Hitman: Blood Money

General Information

Most of the basic game mechanics are properly explained in the tutorial, so not everything will be mentioned here. Only some of the less-clear aspects of the game will be covered.

Rankings/Rewards

Rankings

Upon completing a level, you will receive a rating title and bonus cash, depending on how well you carried out your objective. Although you can definitely approach each mission with a "shoot first, ask questions later" style, the game discourages this kind of behaviour by giving you less cash and lower rankings. On the other hand, if you manage to get through the mission stealthily, only killing your targets and escaping unseen, you will get more money to be spent on upgrades (see table of contents for more info).

The smallest sum of money you can get as a Ranking Bonus is 0$, which is basically what you'll receive for a massive body count and plenty of witnesses...interestingly, if you kill everyone in the level, you actually receive a 1000$ bonus reward. The highest amount of money you can get is 150,000$, which is awarded for the coveted and difficult to obtain "Silent Assassin" ranking, which can apparently only be obtained if you kill only the specific targets (no bystanders or guards) in a minimum amount of time.

Generally, if you wish to obtain high rankings and obtain more money at the end of the level, you'll need to keep your body count as low as possible, and definitely make sure not to get caught killing someone. Setting off a bomb that kills several people will lower your ranking, obviously, but opening fire with a gun and killing that same number of people will hurt your ranking even more.

You should also note that the two primary aspects of your ranking are Noise and Violence. While you will obviously need to use a little violence in order to complete your mission, unnecessary violence involving non-mission critical NPCs will lower your ranking. Noise is quite self-evident: firing shotguns or high powered rifles will get you noticed. Bombs are a major hurt to this category, since they cause a lot of noise, raise much attention, and can likely cause a bit of collateral damage. Even so, they are the best way to finish off a target in certain cases, so you should use them in some situations, but carefully.

Rewards

In addition to the rankings, you can also get extra cash rewards based on your performance during a mission. Factors which determine your final cash purse include:

• Objectives: Obviously, completing the primary hit gets you money...this is the biggest factor in your cash reward, even more so than ranking. For this reason, even if you make critical mistakes in a mission that kill your ranking, but still complete the hit, you'll still rake in a fair sum of cash. Certain missions have optional objectives that will get you more cash.

• Damage Control: The more civilians you kill and the more people witness your acts, the more bribe money the Agency has to pay to cover your tracks. Note that this is a penalty. You start off with no sum of money in the Damage Control category, but you'll start losing money, depending on how much chaos you cause (if any). With enough damage done and enough people killed, this penalty can quite possibly surpass 100,000$. If you cover your tracks well enough, this should be a minor sum, or cost you nothing at all.

• Custom Weapons Retrieval: If you leave behind one of your custom weapons in a mission, you will be charged 5,000$ to retrieve it. This fee will be multiplied per weapon. If you can restrict yourself to the Silverballer and SMG, there should be no problem here, as both weapons are easily concealable.

• Suit Retrieval: If you exit a mission wearing anything but the custom-made suit you always start off in, you will be charged a penalty of 5,000$.

Notoriety

During each mission, you have the chance to earn "notoriety" based on your actions. The more witnesses you leave to your actions, the more likely the press and police will publish information about your crimes. The more notoriety you get (and this adds up level by level), the easier it will be for police, guards, civilians and pretty much any other NPC to recognize your face. Thus, if you have high notoriety, you can expect the authorities to be much less forgiving of any odd action on your part. If you manage to max out the notoriety, then most guards or policemen in any given area will simply open fire when they spot you, regardless of what you're doing, thus rendering the possibility to play through the game stealthiliy essentially impossible.

Here are some key strategies for finishing a mission with little or no notoriety gain:

• Leave no witnesses to your crimes. Try to commit murders out of the line of sight of anyone but yourself and your target. If someone happens to see you committing a murder, kill them before they manage to escape and raise the alarm. If you don't outright kill a witness but rather knock them out with your fists or a syringe sedative, make sure to dump their body in a location that isn't regularly visited by NPCs where the body shouldn't be found. The knocked out NPC will never wake up of his/her own accord, but will be revived if their body is found, and then you've got a witness on your hands and a raised alarm. More trouble than it's worth, so either hide them well, or if that's not an option, finish them off with a silenced pistol headshot. The witness rule does not apply if the person is knocked out from behind, as they do not see your face and therefore can't identify you.

