Hitman: Contracts demo

So there I was, crouched down behind the banks of Kingsmill and Toffee donuts, just watching the trolleys zoom past. Up ahead was my prey - a wiry looking chap in a white fleece. It doesn't matter what his name was. It never did. He hadn't seen me; he was too busy ordering a double-cheese and pepperoni from the deli counter. I'd bribed the old woman to take her time, and she was earning every penny. I'd top her later to iron out the creases.

Making my move, I slid gently across the now-empty aisle into the cover of biscuits and shortcakes, moving past the crumpets and onward to the deli. He half-turned, but before his eyes were upon me I was examining a nearby current bun with the intensity of an art-lover. I heard his trainers swivelling back round, and as the squeak of rubber slowly evaporated, my knife leapt to his throat, and his blood sprayed all over the old woman like water from a garden hose with a knot in it. I dumped my green Asda shirt, grabbed the pizza out of her hands, picked up his shopping basket, and made a break for the door.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today you can get your hands on a one-level playable PC demo of Io Interactive's long-awaited Hitman: Contracts, which is due out this Friday in Europe on PS2, Xbox and PC, and is reviewed here. The demo consists of the "Bjarkhov Bomb" level in Syberia, which sees 47 sneaking around an airstrip, traversing hangars and tunnels and eventually planting bombs on a submarine, making use of pistols and dropped machineguns along the way. It's 193MB, but it ought to be the perfect way to decide whether you want to pick up the full version this Friday, so it's worth the wait.

You can download the demo here if you're brave. Just remember: keep an eye open at the supermarket and don't, under any circumstances, pick up the last bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper if you see a large hairy man with an NTK T-shirt on, or you might not live to tell the tale.