Square Enix have announced that Hitman: Blood Money will be free to play through their Core Online browser gaming service . You bank free game time by watching adverts, but once that's expired, you'll have to watch more if you want to keep going. Alternatively, you can buy individual levels or the entire game and play free of interruptions. Individual Blood Money levels cost 49c, the entire game costs $4.99.
Core Online is in beta at the moment and only supports Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas but Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is planned soon. Square Enix have put out a trailer showing how the whole thing works which contains an advert within an advert. If you really hate watching adverts, this might not be the service for you.
I've signed up to try it out, but it's hard to imagine the free to play version of Core Online not being incredibly annoying. Ad breaks are bad enough in TV shows, an interruption as you're sneaking up on a target would be even worse.
Still, perhaps it's possible to queue a few ads up and then make a cup of tea, earning a nice chunk of game time. In that case, this is a good way to check out Blood Money, the highlight of the Hitman series so far.
