3/5 ★ – jdong6's review of HITMAN 2.

Hitman 2 is pretty much an extension of the first - there are minor improvements here and there but by and large the missions are of equal quality, and the sandbox very similar in execution. In some ways I liked the levels of the first Hitman more, but since the first was such a great execution of a social stealth sandbox, these incremental improvements still make Hitman 2 great to play. -- Gameplay Spoilers -- Nightcall: A really great tutorial - one that feels more engaging than the tutorial from the first Hitman, and one that guides the player rather than explicitly tells them how to solve problems. The Finish Line: A pretty standard (good) Hitman mission on par with Paris or Sapienza from the first Hitman. Has the same problem with some maps where each target feels distant, making the map feel like several smaller maps stitched together rather than a cohesive sandbox. Great characterisation of Robert Knox, at least. Three-Headed Serpent: Similar to the Finish Line in terms of quality - problems are a little more exacerbated (3 targets) and it feels like three distinct levels as a result. Chasing a Ghost: My least favourite mission. Finding the Maelstrom was okay, and made great use of the purity of the sandbox. The other two targets felt isolated in their locations. I liked how difficult it was to get a disguise initially, but this sort of tapers off towards the end. Another Life: A bit better than Chasing a Ghost, though with less of an emphasis on social stealth and more of an emphasis on classic guards and patrols. Having a target stroll around on the street was a neat twist, but not a challenging one. Overall: The game is best when mixing in the purity of the sandbox with the slightly more linear mission stories - I used a mix of both throughout my playthrough, but felt like the mission stories didn't have nearly as much challenge as they did in the first game (maybe I'm just better at stealth games now), so I began to avoid them a bit more towards the end. I'm not sure how well the sandbox reacts to doing mission stories out of order, which is something that felt much improved in Hitman 3. Story is nonsensical as always and might as well be a write-off. Hitman is great as a pure social sandbox, I just find other stealth games (Dishonored, MGSV) to be more compelling - they are pretty much completely different executions of the stealth genre though - and Hitman is about gaining tools to infiltrate and kill rather than having them all accessible at the start. It's almost like the problems it gives you have a limited degree of complexity due to how deliberately limited the tools and setting can be - most stealth encounters can be boiled down to "two guards, an overflowing tap, and a wardrobe".