There’s just something about sneaking up behind someone for the kill. You can see them but they can’t see you. Your muffled footsteps don’t reach their ears. You’re like a ghost, and when you cut their throat or snap their neck or bash them over the head with a hammer--there are plenty of alternatives--it’s a thrill unlike any other...but we’re supposed to be talking about video games! Some of the best action games out there are those that deal with stealth and deception. While it can be fun to go in guns blazing, there’s something to be said for someone who can pull off a smooth, undetected hit. TGR gets that, so we’ve picked out some good assassin-themed games that can be picked up on the cheap. And remember kids, don’t try this at home!

Hitman: Blood Money (PC, 360, PS2, Xbox)

While Eidos has been markedly silent about a new entry into the Hitman series, it still remains as one of the more solid gaming series in the market. It excels very much in the way that it gives you choices on how to go about completing any given mission. If you want you can run in, two pistols in hand, and duke it out with the guards John Woo style, you can slink past them and simply strangle your target, or you can go about things somewhere in between. Best of all, the entire series is relatively cheap. If you have a PS2, or a PS3 with backwards compatibility like myself, you can literally play this entire excellent series for thirty bucks. Sadly we don’t all have these things, so today we’re just going to talk about the last entry in Hitman games, Blood Money.

Blood Money is notable not just because it’s the only game in the series to make it to a current-gen console, but bucause it’s the cream of the Hitman crop. The last release in the series, it’s a wonderful culmination of everything in the franchise, taking all the different features that had accumulated throughout the series and building upon them even more. The other games offered a lot of choice as to how you could execute their missions, but to some extent they were flawed. Hitman 2 featured a level of difficulty that even on normal settings was borderline insane, while Contracts was almost too easy, feeling much more like a shoot-em-up than anything else. Bloody Money balanced out the act, taking those best features of the first few games and refining them. I am not lying when I say that Hitman: Blood Money is probably one of, if not the best game based around being an assassin that has ever been made.

It has aged some, of course. For a PS2 game it was, and still is gorgeous, but the higher end 360 and PC versions certainly don’t match up quite as well anymore with more current games. That being said, the graphics are perfectly adequate and detailed and are the kind of thing only someone obsessed with visuals would complain about. The sound is excellent, featuring a nice, orchestrated soundtrack and excellent voice acting. More notably the controls are excellent; well-mapped and responsive the game feels very comfortable when played in any of it’s possible forms. Even when precision sniping, something I hate doing with a console controller, there are few complaints.

I could probably go on for ages about how good this game is, it’s truly one that I personally love and couldn’t recommend enough to people looking for a game on the subject of knocking people off. The amount of creativity it allows the player placed it well ahead of it’s time and it still readily competes with the best that the current generation has to offer. It likely will continue to do so until the next Hitman game comes along. The only thing I can find remotely wrong with the game is that it doesn’t have Olga Kurylenko walking around naked throughout as in the film adaptation of the series, but hey, nothing is perfect.

Amazon.com (Note:Used Amazon prices are subject to change)

Used- 15.49 (360)

New- 10.98 (PC)

Used- 5.00 (PC)

New- 28.24 (PS2)

Used- 4.71 (PS2)

Gamestop

Used- 19.99 (360)

Used- 9.99 (PS2)

Used- 14.99 (Xbox)

Download- 19.99