1. Liberty Bell

Invented and designed by a San Francisco mechanic named Charles Fey in 1895, the Liberty Bell is the first slot machine. The main symbols here include horseshoes, stars, spades, diamonds, hearts, and Liberty Bells. Once three bells are aligned, the machine pays 50 cents.
Having a coin slot at the top, it features small reels in the middle and a paytable at the bottom. It works like this - players insert a Nickel and pull a lever on the right-hand side to spin the reels. Although the Operator Bell and Liberty Bell have been removed from casinos, the original Liberty Bell on display can be seen in the Liberty Belle saloon in Reno, Nevada.

2. Lion's Share

One of the most famous slot machines, Microgaming’s classic slot Lion's Share, gained a lot of success back in 2014, due to news channels that discussed the topic on how Lion's Share's progressive jackpot hasn’t been hit for two decades. Thousands of people have tried but no one was lucky enough to pull it off.
Although the machine only featured 3 reels and only 1 payline, Lion’s Share has managed to become one of the most popular releases in Vegas, so popular that people waited in line just to put a coin into it and try spinning those reels.
Eventually, a New Hampshire couple hit the $2.4 million progressive jackpot in MGM’s Grand’s Lion’s Share. Soon after, MGM Grand made a decision to retire the Lion's Share machine since it required a lot of maintenance. Still, the game became part of slot history with a jackpot that took 20 years to win.

3. Megabucks

Created by IGT, Megabucks has managed to become one of the world's best progressive slot machines. The game is also responsible for numerous big wins throughout the entire jackpots’ history. Also known as the biggest money jackpots of all time, Megabucks slot machines are described as simple games with a massive progressive jackpot. One of the biggest wins was when an anonymous engineer won a staggering $39.7 million at Las Vegas' Excalibur, back in 2003.
As for the other big wins hit on this machine, there was a cocktail waitress Cynthia Jay Brennan who snagged an incredible $34.9 million at Vegas' Desert Inn, as well as a retired flight attendant hitting $27.5 million at Vegas' Palace Statio­n. J­ohanna Huendl won $22.6 million whereas an Illinois businessman hit $21.3 million on the very first spin.
However, after winning the prize, one of the winner's family members had a tragic accident, which (as some believe) only supported the theory of a Megabucks curse. Other unfortunate stories are just believed to be urban legends, including anecdotes about underage players, as well as casino employees, being big winners but not being able to claim their jackpots because of specific state laws and regulation.

4. Wheel of Fortune

IGT’s Wheel of Fortune has proven to be the second most famous slot machine of all time. Featuring a bonus feature just like the real show, the slot machine is usually played by many slot fans and can be found in numerous casinos all over the globe. Although the game comes in more variations, probably the most popular one is still its 3-reel version, with a colourful wheel at the top.
The Wheel of Fortune multiplayer game features a bank of machines where every player gets their own screen. What makes the game even more exciting is the multiplayer edition where people can play the bonus round together, which really intensifies the game show aspect.
In a 5-reel Wheel of Fortune slot, however, Wild symbols will help players land winning combos and, if you’re lucky enough, you may get a Super Wild that will boost your win up to 5x! Last but not least, the Triple Action Bonus is activated by getting at least 3 Triple Action Bonus symbols anywhere on the reels. But still, none of the newer Wheel of Fortune slots measure up to the original one because of the large progressive jackpot involved.
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5. Mega Fortune

Featuring 5 reels and 25 paylines, NetEnt’s Mega Fortune slot became very popular among players as it usually grows into a multimillion-euro amount before being hit. The main symbols here include luxury cars, yachts, and expensive jewellery, Mega Fortune is an online slot machine game which justifies its theme that comes with the largest ever online slot jackpots.
The game offers a few different features that make the entire gameplay more fascinating, however, by far the most interesting ones are the 3 different progressive jackpots: Mega Jackpot, Major Jackpot and Rapid Jackpot. There are counters for all 3 of these that are displayed above the reels. Champagne is the Scatter and if you land at least 3 of them simultaneously, you will trigger Free Spins bonus round. Likewise, Wheel of Luck is the Bonus symbol, and if you land 3 or more symbols in succession from left to right on an active payline, you will activate the Bonus game.
What’s interesting about this slot is the fact that a Finnish man won a huge jackpot worth €17.8 million while spinning the reels of Mega Fortune. This record from 2013, has been passed by Mega Moolah, but the game is still proof how rich players can get after playing Mega Fortune.
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6. Mega Moolah

Powered by Microgaming and being among most popular slot games, Mega Moolah is a 25-payline progressive slot which has served as a competitor to Mega Fortune's big jackpots. Followed by African safari music, the game features antelopes, elephants, giraffes, lions, monkeys and zebras as the main symbols.
Landing at least 3 Scatters at the same time will trigger 15 Free Spins. What’s more, all wins hit during Free Spins are tripled, whereas Free Spins can also be retriggered. Players can win one of the 4 Progressive Jackpots within the randomly triggered Bonus round.
The game paid some of the largest slot machine jackpots that have ever been triggered. In 2015,for example, Mega Moolah gained international recognition when a British soldier Jon Heywood won a massive €17,879,645.
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7. Cleopatra

Inspired by the famous Egyptian theme and Developed by IGT, Cleopatra is a 20-payline classic game that managed to stand out above similar releases. Featuring ancient Egyptian music, the main symbols here include Cleopatra, the Eye of Horus, scarabs, and pyramids. Landing at least 3 Sphinx symbols will trigger the Cleopatra Bonus, which awards 15 Free Spins. All prizes, except for the 5 Cleopatra symbols, are tripled in the Free Spins round.
The game has been so successful that it inspired its creators to make a sequel, Cleopatra II, with richer graphics and engaging sound effects. But even if you choose the original game, you'll be playing a classic that's still enjoyed by various players today. And, in case you land 5 Cleopatra symbols you’ll get a jackpot of 10,000 coins.

8. Book of Ra

Having a popular Ancient-Egypt theme, Book of Ra has always been one of the best choices to play in land based and online casinos. Powered by Novomatic, Book of Ra is a 9 payline video slot that offers plenty of bonus features and big payouts. With entertaining narrative and energising gameplay, there are numerous ways to win here.
In case you land 5 archaeologists simultaneously, you’ll get an impressive 5,000x your line bet. Earning big bucks, however, comes from the Free Spins feature. What players need to do is land at least 3 Scatter books to trigger the Free Spins feature. Pages of the book will flip and randomly determine which symbol will expand during the 10 Free Spins.
Although hitting the jackpot may not be easy, with only a few one in between, when big wins come, they can be big.

9. Starburst

There’s no denying NetEnt’s Starburst slot became kinda legendary in the iGaming universe. With its dark background and shiny space looking gemstones, Starburst slot features 5 reels and 10 paylines. The well-known futuristic music in this release is also easily noticeable, as is the game’s expanding Wild.
More precisely, the Wilds may only occur on the reels 2, 3 and 4, and, once 1 or more wilds appear on those reels, the Starburst Wild feature will be activated. During this feature, Starburst wilds expand to cover the entire reel and remain while the other reels re-spin. Should a new wild land during a re-spin, it expands and stays along with any previously expanded Starbursts for another re-spin.
Another cool feature is that Starburst pays both ways, instead of only paying you for landing at least 3 identical symbols on adjacent reels starting with the reel furthest to the left. The maximum single spin payout for a person (betting the $200 maximum) is $100,000. But, in order for that to happen, you must land five bars on consecutive reels on an active payline. Players love this slot, probably because it’s suitable for both newbies and experienced players.

10. Immortal Romance

Powered by Microgaming, Immortal Romance is based on sci-fi and the cult of Vampires which has become one of the popular casino slot machines in the last couple of years. Apart from superb graphics and great audio and visual effects, the slot features 5 reels and 243 paylines, and the theoretical RTP rate of 96.86%. The four main characters are Amber, Troy, Michael and Sarah.
When it comes to features and bonus games, Immortal Romance offers different variants. Wild Desire feature can occur randomly, and as soon as it does, it can turn 1 to 5 reels completely Wild. Likewise, landing 3 or more Scatters anywhere on the reels in this game, activates the Chamber of Spins feature which cannot be triggered during Wild Desire.
The game is still among the most popular slots, as many players still try their luck in this slot in the hope to get the highest multiplier possible.

11. Gonzo’s Quest

Beautifully designed video slot powered by NetEnt, Gonzo Quest features 5 reels and 20 paylines. The story is based on the famous conquistador Gonzalo Pizzaro who is on his way to the Peruvian ruins and just about to experience the unique quest.
Now, Gonzo’s Quest has become one of the most popular slot games of all time, probably because it comes with a few interesting features, Avalanche Multipliers feature being the most interesting one of all. In Essence, the reels in the slot move in a cascading manner which resemble an Avalanche. As you activate each new Avalanche, you will win a multiplier. Multipliers are displayed above the reels, and go up to 5x, that is if you land 4 or more avalanches simultaneously.

12. Age of the Gods

Being among famous slot machines and inspired by Ancient Greek mythology, Age of the Gods is a 5-reel, 20-payline progressive slot powered by Playtech. The main characters are Athena, Zeus, Hercules, and Poseidon power up 4 free game modes that offer extra wilds and win multipliers! Once you start spinning, you’ll come across a series of bonus features, such as Athena Free Games, Zeus Free Games, Poseidon Free Games and Hercules Free Games.
Wild logo is the game’s wild card and it substitutes for all symbols, with the exception of the Scatter. Landing at least 3 Scatters anywhere on the reels simultaneously triggers the Bonus game. Moreover, landing 5 God symbols in any order on an active payline will get you 200x your line bet!
During the main game, any spin can activate the Age of the Gods Mystery Jackpot. This mini game guarantees a win of up to 4 progressive jackpots. All you gotta do is click on the coins to reveal jackpot symbols, and if you match 3 identical ones, you will win that jackpot.

13. Money Honey

Having a cute theme, Money Honey is a 5-reel and a 243 payline slot themed around honey. With Wilds, Free Spins, Scatters and multipliers, it is a fast-paced exciting creation featuring vibrant colours. Likewise, it is a mobile-optimized slot which may be an excellent choice if you’re new to online gambling or if you’ve been playing for years.
Just like in other games, Wilds will help you win payouts as they are able to replicate most other symbols on the reels once a winning combination has been made. Another symbol you may want to keep your eyes on is a Money Wheel card. Once you manage to land at least 3 of them on your reels after a spin, the bonus game begins, and you spin a big wheel to choose a prize.

14. Quick Hit

And our selection wouldn’t be complete without Bally's Quick Hit slot. Featuring traditional Las Vegas symbols with sharp graphics and relaxed music, the video slot has 5 reels, 3 rows, and 30 paylines. Once you decide how many paylines you want to bet on, your gaming adventure can begin. There are Scatters symbols and three bonus games to benefit from.
The biggest payout here comes from landing the triple seven symbol. Should you land 5 of these lucky numbers on the reels at the same time, you will win 5,000 coins, whereas if you land five wild symbols, you’ll get 12,500 coins.
Those looking for hitting a jackpot should pay attention to Quick Hit Platinum symbols as 5 of these contribute to 5,000x players’ original bet amount – and even more, with the max bet activated. The second-highest jackpot can be hit by landing 9 Quick Hit Slot symbols. Both the Quick Hit Platinum and regular Quick Hit symbols must occur on or within one position of the first payline to be eligible for a jackpot win.

