Hitman: Episode Two takes you to the sunny Italian coastal town of Sapienza, a dense location full of challenges and packed with opportunities for the creative assassin. Track down Silvio Caruso and destroy a deadly virus in this multi-layered mission. This new episode includes new challenges, targets, weapons, gear, starting locations, stash points and location mastery as well as a whole Mediterranean town to explore...

The second part of the new Hitman episodic game sees you travelling to Italy. Your mission is to sneak inside a heavily guarded mansion and assassinate the creator of a deadly virus, his assistant who could restart his work and destroy virus so that no one else can replicate it.

As with the first installment (which you'll need to already own if you want to play this episode), you have almost endless options in your method to get the job done. Try not to kill innocents and guards just doing their jobs, and try to be as inconspicuous as possible... or you could go in all guns blazing and try and keep one step ahead of those hunting you - you won't last five minutes though.

Once again, like the previous location in Episode 1, there are plenty of fun things to see and do; lots of new weapons to find and try out; and many side missions to discover. One of the best ways to start the game is to spend a little time getting to know the layout of the town, before you head into the mansion. There's a church, sea front, sewers, shops and lots of apartments that you can break into. These locations offer up a wealth of new weapons and hints on how to enter the mansion unobserved.

Once inside it's time to explore the layout of the rooms and grounds as well as acquiring the location of your targets. To be fair, I found offing the first target quite simple - but that was thanks to luck more than anything. I killed him by accidentally stumbling on an exploding golf ball. I was hoping to send the poor fella insane by making him think his dead mother was still alive, but despite getting the chair to constantly rock, and playing her favourite record on her gramophone, I couldn't get him to come up to her room by pushing the servants bell that was in there.

There's a lot of replayabilty built in that will keep you coming back for more - either to discover new ways to off your targets, or to generally just wander around having fun. Why not try and distract the audience while you poison the street performers water and then steel his clothes; find the strange costume inside the mansion and sneak around without anyone spotting you; take a job working for the mansion's chef; or destroy the bell tower of the local church.

The majority of the game will see you sneaking around and trying to find disguises that will allow you into another part of the house and even then you'll have to be careful not to be spotted by a co-worker who doesn't recognise your face.

As with the last installment you can hide from any suspicious workers in the wardrobes and chests dotted around the rooms. These also come in handy if you knock out a guard and don't want the body being found.

Sapienza sets a high standard for future episodes to follow.

9

Darren Rea