I always remembered how Jeff Gerstmann used to speak about how he wanted his James Bond games to be more than a shooter but you have a gun AND a gadget. I always felt the same way, as if there was a great James Bond game out there never quite made, with all of them just trying to chase the Goldeneye nostalgia.
I realized the first time I played Bangkok how this IS that game I was waiting for, and how that is one of the reasons I was loving the game so much. This is not that previous Hitman levels were less "Bond-mission like" [in fact I would say the opposite], but this is where I first realized it. It was when I checked into my hotel room and called room service that it all triggered.
I guess my point is, this game would need very little conceptual changes to be a James Bond game. Honestly these games have almost the same sensibilities. Obviously this is a bit more focused on the assassin aspect of Bond, where Bond's objectives tend to be more focused on intel gathering or stopping something bad. However he is not above being a hitman as well. Obviously the spirit, story and objective would be different but you get the general idea.
Hitman does take costumes to the extreme, but as someone who recently just watched through almost all the Bond movies, Bond CONSTANT costumes. From simple blending in as a guard, to being in a place under an assumed alias, impersonating a dignitary, to the more absurd You Only Live Twice "Japanese Husband" costume[I still am not sure what he was even trying to do in that section of the movie...], to Rodger Moore's extreme silly costumes [These ones get hitman level absurd], to even Craig's more recent one few he had. While Bond does often simply introduce himself as Bond, he also is constantly taking on other identities to sneak in throughout the series.
The biggest one for me is in all this I am going into the same sort of locations I could see Bond expected to sneak into [as he often did in many a movie]. I could see a movie where I show up at the front game of a Paris fashion show, and sneak my way through costumes and other means into the deeper areas to find a secret super evil conspiracy auction up top [in the James Bond universe that auction would probably be hosted by SPECTRE for example.. which honestly after seeing the end of Hitman has a Spectre-equivalent]. Bond is constantly in these Italian cities or just general mansions of this sort like Sapienza for one reason or another sneaking around, investigating, or schmoozing. The general's area of Marrakesh along with Colorado has that feel of when he on occasion sneaks into the Russian bases and whatnot that happens from time to time in the films, or just general other military-like settings. Plus the rest of Marrakesh has a feel of a lot of parts of other movies. Finally Japan is VERY much to me sort of a secret Spectre high end base type situation. Heck the parallels with the Japan hospital and On Her Majesty's Secret service are rather crazy honestly.
Not to mention the constant absurd level of deaths and one liners that this game is full of such as the movies as well. I can imagine a number of things in this is probably Bond inspired anyway.
Original personality Bond such as in the first book he was written in is actually a very close personality match to 47 honestly. This is where the movies were mostly bad about though. This was hinted at a few times in some early movies, and finally they got back to Bond's original personality more in later years, but he did become too much rich playboy spy instead of how he was originally envisioned as effectively a very similar to agent 47 personality.
There are obvious things missing, like Car chases [eh when have those ever been that good in video games in the spy style anyway, feel free to leave those out as they would just be between level sequences anyway], More bond-like gadgets [such as the exploding cell phone this game has], bond using sex to get information and whatnot [one of my least favorite parts of how this was handled in the movies anyway. Despite Moore being my favorite bond, I hate how he just becomes rich playboy spy at a point. I much prefer when they put the original book Bond personality into his character in this regard which is only sort of hinted at in early movies until they finally got to Craig], and a few others. Those are minor things that I could care less about. The point is Hitman approximates the whole "spying" experience of a Bond film on a scene. MOST importantly they just shoot you in this game. The one BIG thing Hitman differs with is no one ever captures you every other scene and puts you in an overly complicated escapable trap or prison. I am fine with leaving this part out for gameplay purposes haha.
My point is obviously they are not one to one games, but I get that "Bond feeling" while playing them. Almost as if I could squint my eyes and if the objectives were slightly different, and the writing of course was a bit different with a different character model, I could basically be playing a sweet Bond game I always wanted. I am not saying they DO make a Bond game with this engine, and whatnot, I am saying this is good enough to satisfy me in this way as this feels like I am just playing the Bond game I always wanted.
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