15. SlotZilla Zip Line

And now something completely different. We’re finishing our selection of famous slots in style, with the world’s largest slot machine - StotZilla Zip Line - 128 feet tall which has two take-off levels. This $12 million SlotZilla zip line took more than a year to build and opened its doors in 2014 and has already had more than 2 million riders so far.
The 11-story slot machine is decorated with over-sized dice, a glass of martini, a pink flamingo, video reels, coins, and two showgirls - Jennifer and Porsha. SlotZilla offers two different rider experiences - the upper Zoomline and a lower Zipline. This unique machine has a huge video screen with reels and a gigantic arm, replicating a true slot machine experience.

Kennedy and Heidi: Vicarious Patricide as Tony’s Decompensation

At the risk of needless redundancy, I think it’s helpful to summarize Tony’s state of mind going into the episode Kennedy and Heidi. His consciousness is teeming with ancient but recently-agitated memories showcasing his father’s violence and toxic influence, like Johnny shooting a hole through Livia’s hairdo and baptizing him in the act of murder. He’s unable to shake stories of parental neglect leading to tragic outcomes for children. He’s painfully aware of Christopher’s hatred of him and desire for murderous revenge, feelings ultimately rooted in the fact that Tony guided him into the same corrupt existence into which he himself had been led by Johnny, Junior, and company, suggesting a reciprocal, if unconscious, rage by Tony towards those men. His subconscious mind is under constant assault from hats and movie posters and coffee mugs bearing the image of a bloody meat cleaver, an emblem of his own lost childhood innocence and inculcation by his father into his brutal, ugly vocation. He is racked with acute but intense guilt over the role he thinks his life’s example has played in shaping his son’s values and poor sense of self-worth. And he is still repressing a mountain of hurt over the fact that his uncle and second father tried not once but twice to kill him, a repression Melfi warned would someday result in a total collapse of his defense mechanisms, that is, a collapse of his paternal hero-worship and related quest for the macho validation that has prevented him from critically examining his father, uncle, and the men upon whom he modeled his life.
Now consider the circumstances immediately before the crash. Tony and Chris are on a routine drive back from business in Christopher’s new black Cadillac SUV (the first Cadillac Chris has ever owned, incidentally.) The conversation turns to life priorities. Chris, conspicuously clad in a Cleaver hat, specifically mentions how Kaitlyn has changed his priorities, and Tony mentions the “shit with Junior”. So the context is immediately pregnant with the fact that Junior shot and nearly killed Tony within the past year and with the fact that Chris is in a new place of responsibility, a position where he is, for the first time, truly the custodian and trustee for another life.
In a perfectly-timed illustration of just how ill-equipped Chris is to live up to those responsibilities, he nervously and repeatedly fiddles with the car stereo, fidgets, and widens his eyes, telegraphing to Tony that he is high as a kite on drugs. “Comfortably Numb” swells on the sound system as Tony stares at him, the lyrics underscoring that, in that moment, he does not see Chris as a youngster, as the “adorable kid” he once road around in the basket of his bicycle, but as a grown man:
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown, the dream is gone
Chris swerves, and the crash happens seconds later.

Tony as the Child in the Carseat

It’s critical to note that Tony initially manifests every intention of helping Chris, even as he’s fighting his own injuries. “I’m comin’,” he says as Chris asks for help. His expression and demeanor only change when he realizes what Chris means by “help”. “I’ll never pass a drug test,” Chris moans. “What?” Tony asks incredulously as Chris is inhaling his own blood. Almost simultaneously, Tony turns towards the back and sees that a tree limb has penetrated the passenger compartment, lodging in Kaitlyn’s car seat like a spear. While Tony would somewhat exaggerate the size of the branch in later narrations of the event, there’s no question that it was large enough to have impaled or seriously injured an infant.
Even after this warning shot over the bow, Tony apparently intends to help Chris, coming over to the driver’s side and breaking the window when he couldn’t get the door open. He draws his cell phone to call for help but stops when Chris again mentions being doped up, which suggests that Chris is more concerned about the legal consequences of his intoxication than about the fact that he is drowning in his own blood, completely belying his claim to a life newly ordered around the lofty priority of fatherhood.
That’s the moment when Tony forms a genuine murderous intent, an intent that has little to do with Christopher’s animosity towards him or the danger that he might flip. Those are conscious, background motives that help Tony rationalize and make sense of his actions later. But the factor impelling him to end Christopher’s life is his own, fundamental identification with the child who might just as easily have been killed or seriously harmed in that carseat.
To objectify this point, there is a slow pan of the limb sticking through the seat as Tony performs the suffocation, clearly not a shot representing Tony’s vision or gaze at that moment but objectively corroborating the earlier angle when Tony glances back and we see the seat from his point of view. The juxtaposition of these shots – subjective and objective – tells me the carseat is not just a convenient excuse for Tony. This is what he’s really feeling. In this moment, he is the phantom child in that carseat, a child whose safety and well-being come second to his father’s corrupt values and reckless self-indulgence, a child whose soul and humanity are metaphorically impaled by riding in and being taught to drive his father’s black Cadillac.
The exclamation point on the symbolism is provided by Christopher’s hat. Incredibly, it remains on his head throughout the crash and suffocation, its bloody cleaver logo pointing towards Tony when the car comes to rest. As Tony acts consciously on behalf of an innocent child, the symbol of his own lost childhood innocence is directly before him. And, for good measure, the cap and logo stare back at him in the hospital from the gurney laden with Christopher’s bloody clothing and the black bag containing his dead body. (The logo antagonizes Tony a final time from his coffee mug the next morning before he angrily tosses the mug into his backyard woods.)
Several points about the suffocation itself are remarkable. First was the look of absolute depravity on Tony’s face as he watched Christopher struggle to breathe. This look was unlike any ever seen on Tony’s face at any other moment in the series. Even when committing other personal and deadly acts of violence, his face and demeanor had always betrayed a commensurate level of animus, an active, passionate intent. In contrast, he reached through the window and pinched Christopher’s nose – and maintained that hold – with remarkable calm. His face and eyes throughout the suffocation were paradoxically both incredibly intense and completely devoid of human emotion, a look far more disturbing than any look of mere rage he’d ever worn before.
Second, although this act was, in my judgment, clearly about the release of Tony’s pent up rage towards his father figures, the method of killing evokes Livia. Besides her conspiracy with Junior to kill Tony (which she rationalized was for his own good) and general obsession with stories of child deaths, she had once threatened to “smother [her children] with a pillow” to save them from a fate she deemed even worse. Tony grabbed a pillow intending to smother her in the season one finale before nursing home personnel intervened. In Members Only, Tony spoke of being smothered with a pillow as a suitable form of euthanasia. Its functional equivalent at the scene of the crash had a definite vibe of putting Chris out of his own – and everyone’s – misery. So, in killing his “father”, Tony was also paradoxically suffocating his “son”, thereby channeling Livia’s filicidal urges and concept of mercy killing.
The most spine-tingling resonance with the scene comes from two season four episodes where Tony’s deep identification with “innocents” – be they children or animals – once again comes to the fore, as does his appreciation for the consequences of Chris continuing to use drugs. In Whoever Did This, Tony warns Christopher that he “can’t be high on heroine and raise kids.” And in The Strong, Silent Type, after learning that a doped-up Chris accidentally smothered and suffocated Adriana’s dog, Tony ominously snaps, “You suffocated little Cossette? I oughta suffocate you, you prick!” It’s such perfect foreshadowing that the earlier episodes seem to have been written with the outcome of Kennedy and Heidi in mind.

Righteous Retribution as the Explanation for Tony’s Lack of Sorrow

As previously noted, the most troubling aspect of the episode from the standpoint of character consistency and plausibility was not the fact that Tony murdered Chris. It was his vacuous expression during the killing and the fact that he never betrayed a moment’s genuine sorrow or regret afterwards. He remained, in fact, defiantly happy and unconflicted about it, especially to Melfi, and was sincerely troubled that neither she nor anyone else could see how Christopher’s death rescued Kaitlyn from a lifetime of risks and harm that she would naturally suffer as the daughter of a drug addict (and mob captain).
In his therapy scenes with Melfi, real and dream, Tony even makes the very contrast I raise, noting that he’s never felt this way after murdering any other person close to him. He alludes to his sorrow over Pussy and specifically allows that murdering Tony B left him “prostate [sic] with grief.” In effect, Tony himself is revealing that this killing feels righteous and justified to him on an instinctive level and is therefore not one about which he can feel guilt or sorrow.
That sentiment makes no sense if his dominant motives were those he talked about in therapy: Christopher’s animosity and resentment towards him after the Adriana hit and his drug-use and consequent risk to flip. Whatever weight those factors carry in justifying murder in the corrupt “ethics” of the mob (which, in any case, is less than the weight of the transgressions by Pussy and Tony B), they carry absolutely no legitimate moral weight outside it and could not sustain in Tony the sense of just triumph that he felt in response to Christopher’s death. What could inspire that sense of triumph is the perceived liberation of a child from a dangerous and toxic father, experienced subconsciously as vicarious retribution for the abuse and harm he himself suffered at the hands of his own father and uncle.

Significance of the Names “Kennedy” and “Heidi”

