You Better Watch Out sees Agent 47 heading to the Rocky Mountains to take out Chad Bingham Jr, Lorne De Havilland, and an optional assassin at a Christmas party. It is unfortunately possibly the most boring mission of Hitman Blood Money and is quite frustrating to playthrough.
The Rewards are not Worth the Challenge
The biggest issue with You Better Watch Out is that the results of your actions are simply not worth it when compared to the set up you’ve got to prepare. If you want to silently deal with Chad Bingham Jr then you’ve got to:
- Mess with his drink (which surprisingly you can do in any disguise with no issue)
- Wait for his waiter to bring him his drink and for him to drink it
- Wait for a lady to come sit next to him, then for both of them to walk to a room
- Wait for them to finish their business inside the room
- Wait for Chad to leave the room and go to a private balcony
In total, you spend about 5 minutes following and waiting around and all of that leads to the chance to assassinate Chad silently on a balcony. It’s simply not worth the time or effort and while this is an easy kill, it’s boring. For comparisons sake, Curtains Down also has some waiting around but the payoff there is a cool accident and the chance to take out the 2nd target.
This unfortunately continues throughout the mission with even the simplest of tasks not being worth the effort. The 1 exception could be poisoning a sausage to subdue a dog later which is a nice challenge. It’s not something that many players will pick up on their first playthrough and does have a nice payoff.
There does seem to be a real lack of opportunities in You Better Watch Out with the only 3 that are there being disappointing and boring. There isn’t really anything to set up, the targets don’t move around much, and there’s no cool accident for Lorne. It’s all quite boring compared to what’s come before.
The Secret Assassin Should Have Been a Main Target
The 2nd way to kill Chad is to shoot out the bottom of his jacuzzi which will lead to him and a few models falling to their deaths. This method is quicker and takes you past an optional target, a female assassin, who you then fight. Upon seeing you, this assassin will invite you into her room and attempt to stab you which you must act quickly to avoid.
Whilst the natural set up of having you encounter her on your way to do something else is cool, I feel like the optional objective status of this encounter lets it down. Once inside the room with her all you’ve got to do is turn around and shoot her and she’s finished. There’s no set up or anything else that you can do to assassinate her.
For example, imagine if you could stay out of her line of sight and poison a drink she will have and take her out without her ever knowing you were there. Or maybe she starts in the bar area and follows you around after seeing you which forces you to deal with her. You Better Watch Out desperately needs something to be interesting and she could have been it.
You Better Watch Out Tightens Guard Placements
You Better Watch Out has many levels but many of the rooms are small and crowded with guards which makes achieving anything quite difficult. To make matters worse, many of these rooms will have a guard that patrols the room and then another guard that patrols the room and the corridor outside which adds to the challenge.
Guard placement is a natural way of increasing difficulty and You Better Watch Out is about halfway through the game but the method here is flawed. In other levels, you’d have 2 guards in an area and then 1 of them will walk around or go do something which allows you to distract the remaining guard. In You Better Watch Out, a simple room could have 4 guards that somehow patrol around it which makes moving around a real challenge.
This then makes getting Silent assassin quite difficult since bodies are very likely to be found at some point during the mission. This combined with the fact that you’ve only got 2 sedatives makes it even harder to incapacitate without killing.
The Legacy of You Better Watch Out
You Better Watch Out is a real mixed bag when it comes to players reactions with many people calling it 1 of the worst Hitman levels ever and many others saying it’s quite enjoyable. I feel like the lack of anything special really let’s this level down, especially when it’s coming after A Murder of Crows which felt like a sandbox of opportunities. Overall, it’s a lower middle to bottom level for most players.
In Summary
- You Better Watch Out isn’t a very fun level since there’s not a lot to set up or do
- What you can set up normally isn’t worth the effort since the payoff is quite boring
- The secret optional assassin should have been a main target with their own routine
- The tightened guard placements with overlapping patrols creates a frustrating experience
