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?