buttons).
Loved the music, and the sound design is immaculate.
Right now I have two problems.
1.) Romania is too small and too linear.
2.) I don’t really like the gimmick of Berlin. (but maybe I’ll warm to it).
Played it from beginning to the end and it was brilliant, can’t say yet if it was better than the previous two but I definitely love it. It’s always overwhelming going into the games for the first time so I got lost more often than I can count.
Dubai might be the best one at first glance, I went through the game kinda quickly though. Most of the time I didn’t go for convoluted scripted kills so I’ve missed majority of the cool kill opportunities. Berlin is the only one which I played for a long time due to it having so many targets yet I didn’t even find four of them lol. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon too. The only bad mission is Romania and that was expected. Luckily it still has some options, I don’t know how SO is going to work out yet though.
Didn’t expect much from the story conclusion and yeah, it’s nothing special. Quite bad, honestly.
Now I’m just wishing to get my progress transferred so I don’t have to lose any more than I’ve just done.
Damn 11 targets?? I had a quick go on it but waiting for progress transfer to work. How do you locate that many targets without knowing who they are? I really love the location but 11 targets sounds crazy. I bet it will be a good location for contracts mode.
That’s still alot but better than 11. How do you find them? I killed one at the start then another one in a toilet who spotted me before I noticed him .
Just keep an eye on enforcers, I think they’re enforces to all disguises. And there are 10, not 11. The 11th target challenge is about killing all of them (not in the same run because after killing five the rest escape and become non-targets).
I’m pretty sure there are 11, maybe Price the first guy does not count on challenges.
Also it’s possible to kill agents even if they are not targets, I think.
. I’ll still have plenty of fun playing it I’m sure but it sucks to see more wasted potential for a third time running.
It’s always overwhelming going into the games for the first time so I got lost more often than I can count.