“Kennedy” and “Heidi” are the names of the young passenger and driver, respectively, in the car that sideswipes Christopher’s SUV before the fateful crash. The girls are barely onscreen a few seconds, just long enough to (somewhat artificially) learn their names in the following exchange:
Kennedy: Maybe we should go back, Heidi! Heidi: Kennedy, I’m on my learner’s permit after dark!
Much forum debate after the first airing of the episode centered around the significance, if any, of these names. I propose a related but even more basic question: why are the girls present in the scene at all?
Tony’s windfall opportunity to murder Chris and pass it off as death from accidental injury was entirely dependent upon being unobserved by others after the crash. Given Christopher’s intoxicated state and inattention to the curvy road while he fiddled with radio controls, a mere swerve and over-correction or swerve to avoid an animal (Tony’s crash with Adriana, anyone?) would have easily sufficed to trigger the accident but without the problematic involvement of another car, the driver of which would have to be made to flee the scene illegally and in contravention of the ethics and instincts of at least 95% of the motorists on the road. So the very fact that another car is involved, complicating both the story and the filming, suggests some symbolic or subtextual design to the involvement related specifically to the momentous event occurring right after the crash.
One aspect of that design is revealed and amplified when a grieving Kelly shows up at Christopher’s wake with dark hair framing her face and large, dark sunglasses covering her eyes. A member of the crew remarks, “Look at her. Like a movie star.” An odd look immediately crosses Tony’s face as he spontaneously responds, “Jackie Kennedy”, noting Kelly’s resemblance to the widow of John F. Kennedy.
In my mind, this striking moment in the episode can have only one purpose, and that’s to evoke Johnny Boy in relation to Christopher via a kind of symbolic math. If Kelly = Jackie Kennedy, then Chris = JFK = Johnny Boy since JFK was the explicit parallel figure for Johnny in In Camelot, the first episode of the series depicting cracks in the foundation of Tony’s paternal hero worship. When that foundation completely crumbles inside Tony’s subconscious a season and a half later, it’s entirely fitting that the JFK/Johnny parallel is renewed.
As for the name “Heidi”, most folks around these parts felt it was meant to evoke the idea of “orphan” because of the famous Swiss orphan tale of the same name and because Kaitlyn (and Paulie) both lost parents in the episode. That’s an entirely plausible analysis that requires no expansion, although I’m inclined to think there’s more to it than that, starting with the analogy of Tony himself to “Heidi”. No, Tony was never technically orphaned, though he arguably suffered more as the son of Johnny and Livia than if he had been. He was certainly deprived of real parental love and guidance, on both sides, and that roughly equates to the definition of “orphan”.
Before discussing this episode for the first time, I never knew that Heidi was the story of an orphan, only that it was some kind of tale for children. And I knew that only because of the epic 1968 football game between Joe Namath’s Jets and the Oakland Raiders, the climactic ending of which (an improbable comeback by the Raiders) was cut off abruptly for television viewers at the end of its scheduled broadcast slot so that a movie version of Heidi could begin airing on time. I was only four at the time of this debacle but recall my parents talking about it – and the considerable chaos it caused at NBC and at telephone switchboards around the country – for years afterwards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game
It wouldn’t become clear until the end of Made In America, but there’s an obvious parallel to the Heidi phenomenon in the wind-up of The Sopranos. Consider that, like the Heidi Game broadcast, Made in America featured an abrupt, unexpected termination of excruciatingly tense action at a penultimate moment, pre-empting audience experience of what appeared to be an imminent and momentous climax. The Sopranos ending may not have disabled an entire telephone network, but it certainly generated an enormous amount of controversy that, for better or worse, persists to this day.
Beyond that, there were enough other football references in the final Sopranos episodes, and especially Jets references, to warrant further consideration of this football connotation for “Heidi”. In Remember When, Tony’s betting losses on Jets football games prompt his call to Hesh for a bridge loan. Later that same episode, Paulie annoys Tony and company with yet another old tale, this one relating how, after witnessing Joe Namath stagger drunk into a bar the night before a game, he bet a load of cash the following day on the Jets’ opponent. In Chasing It, Tony gets inside information on a Jets football game and is irate when Carmela refuses to bet money on it. The episode features a closeup of a large newspaper headline, “Jets Bomb Chargers”.
In Blue Comet, then-current coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini, makes a cameo appearance in Vesuvio, with Artie informing a suitably-impressed Tony so the two can go over and shake hands. News articles at the time clarified that the cameo wasn’t Mangini’s idea but the idea of Sopranos producers, who contacted him months in advance and made accommodations in the shooting schedule around his availability. So this seemed more than a casual desire to have some generic celebrity show up.
That especially seems true considering Mangini was given no dialog and that his meeting with Tony and Artie was only depicted in the silent background of a conversation between Charmaine and Carmela. Mangini’s only purpose on set was apparently to show his face briefly and to have the fact of his identity (Tony has to tell a bewildered Carm that Mangini is the head coach of the Jets) permeate the minds of the audience and the subtext of the scene, which is ultimately about chickens coming home to roost on Tony and Carmela because of the lives they chose.
As alter egos for Tony and Carmela throughout the series, folks who took the proverbial “other path” in life, Artie and (especially) Charmaine engage in subtle gloating in the scene. Football coaching was firmly established as Tony’s “road not taken” in Test Dream, so having an actual football coach present in the episode where the unsavory and downright deadly consequences of his chosen vocation are crashing in all around him provides dramatic ballast. All the better to have the coach in the scene be the coach of the team involved in the Heidi game in view of the ending planned for the following episode.
And speaking again of that ending, the wall behind Tony in Holsten’s is consumed with four large murals specifically brought in by the production crew for the shoot. The largest and most centered depicts a huge, light-colored building with lots of windows, somewhat reminiscent of the Inn at the Oaks in Tony’s coma dream. It’s apparently a high school, however, as it is flanked on either side by images of football players in full uniform with what appear to be names and year of graduation engraved at the bottom. To the side and extreme left is a mural of a tiger and the caption “Class of 1973” at the bottom. The tiger is presumably the mascot for the team and school represented in the other murals. So there is a strong symbolic presence of “football” in the last scene of the series, particularly of high school football from roughly the era when Tony would have entered high school.
Finally, though it may be completely insignificant, when Tony tells Carm about the accident from his hospital stretcher in Kennedy and Heidi, he mentions that he re-injured his knee, “the one from high school.” That certainly sounds like a reference to an old high school football injury.
If these loose strands from multiple episodes are indeed intended to connote football in relation to the name “Heidi”, what does that actually mean in the context of the episode Kennedy and Heidi? What does football have to do with Tony killing Chris or, more precisely, with him killing his father in the guise of Chris?
The linchpin in that symbolism, it seems to me, is Tony’s old high school football coach, the guy who would have been his coach when he originally injured his knee, the guy Tony dreamt repeatedly of trying to silence or kill, the guy whose puzzling duality in Test Dream suddenly makes sense when he’s viewed as a classic, Freudian composite of opposites, specifically a composite of Tony’s opposing father figures with Johnny dressed in the physiognomy of Coach Molinaro by Tony’s subconscious in order to render acceptable imagery of his latent, patricidal feelings.
If you further allow, as I do, that the Johnny look-alike shooting at Tony with a scoped rifle (ala Oswald/”Kennedy”) in that same dream is yet another Freudian “reversal into the opposite” by Tony’s subconscious to disguise his repressed paternal rage, then the Kennedy/Heidi connection is pretty clear. The names are presented proximate to the crash to connote that, in killing Chris, Tony has finally acted out the Test Dream imagery that haunted him for years: he has (symbolically) killed his father, the “Kennedy” and “Heidi” of his dream.

“He’s Dead”

In my judgment, this explains Tony’s otherwise puzzling, peyote-induced insight when he proclaims, “He’s dead,” after winning at roulette on 3 successive spins, prompting him to fall to the floor in spectacular and uncontrollable laughter. What other, real death could have inspired such a euphoric and epiphanic reaction? What real death could Tony only have appreciated while in a drug-induced, altered state of consciousness?
Many felt the line referred to Christopher because he’d just died, obviously, and because Tony’s gambling luck suddenly changed afterward. That analysis never made sense to me.
First, Tony plays roulette at the casino while sober when he first arrives in Vegas and loses every round. Chris was already dead at that time, as Tony well knew and accepted. Indeed, Tony was never in any state of denial about Christopher’s death (or about having killed him.) He embraced it, both consciously and in his dream therapy session with Melfi after the crash.
The “he’s dead” insight occurs only after Tony takes peyote and notices a sudden and complete about-face in gambling luck. Why would he need psychedelic drugs to suddenly realize what he already knew and accepted about Chris? And why would Christopher’s death be tied in his mind to his own gambling luck anyway? No prior connection between those two things had ever been suggested.
On the other hand, Tony’s sudden escalation in gambling, which coincided with the agitation and intensification of his latent rage towards his father(s), could easily be seen as a subconscious rebellion against the stern, anti-gambling lecture Johnny imparted the night Tony witnessed the cleaver incident. To the extent that the rebellion results in huge financial losses and self destruction, it obviously fails. His father retains ultimate power and authority. To the extent the rebellion results in huge winnings, it succeeds, and Tony vanquishes his father.
That conquest was the ineffable and elusive “high” that Tony was subconsciously pursuing in Chasing It but which he could not articulate to Melfi. Thus the sudden change in gambling fortune on his Vegas trip is easily tied in Tony’s drug-altered psyche to a euphoric realization that he has conquered or symbolically killed his father, none of which Tony could appreciate without a vastly altered state of consciousness.
And that leads to why he went to Vegas in the first place. He asks that question out loud to the Vegas prostitute, Sonia, immediately before admitting that Christopher once mentioned taking peyote with her. Tony then confesses to having always wanted to try the drug.
Clearly, then, he didn’t just happen to pick Vegas and didn’t just happen to make contact with this girl. His subconscious was pushing him to that venue because he craved the enlightenment of a peyote experience. So while Tony’s real motives for the murder, and for his otherwise inexplicable jubilance afterward, were completely closed off to his conscious mind, somehow he sensed their existence and yearned to unlock and understand them. However his peyote revelations didn’t stop with simply understanding why he killed Chris.

“I Get It. I Get It!”

Tony’s desert epiphany is a bookend to his near-death coma experience and, I believe, can only be fully understood in relation to it. Yet exploring that relationship is a journey all unto itself, calling not only for consideration of the coma episodes and Kennedy and Heidi but the meaning of the cut to black that ends the series. While exploring the religious and spiritual underpinnings of those episodes is of even more weight and interest to me personally than the issue of Tony’s motives in killing Christopher, it deserves and demands its own, dedicated discussion. For now, I’d simply like to posit what I strongly believe Tony’s epiphany to have been with only minimal argumentation as to why I hold that belief.
The epiphany is presaged when Tony enters the casino on his peyote trip and notes that the roulette wheel is built on the same principle as the solar system. The ball spins round and round the center or “sun” of the wheel because of two delicately-balanced but largely opposing phenomena: the momentum of the ball (which, without the wheel, would carry the ball away in a straight line) and the centripetal force of the wheel (applied by the rim, which continuously pulls the ball towards the center even as the ball’s momentum continuously pulls it on a path perpendicular to the centripetal force.) The antagonism (or cooperation, if you prefer) of the forces gives rise to a unified system: an orbit.
If this sounds a bit like the Bell Labs scientist’s explanation of how two tornadoes are in fact just facets of one, unified system of wind, it’s likely no mere coincidence. As Hal Holbrook’s character argued, separateness is a mirage. The universe, and everything in it, is one big soup of molecules interacting in cause/effect fashion according to laws, making it one whole, not a bunch of discrete parts. “Everything is everything,” as the black rapper reduced it.
That was the philosophy that really made an impression on Tony in the days and weeks following his coma. The principles of quantum physics articulated by Holbrook’s character are likely as close as you can get to a scientific codification of Bhuddism and therefore reinforced much of what the Bhuddist monks conveyed to Tony in his coma. The monks laughed when Tony claimed he wasn’t Finnerty and explained that there really is no “you” and “me, that death would bring an obliteration of individuality. Separate consciousness – and the consciousness of separateness – is an illusion of the living.
So all this laid the philosophical groundwork for Tony’s Las Vegas trip. In that trip, Tony seeks out a girl with whom Chris had slept, then sleeps with her himself. He mentions having refrained from a longstanding desire to try peyote because he always felt the weight of his responsibilities, an implied contrast to Christopher, who always indulged in drugs despite his responsibilities. The idea that Tony was seeking to almost live life in Christopher’s skin in the Las Vegas portion of the episode was something several posters mentioned in first discussions after Kennedy and Heidi aired. Even the girl, Sonia, remarks how similar Tony and Chris are, a somewhat dubious observation that somehow offends Tony but which also helps define his impending epiphany.
That epiphany is spurred when the rising sun flares at him over the desert mountain vista. This recalls Tony’s earlier comparison of the roulette wheel to the solar system. It also resonates completely with the fact that Kevin Finnerty was a solar heating salesman from Kingman, Arizona, a town which, not coincidentally, lies 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas and shares the same desert landscape. Also not coincidental, IMO, is the fact that in the prior episode, Christopher spoke of the perks of joining witness protection and of “living large” in Arizona.
So I believe that, in that desert sunrise on the cusp of Arizona, in fulfillment of his identity as Kevin Finnerty, solar heating salesman, Tony saw his “son” – Christopher – “rise” and realized that, in murdering him days before, he (Tony) was really “rising” as a “son” against Johnny Boy. And in that linkage, he suddenly realized that “everything is [indeed] everything.” He is both Chris and Johnny Boy, both abused and misguided son and abusing, misguiding father. He is murdering uncle and would-be murdered nephew. He is both the mother that sees suffocation as mercy killing and the son who is suffocated. Christopher is both his son and his father. Johnny Boy is Coach Molinaro. “Kennedy” is “Heidi”. Opposites are really two sides of the same coin. In that fleeting moment of insight, Tony was truly feeling “one” with the universe.

