A bafflingly bad version of Hitman, and an equally bad VR game as well
The Hitman Trilogy, now known as Hitman: World of Assassination, is without a doubt one of my personal favorite “modern games” and a game I recommend to anybody. A mix of puzzles, serious stealth, and slapstick comedy you can play it however you want and it’s completely valid. So when I was given the opportunity to check out Hitman 3 VR Reloaded for the Meta Quest I jumped at it. Now first things first here: Hitman VR was already a thing. I’ve played it, both on PSVR and my Quest headsets. It’s baked into the game. What this is, it isn’t that version. This is a new version of Hitman 3 made just for this device and boy, you can tell this wasn’t a move to make.
This version is the same old Hitman 3 you know and love with a handful of changes. First up, you can now dual wield. Neat! I don’t really feel like the way I play these games is conducive to that feature but hey! It’s cool. Second, it has a new artstyle. And it’s bafflingly awful. Polygonal Goldeneye style character models and low res details on everything make this game look worse than even the OG Xbox/PS2 versions. And I get it, you need to make sacrifices to run native on the Quest 3, which is a beefy Android device. However these sacrifices were done in vain because the game runs on absolute trash. Jittery and slow like I’m watching a Hitman Let’s Play in 2007 on a PSP over hotel wifi. They’ve pushed some updates, it’s helped sure but absolutely not enough to recommend this game in any way, shape, or form.
If you can play it using Steam VR or the upcoming PSVR2 version (which too will include the dual wielding but without the other baggage and is the FULL trilogy) then do so. If that’s not an option, I’m sorry. Just don’t bother.
This review is based on a Meta Quest VR code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live for November 3, 2024. Images and video courtesy Publisher.
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