Wow, 10 years already?. It seems like it was such a short time ago when I beat it for the first time on the PS2.
I played the Hitman games in order from the first one and I remember that Blood Money gave me a completely different feel. I used to clumsily try to beat every level on the previous games, regardless of my score, for the most part, and I was satisfied with just doing an average score since the controls felt so clunky and the conditions to not be detected were just annoying as hell.
Blood Money may have been my first time with a Stealth video game where I felt like I could do it, I could strive for perfection. You CAN get Silent Assassin. It's difficult and may require a lot of patience but the game is incredibly fair and as long as you give yourself time to learn the intricacies of every mission, you can do it.
My fondest memories with the game are:
The mission in Chile, I remember standing behind the old man playing the cello (or maybe violin?, don't remember) with the piano wire ready...but the music he was playing was so beautiful that I waited until he finished. Haha, it was quite magical.
The Heaven and Hell mission was so fucking refined and classy. The whole enviroment for both felt so interesting and unique. Pretending to be the target's boyfriend to kill her was also classy as hell.
The mission in the Vegas hotel (which I think is one of the best levels in stealth games, period) has a lot of options for the kills, but my favorite order is:
1. Kill the scientist in the elevator
2. Kill the buyer on the way to his room.
3. Jumping from the window of the room next to the scientist' to his room, killing the guard on the sofa, calling the middle-eastern boss on the phone that is inside the room and finally, sniping him from the window.
I could go on and on and on.
This is easily one of the best, most refined stealth games out there and no other game has made me feel like such a classy assassin.
Long live Blood Money!
