Definite step up from the original Hitman. But still unnecessarily clumsy and obscure in places

This was a definite step up from the first entry in the series. The controls seemed a lot better laid out and intuitive. The graphics engine was slightly upgraded, although not too much because it came out only a couple of years after the original. This was also when it made the jump to multi-platform and consoles instead of being PC exclusive like the original. There was actually some hints and tutorials giving you ideas of what to do. But it still felt like a lot of the time the way forward was very unclear. But maybe I'm just stupid. The mission structure is a little looser so it is possible to make a mistake or two and recover to eventual success. Equipment is also done a little differently from the first whereas before, you had a set shopping list for each mission and you could buy what you could afford from what the ICA allowed you to (depending on how you did in previous missions). Now, you start off with a few basics and then any equipment you are carrying when a mission is finished will be brought back to your HQ and you can use it in any future missions. It seemed like a much better way of handling it to me. And the map got a huge upgrade now being able to show you all different areas, live enemy positions, labels and much more to help you plan the mission.

It's not all good though. The NPCs are still just a bit too keen-eyed sometimes and spot or hear things they really should not. And a lot of the times if someone spots you and thinks you look suspicious, then they will just start following you even if you hide and when they do, there's really no way to stop them and once they get a look at you, you're blown. The suspicion-ometer is a good addition though. You now have a rough idea of how suspicious your activities are and can adjust them accordingly. The early missions were definitely the hardest giving you a false sense of the difficulty. The later missions do get quite a lot easier and it is possible to just do flat out killing in a lot of them thankfully. But then there is a huge difficulty wall again right at the end, but that was to be expected really.

Overall, an improvement over the original for sure, but I still think the sequels will improve more from what I've heard. On to Blood Money next!