A Vintage Year is the first level non-tutorial level of Hitman Blood Money and has 47 heading to a Vineyard in Chile to assassinate Don Fernando Delgado and his son Manuel Delgado. Being the first level of the game, this is the player real introduction to the game and its mechanics which is going to set up the impressions for the rest of the game.
Unfortunately, a Vintage year is a boring first level which, whilst potentially fun for non-Hitman fans, does not hold up on repeat playthroughs.
The Targets are Very Static
One of the issues A Vintage Year faces is that its targets don’t move around the map a lot and when they do they don’t perform any actions that can be manipulated (i.e. consume something that can be poisoned). This is particularly disappointing for Manuel who meets with a friend/client, has a drink at a table, then goes and has a smoke from a cigarette that he leaves on a table, and then goes into the cocaine factory where his friend will try some but not him. All of these could have been opportunities to poison him which would have added to the feeling of choice.
The main way to kill Manuel is to either drop a crate on top of him using an explosive, push him over a ledge, or to sneak up on him and use the fibre wire or poison injection. This is a real shame as there’s quite a few moving parts to this level (there’s a camera crew that is completely unused and most of the cocaine lab can be forgotten about) and I was hoping for a way to manipulate the meeting between Manuel and the friend.
The Mansion is a Great Challenge
Even though Don Fernando Delgado doesn’t move around much, just traversing between his cello and a room with a balcony, the challenge of getting to him is quite interesting. Getting into the mansion is easy enough and acquiring the right disguise is even easier which then makes the challenge of getting to the Don a real slap in the face.
The Dons room is on the second floor of the mansion, just off the central landing, and all of the rooms surrounding his are locked with 2 guards patrolling the landing. 1 of these guards stands outside the central double doors and the other patrols back and forth across the whole landing. In order to get past them you’ve got to carefully time your lockpicking or distract both guards with a coin and get past then, both of which are very difficult to pull off (for me at least).
I was very happy to discover that you could poison a glass of wine that the Don drinks in a room however doing this is very difficult since there is a guard sitting down in the room in front of the glass and if you do poison him it ruins your silent assassin rating. Nevertheless, whilst the mansion courtyard and nearby guard room are fairly useless, the mansion itself is a great challenge to solve and I enjoyed the maze like structure of corridors, staircases, and doors on both levels.
There’s Not Many Moving Parts
For me, the biggest problem with this level is the lack of moving parts that can be manipulated or changed in the players favour. For example, there’s a tour of the wine cellar which can be used to infiltrate and hide in a room that Manuel goes into however other than that the tour just acts as a potential witness for when you slip away or if they’re walking past when you’re doing the assassination. I wish that Manuel could have interacted with the tour, maybe by drinking some of the wine or by giving a speech in a position that could be used to your advantage.
Other than the 2nd floor of the mansion, and half of the cocaine lab, the rest of the map goes fairly unused which is again a real shame as there’s many opportunities for moving parts such as the tour going to the mansion courtyard. At the end of Manuals encounter with his friend, the friend asks to speak to the Don and Manuel says he’ll go grab him but then never does which is again another missed opportunity for some target movement.
Is A Vintage Year a Good Hitman Level?
For a first level, A Vintage Year doesn’t show off what a Hitman game is all about. Manuel is somewhat interesting as he does move around a few different areas, but the Don is forgettable. The accidents are also a bit lacking.
Overall, I think that A Vintage Year is an ok level. It’s not memorable, but it does get the ball rolling and I think that first time players will enjoy it.