The Second Coming

The episode following Kennedy and Heidi is titled The Second Coming after the Yeats poem that grips AJ in the English lit class he’s auditing. While the poem speaks to the bleakness of his depression and outlook on life at that particular time, there’s little doubt that – like everything of substantial weight in the Sopranos universe – it ultimately relates, first and foremost, to Tony. First referenced in the Cold Cuts therapy session dealing with pent-up rage where Tony’s deep shame from the cleaver incident is finally revealed, the poem seems the veritable inspiration for the storyline (as interpreted in this article) that culminates in Christopher’s murder:
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The widening gyre, the orbit that breaks down when the center can no longer hold, is clearly a parallel to the decompensation of which Melfi warned, the point at which Tony’s defenses after Junior’s second murder attempt could no longer hold and the underlying pathological rage at his fathers would take over. True to the poem, a “blood-dimmed tide was loosed”, inspired by a perverse compassion for the “innocent”. While “the best” all mourned Christopher and thought his death a tragedy, Tony, “the worst”, was full of passionate intensity and could not understand why no one else saw the greater good in Christopher’s death.
The “revelation” occurs in a “waste of desert sand”, imagery easily compatible with Tony’s “I get it” moment in the Nevada/Arizona desert. The uniquely depraved look on his face as he suffocated Christopher is evoked by the line describing a “gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun”. “Twenty years of stony sleep” refers to the decades of denial Tony maintained, the defense mechanisms that kept him all his life from confronting and admitting that, in some very real ways, he hated his father. It’s a figurative sleep that was suggested literally in the noted fact that so many episodes in season 6B started with Tony in a deep sleep. Somnolence was suggested even in the choice of the song “Comfortably Numb” as soundtrack in the moments immediately preceding the crash, the moments right before the hour of the “rough beast” finally arrived. Even the incidentals are perfect allusions, as with the image of “stony sleep” being turned into a nightmare by a “rocking cradle”, or, in this case, by a car seat with a branch sticking through it.
I’m intrigued by the line describing the emerging beast as having “lion body”. It may mean absolutely nothing. But among the story points worth considering in relation to it are the tiger on the wall in Holsten’s and the enigmatic cat in Made In America.
More obscure is the fact that in Remember When, the single episode most explicitly dealing with the violent release of stifled paternal rage, Carter Chong described his grandfather as a “lion” and noted that his father owned “Grumman” stock. (Grumman manufactured a number of high-profile fighter military aircraft, most of them named for some kind of cat, e.g., Panther, Jaguar, Tomcat, Tigercat.) Carter was reviewing these facts to himself in the scene immediately preceding his vicious attack on Junior, suggesting that, in acting out on his stifled paternal hatred, he was adopting the predatory, aggressive characteristics of a wild cat. Notably, when Junior, the paternal surrogate who modeled this kind of aggressive behavior to Carter, was seen at the end of that episode bruised and literally defanged, his sunken mouth void of false teeth, he was stroking a harmless little housecat on his lap. Once a lion, the former mob boss was a lion no more.

Asbestos Dumping as a Metaphor for Tony’s Toxic Spill of Rage

Kennedy and Heidi opens with a controversy between Tony and Phil Leotardo over asbestos disposal. One of Tony’s contractors was removing asbestos from old buildings, while following none of the strict (and expensive) asbestos-handling laws regulating worker and public safety, and was seeking to dump completely uncontained truck-fulls at waste stations controlled by Phil. Phil’s guys were denying the trucks the right to dump. As a consequence, huge, openly-smoking asbestos mounds were building up at job sites.
After Christopher’s death, Tony was doing little to find a solution, skipping town to gamble, get laid, and get high and leaving the contractor high and dry. Finally, near the very end of the episode, the contractor dumps heaps of asbestos at dawn in an open marsh area resembling the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that gained widespread use in the 19th and 20th centuries as an ingredient in various building industry materials – including wall compounds, insulation, and roofing materials – primarily because of its extreme insulative properties and resistance to heat and fire. In the last 40 years, it’s become better-known for its cancer-causing and toxic effects on those mining and working with it in manufacturing, demolition/remodeling, or other “raw” environments.
Both the heat resistance and toxicity of asbestos make the shoddy removal/dumping storyline a compelling metaphor for Tony’s equally shoddy “dumping” in Kennedy and Heidi. The smoldering heat and flames from his hatred towards his father and uncle were contained beneath his consciousness by an insulating firewall of denial and repression. In essence, this denial and repression was Tony’s psychological asbestos, and it (more or less) contained the heat and fire within him for 47 years.
But it finally broke down, allowing the flames to rage and do damage and necessitating a messy disposal. Unfortunately the breakdown didn’t happen where it should have, in his therapist’s office as the result of honest introspection and dialog about little things like his uncle trying to kill him twice and his father indoctrinating him to murder at 22. That would have been the equivalent of careful, legally-compliant asbestos removal. Instead the breakdown occurred in a roadside ravine and the resulting “waste [in the] desert sand” was every bit as toxic as the smoking piles illegally dumped in the Meadowlands immediately before the desert epiphany and which we saw reprised in the very first shot of the following episode.
Think about that for a moment. Tony’s “I get it” moment was literally sandwiched between shots of noxious mounds of asbestos blowing in the New Jersey wind, a significant clue that some other kind of perversely cathartic disposal was in the middle of that sandwich.

The Orbit of the ‘Blue Comet’: Long Journey to Nowhere

It’s fair to ask: if the broad strokes of my interpretation are valid, what impact did the epiphany have on Tony going forward? After the drugs wore off, did he actually retain any specific understanding of his subconscious motives for killing Chris? Was he left only with the impression that he had enjoyed a very brief moment of enlightenment but without intellectual distillation of the enlightenment itself?
Because the insight was founded upon the secret that he had murdered Chris, even if Tony had retained it, he couldn’t overtly share it with anyone. Still, I lean toward the interpretation that the specifics (at least the ones I proffered) were lost to him when the altered state of consciousness ceased. When he tried to describe the magic of what he experienced in the desert to his crew, he could only come up with the most mundane, inadequate words: “The sun . . . came up.” They all looked at him like he was half retarded.
He was slightly more specific with Melfi, offering that he saw “for pretty certain” that this reality is not all there is. He couldn’t define the alternative but was still convinced there was “something else”.
He did speak in therapy of appreciating a balance and unity in opposites that he hadn’t appreciated before, a “ying” [sic] and “yang”. And he offered that “mothers are like buses . . . the vehicle that gets us here,” but that, once here, we are all on our own, individual journeys (mothers included.) So, to the extent his epiphany comported with what he revealed in therapy, it seems to have had little to do with fathers and with Christopher’s murder and more to do with letting go (finally) of some of his issues with his mother.
But perhaps the best clue to his residual state of understanding came when he indicated that some of what he thought he had grasped in the desert now eluded him. “You think you know, you think you learn something . . . like when I got shot,” he begins. Then, speaking specifically about the peyote experience, he reports that the insight gained is “kinda hard to describe. . . . You know, you have these thoughts, and you almost grab it . . . and then . . . ftt.” He flicks his fingers away from his chin as if to indicate “nothing”. So, to paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, a fragment of what he knew remains, but, apparently, the best is lost.
It wouldn’t take long for all of it to be lost. By the time Tony sits with AJ’s female therapist in Made In America, “going about in pity” for himself because of who his mother was, he has come full circle, essentially back to where he was to start the series. Like a “blue comet”, his orbit was highly elliptical, if not erratic, and carried with it the potential of veering off into deep space or crashing into the sun. But despite killing his own nephew, having a near-death experience himself, and saving his son from an act of suicide, the orbit held. The sober breakthrough never came. The repudiation of his father and of his way of life never took hold in his consciousness. And so, by series’ end, we, like Tony, were exhausted from a long journey that ultimately took us nowhere.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

