Welcome to the states, 47.
This should be a straightforward operation. We need you to penetrate an abandoned amusement park, locate the owner and take him out. The target, is a Joseph Clarence, also known as “Swing King”.
An accident involving one of the rides at the park a few years back forced him to close it down. Our client has made a special request that the photograph you have in your possession be the “last thing the target sees.” Mr. Clarence has some how become involved in a narcotics distribution ring, so the park may still have some amusements.
Enjoy the ride, 47.
Worst Tutorial of the whole series. Way too long, too restrictive and simply not fun to play. Codename 47s and Silent Assassins Tutorials are short and sweet, and Contracts’ Tutorial isnt even necessary to play at all, as it should be.
Contracts tutorial always reminded me of a holodeck from star trek or the training room from Perfect Dark. Who were those people? Where did they come from? They must have been fake
One thing I did like about the level which is very anti “Hitman sandbox” style was that you are to show the photo to SwingKing. Obviously things like this would totally ruin the sandbox nature of the game, but in the tutorial it worked and showed us a side of the character we usually don’t see bc the sandbox levels are so fun they have become the main goal of the devs. Without this level we wouldn’t know that 47 will take contracts with added complications such as this photo thing at least once in a while.
I greatly dislike this tutorial level, more often then not I don’t get past this mission when wanting to replay BM. I often just give “up” because I can’t be bothered with this level. I really have to want to play BM for getting past this stage and I rarely want BM that much.
If BM’s tutorial level is bad then what do you call Contract’s Training level?
Also, what’s the issue here? Too linear? Well C47’s Training and SA’s The Gontranno Sanctuary have the same “problem” if you can even call it that. Most games have a linear tutorial level even though the rest of the game isn’t linear at all, heck, even Oblivion and Skyrim which are RPGs have a linear tutorial dungeon.
You can run through C47s Tutorial and skip everything within seconds, if you want to and in SA you only have to wait like a Minute until Vittorio arrives in the church.
Can’t compare that to the ~5-10 minute Martyrium you have to endure in BM. Like @Norseman said, I’ve also ended playthroughs there, just because it pisses me off so much lol.
I like Blood Money. I love Blood Money. I love to play it casually, or attempt to speedrun it… But as much as I love it, I don’t wanna replay Death of a Showman, okay?
While I completely understand people feeling tedious about the mission, I think it fullfills its role as a tutorial well. There´s a lot of new stuff and mechanics to show off after all (though whether it is better or worse to teach everything instead of letting the player find out during actual gameplay is of course a matter of preference). And personally I find it less tedious to play Death of a Showman then to go through Codename 47´s shorter and runthroughable training. It has a decent dark atmosphere and I have to give it credit for having one of the handful of targets I actually feel sorry for and feel reluctant to kill. Something that rarely happens for me in this series…
My bigger gripe with it is how unsuited it is for a SA approach and how - due to its linear design - it can give a false impression to first-time players about what the game is like. WoA´s ICA Facility learned from that mistake.
I liked SA’s tutorial level the most. Maybe it is unspectacular and linear, but I liked the feeling of it. Reminded me of Lara’s Mansion in old Tomb Raider games. I just like the thought of some “safe space” for the characters I play, some place where they can prepare for the exhausting missions to come. It’s also some kind to calm myself down. I miss these things in new games
This mission has an interesting backstory. Most of the time 47 is taking out killers, terrorists, etc. but this time is a guy who messed up badly and the grieving father of a victim wanted him taken out.
The level itself is extremely linear.
Do you save the hostage?
Do you kill the gang leader?
Shhh, no one saw my edit!
