So I have nothing better to do than to play the original Hitman. It's a fairly interesting game, nothing like the later games from what I understand. It also has some rather flawed design choices.
Mission 1
This one's simple. I start off with a sniper rifle in a briefcase and have to kill one person. I take an elevator up onto a roof, wait for my target, shoot him in the head, and holy crap there is a helicopter.
Next time I drop the gun before the helicopter shows up. So far so good.I wouldn't expect anything more difficult from the introductory stage.
Mission 2
I have to plant a bomb in a car. Unfortunately, the game gives no no clue how to accomplish this. I try several different methods, all of which lead to me dying in spectacular firefights with triad members. After several deaths I finally strangle the driver and steal his uniform. It's much easier to get near the car that way. Two more deaths occur before I find the right place to stand to plant the bomb. And then one of the guards sees through my disguise. After dying one last time I figure out that I'm supposed to stop pretending to be the driver after planting the bomb.
The targets die.
Mission 3
Now this is an interesting one. I have to kill one target and take his stuff, sneak weapons into a resturant, and kill another target. Unfortunately, this is where I learn one important fact about this game. You can't kill police no matter how badly they deserve it. Well, you can, but the penalty for doing so is huge.
The first time I run around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for my first target and the restaurant. I find the resturant but not the first target. Mission is failed. The second time I take my time and get to know the layout of the map. Mission is failed again. The fourth time I find my first target and stalk him all the way to the resturant to learn his route. There are too many people around to risk simply offing him. The fifth time I off him at the wrong spot. A civilian sees the murder and the mission is failed. The sixth time I succeed, take his clothes and his pendent, and get into the resturant.
I know that I'll be frisked at the door so drop my gun outside of the bathroom window before I go in. I immediately go into the bathroom I climb out to retrieve my weapon. I'm spotted by a cop and get into a shootout. Mission failed and ignoble death. Next time I plant the gun in the bathroom before slitting the Red Dragon's throat. It works, but I still have the problem of every cop in the city trying to kill him.
After a couple more tries I come up with a brilliant plan. Just run like hell to the exit. Surprisingly, it works.
Mission 4
My recent labors have paid off. I now have a chance to go after the first boss. In order to do this I must infiltrate his resturant, rescue a CIA agent, rescue a prostitute, steal a statute, give the statue to an apothecary, disguise myself as a waiter, and poision his food.
Let me tell you right now that this is where I stopped playing for a year. This stage was that bad. But I did eventually beat it.
After stealthing my way through with a garrote and judicious use of disguises well over a hundred and 20 times, dying at different points each time, I hated that prostitute enough to just shoot her in the head on principle. But she had information that I needed. But I finally got the poison, killed a waiter, and failed miserably. I would later learn that the poison never works, it's just a waste of time. And at that point I just said screw it.
The next time I played I stealth killed several guards for the sole purpose of loading up on SMGs. I walked right inthe the boss's home, pulled out an uzi, and emptied it into his bodyguard's chest. I then fought my way through several lesser guards and emptied a different uzi into the boss' chest. My target's dead so I look for the boat that is supposed to be my getaway vehicle. I find it, kill it's guard, and attempt to exit. And the game tells me that I havn't completed my mission.
At this point I barely resist the urge to assassinate my keyboard.
The next time I decide to just screw stealth and systematically kill everyone. In my attempt to do so I discover an interesting fact. If you're diguised guards won't immediately suspect you of murder unless they see it. Though I die horribly time time around, this experience forms the basis of my strategy.
I walk up behind the guard near the bathroom, slit his throat, take his clothes and his gun, and then I fire the weapon once. Another guard rushes in, he sees the nude body on the floor, rushes to investigate it, and gets a bullet in the head. Rinse and repeat. The guards just keep piling up.
When I run out of guards within earshot I move on. I find another guard to kill out of view bt within earshot and I keep on killing until the guards stop coming again. By the time I finish there isn't a single living enemy on the first floor.
I'm less through in the basement. I leave two guards alive. But they're so out of the way they'll never stumble on the bodies of the others.
I don't kill anyone in the brothel, too many witnesses, and I avoid the guard quarters for now. There is no sense making things too complicated. The hooker tells my that the statue is in the storage room, which I've already cleared out. That's easy enough. I get the poison and I wait for the boss to arrive. Somehow he doesn't notice the fact that all his guards are missing, and none of the waiters have reported all the corpses near the restroom. Again, I poison him with lead, the boss first followed by the bodyguard. Each of them gets a full Uzi. By this time I have about a dozen of them in my pocket. Getting to the boat is surprisingly easy, but before I do I put a bullet in the Madame's head, just to show my disapproval of sex slavery, and then change costume.
Unfortunately, I learn later that the pimp-woman counted as a civilian.
And so I do all that again just to get a better score.
The trial and error missions are as annoying as hell. It would have been nice to have time to stake things out. But they're understandable. The annoying thing is the truly ludicrous requirements of the fourth mission and having to rescue the same hooker over and over again every time I failed with the same unskipable cutscenes.
The AI is simultaneously near omniscient and absurdly stupid. If one guard sees me doing something strange then all giuards know it almost instantly. If the guards know that I'm disguised then everyone will be able to recognize me even if they shouldn't be able to. Yet I can be standing waist-deep in headshotted corpses with a recently-fired gun in my hands and no one will think that strange. They just bend over and present me with the backs of their heads like they want me to blow their brains out, too.