List of Las Vegas casinos that never opened
Over the years there have been several casinos and resorts planned for the Las Vegas Valley that never opened. The stages of planning may have been just an announcement or groundbreaking.[1][2][3]
Asia Resort and Casino
Where the Palazzo Casino and Resort currently stands (adjacent to the Venetian Hotel and Casino and the Sands Expo and Convention Center), an Asian themed casino was proposed but was rejected for the present Palazzo project.[4]
Alon Las Vegas
A proposed luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip on the former site of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino, announced in 2015.[5] The project was put in doubt after Crown Resorts announced in late 2016 it was suspending its involvement in the development.[6] Crown announced in December 2016 that it was halting the project and seeking to sell its investment. The remaining partner Andrew Pascal announced he was seeking other partners to proceed with the project. However in May 2017, the land went up for sale.[7] The land was later purchased by Steve Wynn.
Beau Rivage
Steve Wynn, who had purchased and demolished the Dunes hotel-casino, had originally planned to build a modern hotel in the middle of a man-made lake. He later built the Bellagio with a man-made lake in the front of the hotel.[citation needed] The name was later used by Wynn for a resort built in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Caribbean Casino
In 1988, a sign for a proposed casino was erected on a fenced vacant lot on Flamingo Road. Standing near the sign was a scale model galleon. For several years, that was all that stood on the property. The empty lot was the source of many jokes by the locals until the ship, which was later damaged by a fire started by a homeless person, was torn down in the 1990s and the lot became the site of the Tuscany Suites and Casino co-owned by Charles Heers, who has owned the property since the 1960s.[8]
Carnival
In 1990, the Radisson group proposed a 3,376-room hotel next to the Dunes, with a casino shaped like a Hershey's Kiss.[9]
Cascada
A proposed resort that was to have been built on the site of El Rancho Vegas. The parcel is now partially taken by the Hilton Grand Vacations Club and Las Vegas Festival Grounds.[4]
City by the Bay Resort and Casino
A San Francisco-themed resort was proposed for the site of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino. The project was rejected in favor of the Swiss-themed Montreux, which was also eventually cancelled.[4]
Countryland USA
A country music-themed resort was planned for construction of the site of the former El Rancho Hotel and Casino. For some years, the El Rancho sign stood with the words "Coming Soon - Future Home of Countryland USA."[10][11]
Craig Ranch Station
Main article: Craig Ranch Station A Mediterranean-themed hotel-casino for North Las Vegas, proposed by Station Casinos in March 2000.[12] The project faced opposition from nearby residents,[13][14][15] which led to the proposed location being changed to a vacant property on the nearby Craig Ranch Golf Course.[16] Residential opposition to the new location led to the project being rejected by the Nevada Gaming Policy Committee in March 2001. Station Casinos still had the option to develop the project on the initial site,[17][18] but the project was cancelled entirely in July 2001, following a weak financial quarter for the company.[19]
Crown Las Vegas
Main article: Crown Las Vegas Formerly known as Las Vegas Tower, the Crown Las Vegas was to have been a supertall skyscraper built on the former site of a Wet 'n Wild water park. In March 2008, the project was canceled and the property was put up for sale.[20]
Desert Kingdom
In 1993, ITT Sheraton purchased the Desert Inn casino, and had announced plans to develop the large parking lot into a Balinese themed resort to complement the Desert Inn. The project was never developed and the site is now the location of Wynn Las Vegas.[4]
DeVille Casino
After building the Landmark Hotel and Casino on Convention Center Drive and selling it to Howard Hughes, developer Frank Carroll built the DeVille Casino across the street from the Landmark at 900 Convention Center Drive in 1969. Chips were made for the casino (and are sought-after collectibles), but the casino never opened.[21] The building was renovated in 1992 as a race book parlor named Sport of Kings which closed after nine months.[22] It became the location of The Beach nightclub, which was demolished in 2007 to make room for a planned 600-unit tower[23] that was never built.[24] The land sits currently empty.
Echelon Place
Main article: Echelon Place An announced project by Boyd Gaming planned to have a hotel built on the property of the former Stardust Resort & Casino. Construction was suspended on August 1, 2008 due to the Great Recession. In March 2013, Boyd Gaming sold the proposed site for $350 million to the Genting Group, which is redeveloping the project as the Asian-themed Resorts World Las Vegas.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas
Main article: The Drew Las Vegas Located on the Las Vegas Strip and originally known as Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Construction began in 2007, and the resort was to include a casino, 2,871 hotel rooms, and 1,018 condominium units.[25] Construction on the $2.9 billion project ceased in 2009, the year of its planned opening. Investment firms Witkoff Group and New Valley LLC purchased the unfinished resort in 2017.[26] In 2018, Witkoff and Marriott International announced a partnership to open the renamed project as The Drew Las Vegas in 2020. The resort will include a casino and three hotels totaling nearly 4,000 rooms, with the condominium aspect removed from the project.[27]
Harley-Davidson Hotel and Casino
A resort themed after the motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson was proposed, complete with hotel towers shaped like gigantic exhaust pipes, but was never built.[4]
Jockey Club Casino
The Jockey Club is a condominium and timeshare resort at 3700 Las Vegas Boulevard South. It was planned to have a casino, and chips were made for its use, but the casino was never opened.[28]
Kactus Kate's
By April 1994, Gold Coast Hotel and Casino owner Michael Gaughan was interested in building a hotel-casino in North Las Vegas,[29] at the northeast corner of North Rancho Drive and Carey Avenue. In January 1995, the city planning commission approved the rezoning of the land for use as a hotel-casino. The resort, to be named Kactus Kate's, would be built by Gold Coast Hotel/Casino Limited. The hotel would include 450 rooms, and the casino would be 105,000 sq ft (9,800 m2),[30] later decreased to 102,000 sq ft (9,500 m2).[31] The resort would be located directly north of the nearby Fiesta and Texas Station resorts.[31]
In December 1998, Coast Resorts, Inc. received approval from the planning commission for a use-permit relating to the undeveloped property. In November 2000, the planning commission unanimously approved a two-year extension on the permit, giving the company more time to decide whether it would build Kactus Kate's. Because of a 1999 Senate bill that placed restrictions on casinos in neighborhoods, Coast Resorts had a deadline of 2002 to build the casino. The hotel would measure over 100 feet (30 m) high, and Coast Resorts was required to notify the Federal Aviation Administration of its final plans, due to the site being located less than 1,000 feet (300 m) from a runway at the North Las Vegas Airport.[32] In January 2001, Station Casinos purchased the 29-acre (12 ha) site for $9 million. Coast Resorts president Harlan Braaten said, "As we saw the competitive nature of that area intensify, in terms of the size of competing facilities, we just felt we would have to build something much bigger than we had intended to compete with Texas Station and Santa Fe Station. It was just going to be a very expensive project, and we didn't feel the returns would be that good." Station Casinos planned to sell the property as a non-gaming site.[31]
Las Vegas Plaza
Main article: Las Vegas Plaza Not to be confused with the Plaza Hotel & Casino.
This was to have been modeled after the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The project was announced shortly before the demolition of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino, where the new hotel would be built. Las Vegas Plaza was cancelled in 2011 due to the Great Recession.
London Resort and Casino
This announced project was to have been themed around the city of London, and featuring replicas of the city's landmarks. The project was to be built on land across from the Luxor Hotel and Casino. A second London-themed resort was to be built on the former land of the El Rancho Hotel and Casino. Neither project ever began construction.[4]
London, Las Vegas
This was a proposed three-phase project using London as its design inspiration. When completed, the 38.5-acre (15.5 ha) property would have featured 1,300 hotel rooms, a casino, a 500-foot-tall (152.4 m) observation wheel named Skyvue (partially constructed), and 550,000 square feet (51,097 square meters) of restaurants and shops — all of which would be architectural replicas of various British landmarks and neighborhoods.[33] The project was to be constructed on land across from the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, where — as of November 2019 — the partially-constructed Skyvue still stands. The wheel was to be "Phase I of London, Las Vegas".
Montreux Resort
This Swiss-themed resort was to have been built on the property of the former New Frontier Hotel and Casino, but was ultimately cancelled.[34]
Moon Resort and Casino
Proposed by Canadian developer Michael Henderson, this is a planned 10,000-room, 250-acre (1.0 km2) lunar-themed casino resort.[35] Gaming experts doubt it will ever be built in Las Vegas, simply because the space planned for it is too large for the Las Vegas Strip.[4]
NevStar 2000
Further information: Craig Ranch Station § NevStar 2000 Proposed by NevStar Gaming in 1998, the NevStar 2000 entertainment complex in North Las Vegas would have included a hotel and casino,[36] but the project faced opposition from nearby residents who did not want a casino in the area.[37][38] The project was cancelled when NevStar Gaming filed for bankruptcy in December 1999.[12]
North Coast/Boyd Gaming project
In May 2003, Coast Casinos had plans for the North Coast hotel-casino, to be built at the southwest corner of Centennial Parkway and Lamb Boulevard in North Las Vegas. The project would be built on approximately 40 acres (16 ha) of vacant land, surrounded by other land that was also undeveloped. At the time, the North Las Vegas Planning Commission was scheduled to review requests for zoning changes and approvals for the project. The project was not scheduled to be built for at least another four years, after completion of a highway interchange at Lamb Boulevard and the nearby Interstate 15, as well as the completion of an overpass over nearby railroad tracks. Bill Curran, an attorney for the land owner, said, "We're going through the zoning changes now so everybody knows what's going to be out there." The North Coast would include a casino, a 10-story hotel with 398 rooms, a bowling alley, movie theaters, and a parking garage.[39] In June 2003, the Planning Commission voted 6 to 1 to approve preliminary applications necessary to begin work on the North Coast.[40][41]
Boyd Gaming, the owner of Coast Casinos, announced in February 2006 that it would purchase the 40-acre site for $35 million.[42] Jackie Gaughan and Kenny Epstein were the owners at the time.[43] Boyd Gaming had not decided on whether the new project would be a Coast property or if it would be similar to the company's Sam's Town hotel-casino. At the time, no timetable was set for building the project.[42] In March 2007, the project was put on hold. At the time, Boyd Gaming had been securing construction permits for the project but decided to first review growth in the area. Construction had been scheduled to begin in mid-2007.[44] In August 2013, Boyd Gaming sold the undeveloped property for $5.15 million.[43]
Palace of the Sea Resort and Casino
This was to have been built on the former Wet 'n Wild waterpark site. Conceptual drawings included yacht-shaped towers that housed suites, a casino resembling the Sydney Opera House and a 600-foot (180 m) tall Ferris wheel-type attraction dubbed a "Sky Wheel". It never left the planning stages.[4]
Paramount Las Vegas
A casino and hotel and condo resort with more than 1,800 units that was planned by Royal Palms Las Vegas, a subsidiary of Royal Palms Communities.[45][46] The project was to replace the Klondike Hotel and Casino at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip,[47][45] beside the Las Vegas welcome sign.[48] The resort was approved in October 2006,[45] but an investor pulled out of the project in August 2007, and the land was put up for sale in May 2008.[46]
Pharoah's Kingdom
Pharoah's Kingdom was planned as a $1.2 billion gaming, hotel and theme park complex to be built on 710 acres (290 ha) at Pebble Road and Las Vegas Boulevard, five miles south of the Las Vegas Strip.[49][1] Construction was approved in October 1988,[49] with Silano Development Group as the developer.[50]
