Hitman 2: Sniper Assassin- The Pen and the Sword

I don't help people. I kill them.

If there is one location that I feel is criminally underexplored in the new Hitman games, it's Asia. (Which is weird considering that the key finale of the first game is set in Hokkaido.)  But I wanted to get a chance to feel and experience the metropolis of Tokyo or the rural straits in China. Instead, IOI saw fit to dump us all in a shipping port for our trip to Singapore in 'Hitman 2: Sniper Assassin- The Pen and the Sword'. This was also the first map that IOI released after the main game as downloadble content, so expectation were high as to what we could expect.

Once again picking up on a completely separate story from the main game, 'The Pen and Sword' follows 47 conducting a mission that is very different to his usual MO; he is tasked with conducting a rescue op. Han Ldong, former Khandanyang national poet, had recently suffered from a bad case of kidnapping, along with his wife, from their nice suburban home. (Which is in no way a slightly redecorated house from Whittleton Creek.) The perpetrators are Re Thak, Lhom Kwai and Jin Noo, all members of a military outfit known as the Heavenly Guard. They have kidnapped the former national icon for the crime of defecting to America during a UN meeting and intend to drag him back to Khandanyang in order to suffer a public execution, which will conveniently coincide with the birthday celebration's of the country's dictator; Sun Po. ("Ah you guys, you got me exactly what I wanted!")

Due to, what I can only assume are, substantial travel sanctions, Han Ldong and his wife have been smuggled from America to Singapore in a shipping container where they await transfer to a ship bound for their homeland. (Wait, you can get to Khandanyang from Singapore? Guess that means this fictional country isn't an allegory for 'North Korea' in the slightest. You got us beat there, IOI.) The Heavenly guard are keeping close watch over their birthday gift, and will not hesitate to murder him if they feel in danger, so 47 has to be either discreet or quick-on-the-pull as he shoots them down and rescues the artist. Just like he was paid to do by... the United Nations? Diana never mentions the client and it has me wondering, once again, both how the contract/client relationship works and how well-know the ICA is. I mean, would the US military contact the ICA to pull of this rescue once they realized that it would be on international waters? Or did Han Ldong take out a preemptive contract to save his own life on the assumption that his past would catch up to him? In either case, who's paying? Ah, in the end who cares; 47 is just happy for the excuse to dust off his old Druzhina 34 and get to work.


As serendipity would have it, it will take exactly 15 minutes for Han Ldong's ride to turn up, (What a coincidence) which means that 47 has ample time to systematically wipe out Hantu Port in the name of democratic freedom. And players may want to spend a good portion of those 15 minutes admiring the impressive view that IOI has crafted for this particular 'looking glass' level. This time the action takes place at the early hours of the morning, but everything is still very visible due to the busy lights of an active port alongside the shimmering gold of waking dawn. For a map that takes place entirely in a heavily industrial area, IOI went out of their way to make the whole place still looks picturesque. (Although in an entirely different way to Himmelstein.)

This time around, IOI changed up the mission to ensure that there was someone to protect, and this changes the dynamic of how you would handle the level, significantly. (Or rather, how you would play through with a specific playstyle.) Whilst in 'The Last Yardbird' you could feasible go loud straight away and pick of anyone who tried to escape, here you have to constantly worry about your ability to take out those around Ldong at a moment's notice. (I love typing that name.) I've always appreciated IOI's ability to change up things in small, yet significant, ways and find that this is another decent example of that.

Plus, IOI made some changes to the pathing of their targets to ensure that you spend a lot less time waiting for people to get to where you need them to be. Yes, there are still some opportunities that require patience, (Such is the unfortunate consequence of time-based mission design.) but with the spacing of the characters and the increased number of 'body hiding' spots, you can always keep yourself entertained by going after someone else to kill time.

For this particular level, IOI introduced the ability for players to use their sniper fire to pull-off very 'puzzle-based', and wholly unrealistic, actions. One of my favourites is the ability to operate buttons in the environment by shooting them. (Because I'm sure that a 308. calibre bullet fired from a high powered sniper is the ideal way to operate precision tools.) Using this method, you can operate the falling arm of a boom gate, position (and drop) a huge crane carrying a shipping container, and, my favourite, open up a loading bay door and then proceed to shoot some poor soul into it before it closes.

Hantu port is, in general, a far more interactable environment then Himmelstein, with many more opportunities to completely alter a target's path if you want to get them in the ideal position. (More akin to how things work in the main game.) Plus, it seems that IOI wanted to provide a far more 'fun' things to play around with, such as the slew of shipping containers that you can open by shooting their padlock. Most open up new locations to hide bodies and one hides a pretty cool, if loud to operate, surprise inside.

For me, Hantu Port is what I envision why I think of the Hitman experience translated into a sniper-centric game world. IOI seemed to have improved a lot in transferring the lessons and tricks that the learned from working on the main game into the world of Sniper Assassin, and it made for a more enjoyable level. All we could ask for from these kinds of levels now, would be for them to have a more dynamic level design that really takes advantage of the 'hands-off' level layout. We'll see how that turns out when we go to Siberia for the last Sniper Assassin map.