This is a game that only gets better as it becomes more challenging, so I recommend playing on at least Veteran Sniper mode once you get the hang of it. You absolutely can not run and gun your way through Dead Eye, the hardest difficulty, and I found myself needing to use tools I’d never needed before and look to solve problems in new ways on this difficulty mode. Not only do the higher difficulties disable aim helpers and hud assistance to give you a more realistic sniping experience, but they’re also much more demanding. The other thing I really appreciate about Contracts 2 is how varied the difficulty settings are. I found myself really digging into the wide range of tools available to Raven in this mission: the surveillance drone for marking targets, the auto-turret for setting up perfectly timed shots, and the specialized bullets like the EMP rounds for disabling turrets and the gas arrows for incapacitating groups of enemies. This mission feels like a James Bond movie, and all the objectives are jam-packed with variety and thrilling moments.
After that, you’ll need to make your way down through an elaborate underground facility, find the Citadel’s mainframe, and upload a virus. After that, there are a number of objectives you can handle in any order: destroy the main antenna so that the people of the region can have access to the internet and foreign media for the first time, disrupt the water pumps at the cooling station to take the bad guy’s servers offline, and of course, kill the target. The Mount Kuamar contract starts with an objective to disable three jammers in the region that block surveillance and communication between you and your handler.
It can take up to three seconds for a bullet to travel, and I found myself holding my breath with each shot as I waited to see if it would land where I intended.Ĭlassic Contracts are even better. You can really feel the distance from your targets in the way you have to account for wind, distance, and time when taking your shots. There are almost always different methods you can use to complete these Long Shot Contracts, and I found that these missions offered a fascinatingly unique approach to classic stealth mechanics. In one mission, you have to snipe a guard while he’s in front of a jail cell so that the prisoner can reach out and grab his keys, then escort the prisoner to safety by sniping anyone that crosses his path as he makes his escape. Other times, you’ll need to take out all the snipers in an area before creating distractions to separate your target from his bodyguards so that you can make an escape before anyone notices he’s dead. In some circumstances, you may want to locate and take out control boxes to shut off alarms, or lure out your target by shooting a mechanism to make a car fall in a nearby mechanic shop. They’re almost like puzzle games at times because you have to use your bullets to interact with the environment in a lot of different ways. These long range missions end up being the real standout levels in Contracts 2 because of how much variety and clever problem-solving goes into them. Missions are either Classic Contracts, where you’ll stealth your way from objective to objective sabotaging systems and picking off targets, or Long Shot Contracts, where you’ll make your way to vantage points for some extremely long range sniping. Related: Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Review - Drizzt Deserves Better While the replayability is certainly there for people who like to cross things off the list, it’s nowhere near as dense as the Hitman series, which I think is totally fine for a game this size. Additionally, each objective has optional Hitman-style conditional objectives, such as killing the targets without being detected or completing an objective in a certain way. It also has a level of polish I don’t think players would expect from the series, at least prior to the Contracts subseries.Įach region features several contracts as well as a variety of objectives to complete. It looks mind-blowing on the highest settings, especially on a 32:9 super ultrawide display, which is a format double-A games don’t often support. The five regions you get to explore are vast and gorgeously rendered. It’s enjoyable in the same way 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is enjoyable, and it’s at least pretty to look at, which helps with the whole turning your brain off thing.
The best and only way to engage with this game is to meet it on its level and turn your brain completely off.