The project would have an Egyptian theme, including two 12-story pyramids made of crystal, with each containing 300 suites. The hotel would have a total of 5,000 rooms,[50] making it the largest in the world.[51] The 230,000 sq ft (21,000 m2) casino would include 100 table games and 3,000 slot machines, while an RV park, mini-golf, a bowling alley, and a video game arcade would be located beside the casino area.[52] Three of the project's various pyramid structures would house the 50-acre (20 ha) family theme park. Other features would include sphinxes, man-made beaches, waterways resembling the Nile river, an underwater restaurant, a 24-hour child-care facility, a 100-tenant shopping promenade, and a repertory-style theater that would be overseen by actor Jack Klugman.[52] Additionally, the resort would feature an 18-hole PGA Championship golf course,[52] and a monorail located within the theme park.[50] The project would have one mile of frontage along Las Vegas Boulevard.[52]
Frank Gambella, president of the project, stated that financing was in place, with groundbreaking planned for March or April 1989. Gambella said the project would be financed by several entities, with the money coming from a Nevada corporation, suggesting the entities would be grouped together as an umbrella corporation. Gambella stated that the project could be opened by Labor Day 1990. The resort was expected to employ 8,000 people. Following the completion of the resort, Gambella said a complex of 750 condominiums would be built on the land along with 900 retirement-care apartments.[52]
The project was cancelled shortly after it was announced, as authorities became suspicious of developer Anthony Silano's fundraising efforts for the project. It was discovered that Silano and his associates hacked into the Switzerland bank accounts of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos following his death in 1989. Silano pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges. Another Egyptian-themed resort, Luxor Las Vegas, would open on the south Las Vegas Strip in 1993.[1]
Planet Hollywood Resort (original plans)
Not to be confused with the current Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.
Originally planned to open in the late 1990s on the site of the Desert Inn, it was to be one of the largest hotels in Las Vegas. Because of the bankruptcy of Planet Hollywood Restaurants, the hotel was never built. However, in the 2000s, a group of investors bought the new Aladdin Hotel and Casino and remodeled it with a modern Hollywood theme.[4]
Playboy Hotel and Casino
A proposed casino resort themed after Playboy magazine was rejected in favor of a nightclub and suites built at the top two floors of the new Palms tower.[4] The planned location for the Playboy Hotel and Casino, on the Las Vegas Strip, was later used for the Cosmopolitan resort.[53]
Santa Fe Valley
Main article: Santa Fe Valley Santa Fe Gaming, which owned the Santa Fe hotel-casino in northwest Las Vegas, had plans for a second Santa Fe property in 1996.[54] The Santa Fe Valley would be built on a 40-acre (16 ha) lot[55] in Henderson, Nevada, adjacent to the Galleria at Sunset mall. The start of construction was delayed several times because of poor financial quarters for Santa Fe Gaming,[54] and because of the company not yet receiving financing for the project.[56] Site preparation started in July 1998, with an opening date scheduled for December 1999,[57] but construction never began. In 1999, the property was sold to Station Casinos,[58][59] which sold the land a year later for use as a shopping center.[60]
Shenandoah Hotel and Casino
A project by Wayne Newton. Although the hotel operated for a short time at 120 E. Flamingo Road, the management was unable to get a gaming license. After years of floundering it was sold to a Canadian company and became Bourbon Street Hotel and Casino.
Silver City proposals
By January 2000, Luke Brugnara was planning to build a San Francisco-themed resort on the site of the closed Silver City Casino.[61] Brugnara intended to give Silver City a multimillion-dollar renovation, with plans to have a fully operational hotel-casino by 2002.[62] In March 2001, Brugnara's request for a gaming license was rejected.[63] In May 2002, it was announced that Brugnara had sold the casino while retaining six acres located behind the building.[64] In 2003, Brugnara was planning to build a 24-story, 304-room hotel and casino resort on a portion of the Silver City property. The resort, to be named "Tycoon", was to be designed by Lee Linton, with an expected cost of approximately $100 million.[65]
Starship Orion
International Thoroughbred Breeders (ITB) announced plans to demolish the El Rancho and construct Starship Orion, a $1 billion hotel, casino, entertainment and retail complex with an outer space theme, covering 5.4 million square feet (501,676 square meters). The resort was to include seven separately owned casinos, each approximately 30,000 square feet (2,787 square meters).[66][67] Each potential casino owner was to contribute up to $100 million to own and operate a casino within the complex.[68] The complex would have included 300,000 square feet (27,871 square meters) of retail space, as well as 2,400 hotel rooms and a 65-story hotel tower. ITB hoped to begin construction later in 1996, with a planned opening date of April 1998.[67]
Sunrise
This was to have been located at 4575 Boulder Highway. Property developer Michael Mona Jr. built the hotel-casino and stated that he was going to break tradition by starting a "casino without a theme". He failed to get an unrestricted gaming license when suspicions arose concerning his associations with alleged organized crime figures. Chips were made for the casino, but were never used.[69] The building was opened as Arizona Charlie's Boulder.
Titanic
In 1999, Bob Stupak was planning a 400-foot-high (122 m) resort themed after the RMS Titanic, to be built on a 10-acre (4 hectares) property he owned near downtown Las Vegas. The resort would have included 1,200 rooms, 800 of which were to be used for timeshares to help finance the project. That year, planning commissioners rejected Stupak's request to change the zoning to allow for a hotel.[70] The project was later planned for the former site of the El Rancho Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip, but was rejected by the Las Vegas City Council.[4]
W Las Vegas
Main article: W Las Vegas W Las Vegas was proposed in August 2005, as a $1.7 billion joint project between Starwood and Edge Resorts, with a scheduled opening in 2008. The project would include a 75,000 sq ft (7,000 m2) casino and approximately 3,000 hotel, condo hotel, and residential units.[71][72] The project was cancelled in May 2007, after Starwood pulled out of the deal.[73]
Wally's Wagon Wheel
Wally's Wagon Wheel was to be developed by Walter Weiss through his company, Magna Leisure Partnership.[74][75] The project was proposed for 2200 South Boulder Highway in Henderson,[76][77] between Wagon Wheel Drive and Roberts Road,[78] near Henderson's Old Vegas western theme park. Manga Leisure Partnership purchased the 15.5-acre property in late February 1988. Weiss, at that time, had tentative plans for a western-themed, 112-room property known then as the Wagon Wheel Hotel and Casino. The Wagon Wheel was expected to cost $15 million, and financing had yet to be obtained for the project, which Weiss expected to open in early 1990.[74] The project, which would include a 55,000 sq ft (5,100 m2) casino, was to be built in two phases.[79]
By October 1991, Wally's Wagon Wheel remained unbuilt due to difficulty obtaining financing.[80][76] That month, the Henderson Planning Commission voted to give Weiss more time to make progress on the project. At that time, the project was to include 204 hotel rooms and would be built on 13.30 acres (5.38 ha). Weiss noted that the nearby successful Sam's Town hotel-casino opened with 204 rooms, and he believed his project would be successful if he opened with the same amount of rooms for good luck.[76] By the end of 1992, Weiss had still not acquired financing for Wally's Wagon Wheel. At the time, the project was the largest of five casinos being planned for Henderson. The three-story project was to include 200 rooms, two restaurants, a theater lounge for country and western entertainment, and a large bingo room. Weiss stated that groundbreaking was scheduled for May 1993, with an expected opening in June 1994. The hotel-casino would employ approximately 600 people upon opening.[81]
Weiss met with nearby residents to discuss the project, and he had the original design changed to include a larger buffer zone between homes and the hotel-casino. In November 1994, the Henderson Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of Weiss' requested zone change as part of the redesign. The project, at that time, was to include a one-story casino and a four-story hotel with 400 rooms.[82][83] In December 1994, the Henderson City Council rejected Weiss' plans for a 200-foot (61 m) buffer.[84]
In July 1997, the unbuilt project received its sixth extension from the Henderson Planning Commission for a use permit and architectural review.[85] In August 1997, the Henderson City Council approved the sixth extension, but denied Weiss' appeal for a one-year extension, instead giving him six months to make progress on the project.[77] Up to that time, $1.7 million had been invested in the project by Magna Leisure Partnership.[86] As of 1998, the project was expected to cost $80 million and employ at least 1,200 people, and the proposed site had increased to 19 acres (7 ha). At that time, Weiss stated that he was close to obtaining financing for the project from a casino operator.[87] The project was never built.
Wild Wild West
Not to be confused with Wild Wild West Gambling Hall & Hotel. As of 1993, Station Casinos owned a 27-acre (11 ha) site on Boulder Highway with the potential to be developed as a casino. The site was located across the street from Sam's Town hotel-casino.[88] In January 1998, Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. announced plans to purchase Station Casinos, which had intended to sell the land prior to the announcement.[89] By March 1998, Station Casinos was planning to develop a hotel-casino complex on the land, which was occupied by a vacant strip mall. The complex would be known as Wild Wild West, with local residents as the target clientele.[90][89]
Crescent's purchase of Station Casinos failed in August 1998, and Station Casinos subsequently slowed its plans to build the project.[91] By the end of the year, the project had received approval from the Clark County Planning Commission for a 273,000 sq ft (25,400 m2) casino and a 504-room hotel.[92] No timetable for construction was announced,[92][93] and Station Casinos had already decided by that point not to start any new projects prior to 2000.[92] Station Casinos sold the undeveloped land for $11.2 million to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in April 2004.[94]
World Port
In 2000, Howard Bulloch, David Gaffin, and their partner Tom Gonzales transferred ownership of the Glass Pool Inn property to their group, known as New World, with plans for a megaresort.[95] New World purchased several other nearby motels to accumulate a 77-acre (31 ha) parcel located on the Las Vegas Strip and east of the Mandalay Bay.[96] In January 2001, plans were announced for World Port Resorts, a megaresort consisting of hotel-casinos, a convention center and a fine arts facility. The project was to be built on the 77-acre (31 ha property, a portion of which was occupied by the Glass Pool Inn.[96]
World Trade Center
To have been located at 925 East Desert Inn Road. Leonard Shoen, co-founder of U-Haul truck rental, purchased the property of what had been the Chaparral Hotel & Casino in 1996, renovating it into the World Trade Center Hotel. A gaming license was applied for, but when it was discovered that two of Shoen's closest partners were convicted felons, the application was denied in 1998. He withdrew his application, and died in a car crash in 1999 that was ruled a suicide. Cards and gaming chips were produced for the World Trade Center Casino, but were never used.[97] The property has since been demolished and is now a parking lot, part of the Las Vegas Convention Center Annex.
World Wrestling Federation
A casino resort themed after the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) was proposed for a property near the Interstate 15 freeway across from Mandalay Bay. The project never went past the proposal stage.[4] The land where it would have stood is now Allegiant Stadium.
WWF also proposed to open the project on the property once used by the Clarion Hotel and Casino, which was demolished in 2015 to become a parking lot.
Xanadu
In February 1976, the Clark County Commission approved the 23-story Xanadu resort, to be built on the Las Vegas Strip at the corner of South Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. The resort would include approximately 1,700 hotel rooms and a casino, as well as convention facilities, a showroom, dining, and indoor tennis courts. The resort was to be developed by Tandy McGinnis – of Bowling Green, Kentucky – and his Xanadu Corporation, and would be built on 48.6 acres (19.7 ha) owned by Howard Downes, a resident of Coral Gables, Florida.[98][99][100] The Xanadu would feature a pyramid design, and was expected to cost $150 million.[100] It would have been the first themed mega-resort. Much information and many artifacts of the project are housed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas library. The Excalibur Hotel and Casino ultimately opened on the property in 1990.[101]
See also
Category:Defunct casinos in the Las Vegas Valley List of Atlantic City casinos that never opened