• Avoid cameras and CCTV monitors. If you get caught on tape in the vicinity of a murder, regardless of whether the crime is actually caught on tape, you'll raise some unwanted attention. Either completely avoid cameras (a feat difficult to accomplish on a first runthrough of a mission, as you're not familiarized with the map), or find the security office and steal the tape there to prevent it from being checked.

• If you happen to obtain a large amount of notoriety during a game, then you'll be able to pay for your sins, so to speak, by purchasing indulgences from the Agency. If your amount of notoriety is small, then a little hush money paid to the civilians at the scene of the crime should guarantee your security. If you've been downright genocidal, you'll need to purchase a complete identitiy makeover. Very expensive (in the neighbourhood of about 200,000$), but it will wipe the slate clean and allow you to resume your criminal career carefree.

Weapons/Equipment

Silverballer

The one must have piece of equipment. While the other weapons in 47's arsenal do have their uses, few are as precise and deadly as the Silverballer, especially considering that most of your kills will happen at close range. Most of your emphasis should be on silence and accuracy, so acquire silencers and aim stabilizers as soon as the upgrades become available.

Upgrades

• Low Velocity Ammo: Essential. More silence and less recoil - both advantages. You'll probably have this upgrade through most of the game, so make sure to get it early on.
• Silencer Type 1: A good early silencer for your weapon. Excludes Silencer Type 2 and Long Slide, but you don't need to worry about those for a while.
• Extra Ammo: You usually won't need to fire more than 2-3 bullets per mission if you play strategically, but extra ammo is always handy just in case.

Fully upgraded, dual-wielded Silverballers are lethal, if not overkill to some extent.

• Laser Sight: No reason not to get this...the little targeting dot on the back of your enemy's head is useful when firing from medium range.
• Rail Mount: Does nothing on its on, but the mount is required for scopes. Not worth buying until you actually unlock a Silverballer scope for purchase.
• Magnum Ammo: Noisier and has more recoil than low velocity ammo, but it can penetrate doors. However, if you need to fire through doors, than you should probably be using a weapon more powerful than the Silverballer. Still, it can come in handy when you're attempting to shoot enemies that are pursuing you when you can effectively use a door as a barrier. In any other situation, you're unlikely to know that someone is even on the other side of the door.
• Dual Action: The ever popular dual-wielded pistols. Unfortunately, these two guns fire simultaneously when you pull the trigger. That's great if you need to drop someone who's aware of your presence, but if you're aiming for a stealthy headshot, that's one bullet which misses, and the resulting noise may very well alert other enemies of your position. If that's what you're attempting, you're much better off simply using a silenced .45 pistol. Another con of this upgrade is that it effectively doubles your gun reload time.
• Long Slide: Gives better precision and less recoil....but it can't be equipped at the same time as a silencer, making it a somewhat pointless upgrade.
• Red Dot Sight: Provides a small amount of zoom and better precision, but it unfortunately can't be used with a scope. Still, it is a good idea to equip this until you unlock the scope with the last set of upgrades and use it until then, since there is no better solution available.
• Large Clip: Very useful, doubling the capacity of your clips.
• Silencer Type 2: Maximum silenced. Essential for a stealthy approach involving Silverballer(s).
• Full Auto Fire : This upgrade adds recoil and lets you choose to fire automatically. If you're using the Silverballer with extreme care and precision, opting for headshots, then this is going to be overkill. If you intend to upgrade it to the point where it becomes SMG-like...why not just use it as an SMG? Probably one of the worst upgrades.
• Scope Type 1 : Oddly named, as it is the only actual Silverballer scope you can buy. It gives a bit more zoom than the Red Dot Sight and better aiming precision. It's not exactly going to turn your Silverballer into a sniper rifle, but it'll allow for headshots from a rather long distance, when required.

Work in progress

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