I've played 2, contracts, blood money on loop. Absolutely nothing beats these games for pure sandbox level fun. Its all iconic and i know the perfect silent assassin route through every level organically through my own discovery with no guides.
I played these games hundreds of times over. Fuck absolution. Also i love splinter cell it peaked at chaos theory the absolute best shader model 3.0 game ever to exist
Absolution was a pretty good game (in my opinion) but it wasn’t a very good hitman game. If it had been a standalone franchise with different characters etc it would probably be thought of as a very good game of the time. For example, the bit where you’re tracked by the cops for several levels had a great James Bond/Bourne Identity type feel.