I love Hitman. It’s the only video game franchise that I’ve played in its entirety, and it’s a series I will keep playing for years to come, regardless of whether or not they ever release Hitman 3.
The key to Hitman’s greatness is its replayability. Every level has more than one solution, and the best have seemingly countless. I love sitting down with pretty much any Hitman game, loading up a favourite level, and executing a perfect hit in a way I’ve never done before. Don’t ask me about the overarching story, because I’ve only played most of these games linearly once, but ask me the best way to assassinate both targets at the fashion show and boy do I have tales to tell.
So without further ado, here’s my rundown of every level in every main Hitman game with a brief write up and an overall replayability score. It may be a little obsessive, but hey, that’s part of the fun of being a Hitman fan.
(If you’re wondering, the best way to kill both targets in at the fashion show is to push Dalia off a balcony onto Victor below. Seriously, it’s the greatest feeling in the world)
Hitman: Codename 47
This is where it all began, and it’s absolutely a game Hitman fans should play once. I don’t think it holds up all that well but it’s fascinating to see where a lot of the series’ trademarks came from. As you probably know, the majority of the levels in the game were remade in Hitman: Contracts; I think Contracts improves on them significantly, so I will be leaving them out of my Codename 47 ratings, and discussing them when we get to Hitman: Contracts.
1 - Training - Ort-Meyer’s Asylum, Romania
Here we go - our intro to Agent 47 (well, “47” here). As far as training levels go, it’s pretty decent, doing a good job of explaining gameplay mechanics, without overstaying its welcome. I’ve only ever played it once, however, and feel like I got everything I need out of it.
Replayability: ⅕
2 - Kowloon Triads in Gang War - Chiu Dai Park, Kowloon, Hong Kong
See Slaying a Dragon in Hitman: Contracts
3 - Ambush at the Wang Fou Restaurant - Wang Fou Restaurant, Kowloon, Hong Kong
See The Wang Fou Incident in Hitman: Contracts
4 - The Massacre at Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant - Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant, Kowloon, Hong Kong
See The Seafood Massacre in Hitman: Contracts
5 - The Lee Hong Assassination - Wang Fou Restaurant, Kowloon, Hong Kong
See The Lee Hong Assassination in Hitman: Contracts
6 - Find the U'wa Tribe - Colombian Jungle
The three missions in Columbia are some of my least favourite in all of Hitman-dom, simply because you have to play all three as third person shooters. Stealth is almost never an option, and it drives me INSANE.
Replayability: ⅕
7 - The Jungle God - Colombian Jungle
More of the above, and I feel worse for that little pig than any target in Hitman history.
Replayability: ⅕
8 - Say Hello to My Little Friend - Pablo Ochoa’s Camp, Colombian Jungle
Look, I don’t hate Codename 47. It’s just that the levels that weren’t remade mostly aren’t very good. Sorry, Codename 47 - this one’s gonna be a no from me.
Replayability: ⅕
9 - Traditions of the Trade - Hotel Gallàrd, Budapest
See Traditions of the Trade in Hitman: Contracts
10 - Gunrunner’s Paradise - Harbor, Rotterdam
See Deadly Cargo in Hitman: Contracts
11 - Plutonium Runs Loose - Harbor, Rotterdam
See Deadly Cargo in Hitman: Contracts
12 - The Setup - Ort-Meyer’s Asylum, Romania
I actually like this one! It can, and should, be done stealthily, and even though I don’t care very much about the overall story of Hitman, these last two levels are pretty interesting. I also like bringing patients the items they want. It’s not that replayable, but it’s definitely a cut above the Colombia ones.
Replayability: ⅖
13 - Meet Your Brother - Ort-Meyer’s Asylum, Romania
After the stealthy fun of The Setup it’s a little disappointing that the game ends with a shooting gallery. That said, killing clones of 47 is fun to do once.
Replayability: ⅕
Hitman: Codename 47 Average Replayability: ⅕
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
This was the first game in the series I played, and my god did I love it. It improves on everything that worked about Codename 47, and ditches pretty much everything that didn’t. It doesn’t all work quite as well as I remembered, but it’s still a good game.
1 - The Gontranno Sanctuary - Vittorio’s Church, Sicily
We begin in a cute little Sicilian church, and while there isn’t anyone to kill here, I like revisiting this level from time to time because it’s very zen and 47 seems to genuinely enjoy not killing people for a change.
Replayability: ⅖
2 - Anathema - Villa Borghese, Sicily
Before we know it 47 is back to his old tricks and Diana sends him to assassinate a mafia don. The setting is certainly limited by the graphics, and there isn’t a ton to do once you get into the compound, but this has the honour of being the first proper Hitman level I ever played, and will always have a special place in my heart.
Replayability: ⅗
3 - St. Petersburg Stakeout - St. Petersburg, Russia
This is a great one. The location, the music, the time limit, and the process of elimination game you have to play to identify the general all works together to create a mission that I still enjoy going back to.
Replayability: ⅗
4 - Kirov Park Meeting - St. Petersburg, Russia
While not as good as St. Petersburg Stakeout, there’s plenty of fun to be had either sniping or bombing the targets. And that Jesper Kyd score - my god.
Replayability: ⅖
5 - Tubeway Torpedo - St. Petersburg, Russia
This one feels a bit like filler, but it’s always nice when Agent Smith pops up.
Replayability: ⅕
6 - Invitation to a Party - St. Petersburg, Russia
I love just about any Hitman mission with civilians hanging out at what would otherwise be a fairly ordinary location. Invitation to a Party fits the bill, and I think it’s a wonderful conclusion to the Russia chapter of this game.
Replayability: ⅗
7 - Tracking Hayamoto - Hayamoto’s Mansion, Honshu, Japan
Hitman in Japan is fun because Agent 47 is basically a ninja. This level isn’t amazing, but poisoning sushi while dressed up as a chef is extremely satisfying.
Replayability: ⅖
8 - Hidden Valley - Honshu, Japan
Definitely filler.
Replayability: ⅕
9 - At the Gates - Honshu, Japan
Wait, we still can’t kill Hayamoto?! If I was giving out zero scores, this would be the number one candidate.
Replayability: ⅕
10 - Shogun Showdown - Katsuyama Mansion, Honsu, Japan
It isn’t totally worth the two levels of tedium it took to get here, but Shogun Showdown is a cool level. Dressing up as a ninja and sneaking around lasers just feels so right.
Replayability: ⅖
11 - Basement Killing - Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This level is fairly easy, but I absolutely love it. It can be done so smoothly with practice, and I find either of the three basic solutions to be a blast. I’ve completed this level waaay too many times.
Replayability: ⅘
12 - Graveyard Shift - Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This level would feel right at home in a Splinter Cell, which is never a bad thing.
Replayability: ⅖
13 - The Jacuzzi Job - Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Everything about The Jacuzzi Job is goofy fun, from the all-female guards to the rubber duck to the fact that Charlie is totally nude. I most definitely want to make boom boom with Charlie.
Replayability: ⅗
14 - Murder at the Bazaar - Nuristan, Afghanistan
The most memorable thing about this section of the game is that 47 looks like Professor Quirrell from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Replayability: ⅕
15 - The Motorcade Interception - Nuristan, Afghanistan
Not only is this as dull as Hidden Valley it’s incredibly frustrating too. Hard pass.
Replayability: ⅕
16 - Tunnel Rat - Nuristan, Afghanistan
Well, at least this is the last mission in Afghanistan.
Replayability: ⅕
17 - Temple City Ambush - Temple City, Punjab, India
The layout of this level isn’t anything to write home about, but the surprise of the third assassin appearing never ceases to bring a smile to my face.
Replayability: ⅖
18 - The Death of Hannelore - Temple City Palace, Punjab, India
The location is nice, but this mission’s just never done it for me.
Replayability: ⅕
19 - Terminal Hospitality - Hospital Island, Punjab, India
Like the previous mission, there’s something about this one that just doesn’t click. The clone showing up at the end is kind of neat though.
Replayability: ⅕
20 - St. Petersburg Revisited - St. Petersburg, Russia
I had forgotten how much this game sags at the end. We go BACK to St. Petersburg?!
Replayability: ⅕
21 - Redemption at Gontranno - Vittorio’s Church, Sicily
Like Codename 47, we end where we began, and like Codename 47, we unfortunately end with a shooting gallery. It’s not a bad mission, just not a very replayable one.
Replayability: ⅕
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin Average Replayability: ⅖
Hitman 2 Christmas Game
Yes I’ve played this - no, you should not.
Hitman: Contracts
Like 2018’s Hitman 2, Contracts doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel. What it does is focus on what made Silent Assassin great and do more of that. There are a few gameplay tweaks, but as far as mechanics go, Contracts mostly stays the course. What’s so special about it is the atmosphere; it’s by far the darkest Hitman game, and every level feels wonderfully seedy and grim.
1 - Asylum Aftermath - Ort-Meyer’s Asylum, Romania
We start with the aftermath of 47 killing Ort-Meyer, and it’s a nice introduction to the basic concept of the game - revisiting the past.
Replayability: ⅖
2 - The Meat King’s Party - Slaughterhouse, Romania
Everything about this mission is completely disgusting - I love it!
Replayability: ⅘
3 - The Bjarkhov Bomb - Remote Base, Siberia, Russia
This mission feels very been-there-done-that, especially after the giddy grotesquery of The Meat King’s Party.
Replayability: ⅕
4 - Beldingford Manor - Beldingford Manor, England
Oh HELL yes. One of the best Hitman missions ever, Beldingford Manor is the perfect illustration of what this series can offer. Interesting, but believable location - check. Endless ways to complete the mission - check. Wonderfully evil targets - check. Great score - check. So. Much. Atmosphere - check, check, check. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play Beldingford Manor for the 100th time.
Replayability: 5/5
5 - Rendezvous in Rotterdam - Flaming Rotterdam’s Compound, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Bikers are kind of the worst. I don’t like their shitty attitudes, shitty music, or shitty decorating choices. I don’t like this level.
Replayability: ⅕
6 - Deadly Cargo
This is the first full-on Codename 47 remake in the game, combining Gunrunner’s Paradise with Plutonium Runs Loose. The location isn’t the most exciting, but with a nuclear bomb to diffuse and a treasure trove of different ways to complete the mission, I’m not complaining.
Replayability: ⅘
7 - Traditions of the Trade - Hotel Galar, Budapest, Hungary
Another home run, this level is dripping with atmosphere AND features a ghost. Yes please.
Replayability: ⅘
8 - Slaying a Dragon - Chiu Dai Park, Hong Kong
This level can be completed so hilariously quickly that I never really feel like putting in the effort to try other solutions.
Replayability: ⅕
9 - The Wang Fou Incident - Wang Fou Restaurant, Hong Kong
It wouldn’t work that well story-wise, but these Hong Kong missions should probably have been combined Deadly Cargo-style. They’re just too simple on their own.
Replayability: ⅕
10 - The Seafood Massacre - Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant, Hong Kong
This one is quite fun, and framing someone else for murder is always a good time.
Replayability: ⅖
11 - The Lee Hong Assassination - Wang Fou Restaurant, Hong Kong
It’s not a bad end to the Lee Hong series of levels, but it’s a bit anticlimactic. Agent Smith raises its pedigree slightly.
Replayability: ⅖
12 - Hunter and Hunted - Hotel, Paris, France
47 goes full Leon: The Professional and it’s glorious. Playing Contracts for the first time, a part of me knew this mission must be coming, but actually playing 47s impossible escape blew my expectations away. A superb end to a very underrated game.
Replayability: 5/5
Hitman: Contracts Average Replayability: ⅗
Hitman: Blood Money
What more can be said about Blood Money? It’s the game where everything just fell into place.
1 - Death of a Showman - Southland Amusement Park, Baltimore, USA
It’s a testament to the greatness of Blood Money that even the training mission is excellent. It’s not as replayable as some of the truly legendary levels this game has to offer, but Death of a Showman is the perfect introduction to everyone’s favourite Hitman game.
Replayability: ⅗
2 - A Vintage Year - Colchagua Valley Vineyard, Chile
This is a very good Hitman level, but it hasn’t stuck with me the way some of Blood Money has.
Replayability: ⅗
3 - Curtains Down - Garnier Opera House, Paris, France
This is one of those levels that you can point to and say, “THAT’S what Hitman is.” It’s Hitchcockian in its construction, gorgeous, and may feature the most satisfying kill in any Hitman game. And can I mention how fantastic the mission titles are in Blood Money?
Replayability: 5/5
4 - Flatline - Pine Cone Rehabilitation Centre, California, USA
Three targets AND you get to rescue Agent Smith. Hitman had done medical centres before, but this was the best yet by far. 47 in a robe makes me chuckle every time.
Replayability: ⅘
5 - A New Life - Suburbs, San Diego, USA
Dear god this game just keeps knocking it out of the park. This may be my favourite Hitman level of all time, and it all comes down to the simple location. There’s something so twisted about watching 47 stalk his prey in the suburbs; it’s like Michael Myers in Halloween. It’s an inversion of everyday life, and a brilliant examination of the darkness that can lurk just below the surface.
Replayability: 5/5
6 - The Murder of Crows - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
The (ahem) hits keep coming. I sometimes forget just how many great levels Blood Money contains. This is the first Hitman level to feature a colossal amount of NPCs and IO Interactive really uses them to their full advantage. Pushing through a raucous crowd while wearing a bird costume - perfection.
Replayability: ⅘
7 - You Better Watch Out… - Rocky Mountains, USA
Perhaps it’s due to the quadruple whammy preceding it, but this level doesn’t totally work for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, but not quite Blood Money good.
Replayability: ⅖
8 - Death on the Mississippi - Emily, Mississippi, USA
This is a damn good mission, and I love how many targets there are.
Replayability: ⅗
9 - Till Death Do Us Part - Mississippi, USA
