Hitman review: Episode One: 'truly captivating'

Hitman's barcoded hero is unflappable and cool which is more than can be said of the disconcerting heat being given off by our PS4 as we played it. If the sense of danger within the game wasn't enough to get the heart racing, then the feeling that our absorbing session with this terrifically confident game would end in flames almost finished us off.

Being warned by the PS4 that the console needed to be turned off felt like a major shot to our hearts and that says a lot about the first instalment of this episodic release. It is truly captivating, getting down to business in introducing the first of its two training missions and then never letting go once it has you hooked.

This is a game that gives you so much to do and think about that you fall into its arms like one of its many subdued victims. Your initial task is to seek and eliminate Kalvin Ritter who is on board a ship packed with rich and influential art dealers. Ritter, it transpires, is planning to rob a fair few arty artefacts in one final job, but he hasn't reckoned on our barcoded bald agent showing up and wreaking a bit of havoc before calming walking away.

This training mission introduces the player to some of the fundamentals of Hitman and it gives a solid taste of the free-flowing structure to come. It may be a small boat but the intimacy and the way in which you almost come to know many of the non-player characters works well – you soon learn positions and trends that help you to eventually pull of a successful hit.

As you walk around, you're able to find and collect an array of weapons, detonate fuseboxes, hear little quips from guests, make hasty decisions to snap necks and shoot, and miraculously swap clothes with victims in the blink of the fastest of eyes. You need to take care not to bump into people or arouse suspicion. Thankfully, you also get to clearly see who is most likely to blow your cover, a key element which allows you to better plan ahead.

Although the first pass of this training mission is linear, once its complete you are then asked to do it again but this time explore the myriad ways you can approach the kill. It is this rather than the fast actions of your trigger finger that makes you want to continue progressing into the small hours. You're encouraged to be creative and to explore. It's about experimenting with different techniques and learning from your mistakes.

The Cuban military base of the second tuition level sees Agent 47 targeting Jasper Knight, a US chess master exposed as a Soviet spy. You'll be eavedropping, subduing and hiding bodies in boxes and, in a jaw-dropping moment of incredible fun, using an ejection button to the most explosive of effects. And when you're done with all of that, you'll be taken to Paris for the main event – this is Episode 1 proper and it's absolutely stunning.

open image in gallery

You're only given this one map and so the idea is that you become very familiar with it, playing it over and over and over again. The good news is that it's a very large area – much more so than those training levels – and while you have just targets in your sights, you do have a very large number of ways in which you can dispatch of them. It was in thinking up and trying out these various killing narratives that the PS4 began to overheat: the tension was palpable in more ways than one, that's for sure.

Whether you are looking for poison, hoping for a straight out shooting, popping heads in toilets or crushing victims; whether you're in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower or at a packed fashion show; or whether you're just wandering around, taking your time, thinking things over and ratcheting up your own anxiety, this game is putting you in control. It's asking you to make decisions.

As long as you know how and when to get the hell out there when the need arises (and figure just when to switch your outfit – often, as it happens), you'll feel a real sense of accomplishment each and every time. Even when you fail and you're being shot at or escorted away, you feel you've made progress. It helps so much that the game looks amazing and gets you well and truly into the role and it doesn't really matter that the artificial intelligence isn't always up to scratch. We can't wait for episode two.