Hitman Go: Definitive Edition, the PlayStation 4 and Vita port of Square Enix Montreal’s mobile spin-off, board game style take on Modern Day Assassin.
You control agent 47 around a grid, with each move that you makethe enemies also move. Green colored guards will spin 180-degrees, while yellow men will walk along a pre-determined axis; blue goons will remain static, waiting for you to pop into their view.
You move between nodes, with your objective being to reach a specific end point. However, if you move into a space that’s directly in front of an enemy, they’ll knock you off the board; surprise them, of course, and you’ll have the upper-hand. The game, then, has you experimenting with the release’s very mechanical rules to reach your objective; if you move up and down enough times, you may find your foe’s exactly where you want him.
But while things start out simple, they quickly get more complex. Rocks and tin cans allow you to push and pull opponents into different patterns, while trap doors allow you to scale large distances in a single move.
And, this being the Definitive Edition, there’s quite a lot here to work your way through. There are seven chapters in total, the bulk of which comprise of 15 levels apiece. Within these stages are sub-objectives, too, which task you with rescuing briefcases or completing a level in a certain number of moves.
The problem is that the difficulty takes a little while to truly ramp up, and you’ll breeze through the first few chapters without much resistance at all. Moreover, when you do feel impeded, the game can feel a little too trial-and-error; some solutions are fixed, and thus you’re left puzzling out the exact path that the title wants you to take, rather than really doing any experimentation of your own.
Fortunately, the presentation is sublime. A combination of great image quality and really soft lighting helps give the release an amazing atmosphere. There’s some really nice music, too – particularly the operatic themes that complement “hit” missions where you must off a designated target.
And it’s all made the transition to the PS4 with brilliance. The touch pad is also a very viable option if you like.