I’m truly torn over whether to give this a 4 or a 5. It’s wonderful, but maybe not quiiiite top tier. Maybe. I dunno - it’s amazing. This is really a 4.5
Replayability: ⅘
10 - A House of Cards - Shamal Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, USA
They really nail the feel of Vegas here, but something about this mission has never totally drawn me in.
Replayability: ⅖
11 - A Dance with the Devil - The Shark Club, Las Vegas, USA
The concept for this level alone is mindblowing, but the (ahem) execution is just as flawless. This game is so good it makes me cry.
Replayability: 5/5
12 - Amendment XXV - White House, Washington, USA
Blood Money takes place mostly in America, so where better to have the final full level than the White House? It doesn’t quite reach the dizzying highs of some of Blood Money’s missions, but this is a supremely satisfying almost-finale.
Replayability: ⅘
13 - Requiem - Unknown, USA
Ok, remember when I said I don’t really care about Hitman’s story? Or when I said I don’t like shooting galleries? Somehow all of that melts away in Requiem, and I’m left absolutely floored by this ending. As a mission it’s quick, but as a conclusion to the best Hitman game - flawless.
Replayability: 5/5
Hitman: Blood Money Average Replayability: ⅘
Hitman: Vegas
Well I thought I played all the Hitman games. There’s a great video review of this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbgKsgKZS8s and it does kind of make me want to give it a shot.
Hitman: Sniper Challenge
The first of three sniper games, Sniper Challenge is fun. I’m not going to include it in my rankings because it’s so different in concept, but it’s definitely worth checking out.
Hitman: Absolution
Ok, let’s talk about Hitman: Absolution. It’s...a really good game, and if it wasn’t called Hitman I don’t think many people would complain. Compared to Blood Money, Absolution is indeed a bit of a misstep for the series. There’s less freedom or need to experiment, and those are two of Hitman’s greatest strengths. Here’s the thing though - I will never hold it against an artist for trying something new. That’s what art is all about. Did the changes totally work? No. So they course-corrected, and four years later gave us exactly what we asked for. This game also looks and sounds great. Textures, lighting effects, and NPC dialogue are polished until they gleam. The gameplay is by far the smoothest the series had ever seen, and they even came up with a solid story, told through well produced cut scenes. I’m just gonna say it - I’m a fan of Absolution. Please don’t hate me.
1 - A Personal Contract - Outskirts of Chicago, USA
The target’s Diana?! Right off the bat Absolution takes a hard left turn, and I’d put this training mission up right up there with Death of a Showman. It does a fantastic job of explaining how the game works (including the much-maligned but actually really fun point shooting feature), and looks absolutely stunning.
Replayability: ⅗
2 - The King of Chinatown - Chinatown, Chicago, USA
I think even Absolution haters would have to admit this level is awesome. There are endless way to kill the King, and having them all be in such a contained space is really impressive.
Replayability: ⅘
3 - Terminus - Terminus Hotel, Chicago, USA
This mission is...kind of dull. If all of Absolution were like this I’d definitely be in the “not a fan” camp. I’m giving it an extra point for the scary bear and the really cool way it ends.
Replayability: ⅖
4 - Run for Your Life - Chicago, USA
Here is where this game very much announces how different it is from other Hitman games. This feels like a mission from a completely different series and I enjoy it a lot.
Replayability: ⅗
5 - Hunter and Hunted - The Vixen Club, Chicago, USA
This mission is great! Going from the stripclub to Chinatown feels like something from 2016’s Hitman, and a quick glance at all the challenges available demonstrates just how much this level has to offer.
Replayability: ⅘
6 - Rosewood - Rosewood Orphanage, Chicago, USA
This one’s OK. Starting with carrying Victoria is very tense and atmospheric, but once that part’s over the rest of the mission isn’t that memorable.
Replayability: ⅖
7 - Welcome to Hope - Hope, South Dakota, USA
This mission is mostly cutscenes AND features bikers. No thank-you.
Replayability: ⅕
8 - Birdie’s Gift - Hope, South Dakota, USA
Even though the mission is very easy to complete, I love this location. They totally nailed the look and feel of this particular kind of place and sneaking through a shooting range is terrifying in all the best ways. This is also a fun location for target practice.
Replayability: ⅗
9 - Shaving Lenny - Hope, South Dakota, USA
Having the Hope Cougars be a 1950’s style greaser gang makes me so very happy. Another gorgeous location, with plenty of targets and lots of ways to get the job done.
Replayability: ⅗
10 - End of the Road - Desert, USA
This level is a work of genius. It’s a brilliant subversion of everything we expect from a Hitman game, and once you start experimenting there are practically endless ways to complete a level that can technically be beaten in three seconds.
Replayability: 5/5
11 - Dexter Industries - Hope, South Dakota, USA
This mission has a great opening cutscene, but for the most part it’s pretty bland.
Replayability: ⅕
12 - Death Factory - Hope, South Dakota, USA
There’s sooo many ways to complete this mission, but for whatever reason the layout of the level just doesn’t appeal to me so I rarely come back to it.
Replayability: ⅖
13 - Fight Night - Dexter Industries, Hope, USA
Dressing up as a luchador and killing Sanchez in the ring is really fun, but there’s not a ton else to do here.
Replayability: ⅖
14 - Attack of the Saints - Waikiki Inn, Hope, USA
This is another great location, but let’s face it, there’s only one correct way to do this, and it’s dressed as a scarecrow. But I will happily dress as a scarecrow over and over again.
Replayability: ⅗
15 - Skurky’s Law - Hope, South Dakota, USA
Another very solid level, with some fun disguises, and a cameo from Kane!
Replayability: ⅗
16 - Operation Sledgehammer - Hope, South Dakota, USA
Operation Sledgehammer is OK, but the best part by far is just walking towards the church at the end; it’s epic.
Replayability: ⅖
17 - One of a Kind - Chicago, USA
There’s not much to do here, save for some cool Hitman easter eggs.
Replayability: ⅕
18 - Blackwater Park - Blackwater Park, Chicago, USA
The game is definitely dragging at this point and the part with Layla trying to seduce 47 only to have him murder her is really mean-spirited.
Replayability: ⅕
19 - Countdown - Chicago, USA
The fog is awesome, the countdown adds a great level of tension, and pushing people off the roof is a blast.
Replayability: ⅘
20 - Absolution - Cornwall, England
This mission feels pretty tacked on, especially after Countdown, but 47 saying “You’ll never know” makes the whole thing worth it.
Replayability: ⅖
Hitman: Absolution Average Replayability: ⅗
Hitman Go
Hitman chilled out for a bit and released a couple more mobile games. I’m not going to include either in my level rankings because they aren’t typical Hitman levels at all, but Hitman Go is a must-play for any Hitman fan. It’s equal parts delightful and challenging, and every level is a minimalist work of art.
Hitman: Sniper
Hitman: Sniper is also worth checking out. It’s bogged down by the usual mobile game unlockable nonsense, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, and it’s ridiculously cheap if you don’t fall for any of the microtransactions.
Hitman
I’m a little bit torn on Hitman. Let’s start with the good: Sapienza and Hokkaido are fantastic locations that I can literally play endlessly. IO has fully embraced the sandbox nature of these games and when it all works it’s as good as Hitman has ever been. But...I really miss the personality of Contracts, Blood Money, and Absolution. It’s easier to create atmosphere when levels are smaller and more contained - that’s why a lot of open world games aren’t very distinctive. The massive levels in Hitman just haven’t stuck with me the way some of the best missions in other Hitman have. That said, all I need to do is load up Sapienza, Hokkaido, or Paris and I’m pretty much guaranteed a great time. This game is a little tough to break into missions since there so many are twists on the six main locations so I’m only going to focus on the story ones. I debated doing a write up for Patient Zero but considering it’s also in existing locations I’ll just say that it’s totally worth playing at least once, especially the final level, which is bananas. And I also want to give IO a shout out for their commitment to players. They were releasing content for Hitman pretty much up until the release of Hitman 2, and they really, really seem to care about everyone who plays this game having something new to do whenever they boot it up.
1 - Freeform Training - ICA Training Facility, Greenland
I love the idea of having training be in a simulated ICA environment - it’s a great tongue in cheek nod to the artifice of games themselves, especially training levels. Knowing that everyone in the level is just acting gives every playthrough an added level of enjoyment and the general shittiness of the fake boat is perfect.
Replayability: ⅘
2 - The Final Test - ICA Training Facility, Greenland
I could have stood to have only one simulated environment - two seems like overkill.
Replayability: ⅖
3 - The Showstopper - Palais de Walewska, Paris, France
This level really feels like IO announcing that they listened to fans’ reaction to Absolution. It has more ways to complete it than any previous Hitman level and really rewards multiple playthroughs. The targets aren’t all that memorable, but this is a welcome return to Agent 47’s roots.
Replayability: ⅘
4 - World of Tomorrow - Sapienza, Italy
Sapienza takes everything that makes The Showstopper work and cranks it up to 11. The location is maybe the prettiest in any Hitman game, the layout is perfect, and it’s a blast to walk around in 47’s casual clothes and just hang out in this perfect little Italian town.
Replayability: 5/5
5 - A Gilded Cage - Marrakesh, Morocco
This one’s a bit of a bummer. It’s competent but just isn’t all that fun.
Replayability: ⅖
6 - Club 27 - Bangkok, Thailand
Definitely an improvement over Marrakesh, but not as good as Paris or Sapienza.
Replayability: ⅗
7 - Freedom Fighters - Colorado, USA
Oh man - I really dislike this mission. It’s bland and easy and just feels like something from a much worse stealth game.
Replayability: ⅕
8 - Situs Inversus - Hokkaido, Japan
Luckily, Hitman totally sticks the landing. Situs Inversus is even better than Flatline. It’s equal parts tranquille and creepily sterile, plus 47 gets to dress up as a ninja and run across rooftops with a samurai sword. It’s a perfect ending.
Replayability: 5/5
Hitman Average Replayability: ⅗
Hitman 2
Hitman 2 is to Hitman what Contracts was to Silent Assassin; It’s so similar that you can even play all of Hitman 1 within it, utilizing all of the updated gameplay features. But, like Contracts, Hitman 2 takes everything that worked in Hitman and doubles down on it, creating a truly immersive experience. Each location has a distinct atmosphere and there’s a running theme of how unsustainable wealth and power is. This is the best Hitman game since Blood Money - it might be the best Hitman game ever made. IO, now an independent studio, includes another fun sniper mode called Sniper Assassin, and there’s even multiplayer for the first time. Ghost Mode basically pits you against Agent 47 from an alternate universe and you compete with another player to try and get the best score on a level - it’s fantastic. There’s also plenty of single-player DLC yet to be released. It saddens me that the game isn’t doing super well commercially, and I really, really hope there will someday be a Hitman 3. I’m on board for life, IO, and I know a lot of other people are too.
1 - Nightcall - Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Nightcall features a nice location and there are quite a few ways to get the job done, but I definitely prefer the training level in Hitman.
Replayability: ⅖
2 - The Finish Line - Miami, USA
Oh man - this is one for the ages. There’s so much to do, and it feels like four levels all in one. Every mission story is worth playing, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll be playing this one for years to come.
Replayability: 5/5
3 - Three-Headed Serpent - Santa Fortuna, Colombia
The only Codename 47 location that had never been revisited was Colombia and Three-Headed Serpent makes the return trip worth the wait. It’s nothing like the Colombia missions in Codename 47, but it’s a great level. I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the things to do, and the three distinct elements - the military, the wealth, and the drugs - all play beautifully off one another.
Replayability: ⅘
4 - Chasing a Ghost - Mumbai, India
This level really shows off how much better the voice acting is in Hitman 2 compared to Hitman. Mumbai feels truly alive, and the level’s tight, labyrinthian structure is so packed with authentic details I would often stop just to marvel at the sun blazing from behind a skyscraper or to appreciate the all the little elements that were combined to create the laundry foreman’s office building. Trying to find the Maelstrom isn’t quite as fun as I hoped it would be, however, and I think the mission could have done without him.
Replayability: ⅘
5 - Another Life - Whittleton Creek, Vermont, USA
As a huge fan of A New Life, this feels like a level created just for me (though I’m sure there are many, many other New Life fans out there). The scale of this compared to the original absolutely blows me away, and like the original, discovering all the darkness hiding beneath the veneer of small-town Americana makes for a wonderful juxtaposition. Whether it’s a creepy basement full of poison and baking or a politician with some truly reprehensible ideas, it’s eminently clear that 47 isn’t the only boogeyman in town.
Replayability: 5/5
6 - The Ark Society - Isle of Sgàil, North Atlantic Ocean
All the themes of class structure and wealth disparity come to a head in a perfect final mission. This article by Cameron Kunzelman beautifully articulates what makes this level, and Hitman as a whole, so special: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/4397e3/hitman-2-makes-you-the-catastrophe-everyone-is-dreading
I’ll end by saying that I encountered a bug during my first playthrough of this mission and was unable to load any of my saves, forcing me to restart. With most games this would be a chore, but with Hitman I eagerly dove back in, and immediately discovered a completely new way to take out a target. That’s why I love Hitman so much.
Replayability: 5/5
Hitman 2 Average Replayability: 4/5