Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal
Another surgical strike from Feral Interactive
$14.99
From www.feralinteractive.com
Needs iPad/iOS 16 or later HITMAN: BLOOD MONEY — REPRISAL revives IO Interactive’s 2006 stealth assassination game in a way that will quash any doubts you might have about playing a PS2–era game in 2024.
Blood Money was the Hitman series entry that introduced many of the interactions that have made the more recent games great. You get the sandbox–like levels, filled with multiple, improvised ways to off your target. You get rewards for clean kills and for not being noticed. And you get the ability to climb over low obstacles, which Agent 47 didn’t possess in earlier games. There’s also now a minimap, more obvious alerts if you’re spotted, and Instinct Mode, a visual overlay grafted on from more recent titles that lets you see through walls and plan your route to the target accordingly. There’s also a new over–the–shoulder camera view that makes aiming much easier.
ADAPTED FOR MOBILE
Blood Money was good in 2006 and it remains good now, but what really buoys Reprisal is the way it has been converted to work on the touchscreen. It’s still a game you’re going to want a Bluetooth controller for, though there’s keyboard and mouse support on iPad for that classic PC game feel — and Feral Interactive has done an excellent job welding touch controls onto the game.
They’re fully customizable, with presets for left–handers, adjustable size and sensitivity, and you can set things like auto–reloading of weapons and hot–swapping without having to go to the inventory. There are also graphical options that will improve the frame rate all the way to a solid 90fps, but at the expense of graphical fidelity.
What it doesn’t have is a great visual improvement. There was already an HD remaster of the game, released on PS3– generation consoles, and Reprisal doesn’t take things much further. The enhancement of the game comes in quality– of–life updates, such as the target–spotting Instinct Mode. A somewhat ponderous shooter about dressing as a clown and firing precisely one shot has become an essential mobile title. IAN EVENDEN