Ultra violence
Hotline Miami isn't just a game, its a drug. This title joins the growing genre of games like Spec Ops: The Line that challenge the meta narrative of titles that involve killing. This aspect of the game is what really makes it stand out, and all of the games mechanics, sound, graphics, and gameplay, are employed to meet that objective. Each level presents an adrenaline pumping 80s Drive style track that thumps in the background as you relentlessly murder unsuspecting Russian mobsters. Each kill becomes more intense as the music shifts and the tension rises. Each kill is an art. A mastery of the weapon you hold, the timing of your click, and the implementation of a meticulous plan to tackle each sub area. Every time a kill is completed the pressure begins to mount. If you take a single hit it's back to the beginning, and this knowledge begins to weigh heavily as you contemplate your entrance into the next room or hallway. That moment right as you swing a fire axe into the last enemy of a level seems to linger forever; its commission blurred by adrenaline induced tunnel vision. Yet at the end of that moment is when Hotline Miami hits you the hardest. The music immediately changes to a haunting and surreal track, the lights dim ever so slightly, and all that adrenaline comes crashing down. Hotline Miami is much like the drugs these mobsters deal in. A few quick lines, a crescendo that rises to a peak, and then a crash right back to reality. The game incentivizes the player to reconcile this sudden discrepancy, and the only remedy is to move onto the next level to get that high back. It is this quality that makes Hotline Miami like a drug, and its addictive. A reason why I, like the above reviewer, played the game in one sitting. Like a true physical addiction, it just happened. Hotline Miami seemingly takes over all your other desires and your other drives and thrusts you forward kill after kill after kill.
Much like drug abuse, Hotline Miami tears at your mind. Certain segments employ hallucinations, brief blackouts where your in-game character commits heinous acts that you never witness. Seemingly lucid dream sequences where you are confronted with perplexing questions about what you are doing. When you wake up in the hospital, from a two week coma, its like you actually woke up from a coma. The game forces you to pause and wonder, did I miss a cut scene? Am I even playing the same character? What major case? How did the cops get involved? Why am I here? Hotline Miami takes every opportunity to deteriorate your ability to comprehend the game. The post game section titled "Answers," seems to provide the opposite of what the title suggests. A short textual choice sequence at the end asks the player, "What was the point?" After a level that involves butchering two floors of innocents, its a tough question to answer. Like any burned out druggie you aren't really sure anymore. After all, you were just chasing the high.
The boss encounters feel just right, they are a different kind of toy. Seemingly fitting into that retro style difficulty that borders on frustrating, the game asks you to fit the square peg into the square hole. Sometimes the shape is not so obvious, but its a breather from the fast paced violence that consumes most of the game. The stealth level may seem forced, but its not awful, and it is oh so necessary to the game. It comes in about halfway and it feels like the painful weight of sobriety after a particularly intense bender. It feels awful and it feels forced, because it is not what you want, it isn't fast paced, it isn't killing, it isn't the drug you've been riding for 8 levels. It's not the level you want, it's the level you need.
The game is very replayable and this is due mostly to the mask system. There are some 25 masks or so and each adds a game play mechanic. Some masks let you take two bullets, make all the weapons silenced, equip most of the enemies with guns, equip most of the enemies with melee weapons, make you harder to spot, run twice as fast, or translate the game into French. While they don't change the run and gun game play entirely, they do alter it. The reviewer asks for a difficulty setting, but the developers cleverly alter this mechanic to further challenge the way we think about games. There is no easy, normal, or hard, instead the masks act as micro difficulty changers. The game is incredibly easy using the mask that makes all gun shots silent and it's incredibly difficult using that mask that equips all the enemies with firearms.
The faults that the reviewer found are things that Hotline Miami is not interested in providing solutions for, because, to the developers, they are't problems. The bosses are meticulously designed so as not to be easy. The stealth level is there to be unwanted. The difficulty is not supposed to be black and white. This is a game of challenges, mentally, morally, and mechanically. Hotline Miami delivers, and at five to ten bucks for a hit, its the cheapest drug you'll find.
Much like drug abuse, Hotline Miami tears at your mind. Certain segments employ hallucinations, brief blackouts where your in-game character commits heinous acts that you never witness. Seemingly lucid dream sequences where you are confronted with perplexing questions about what you are doing. When you wake up in the hospital, from a two week coma, its like you actually woke up from a coma. The game forces you to pause and wonder, did I miss a cut scene? Am I even playing the same character? What major case? How did the cops get involved? Why am I here? Hotline Miami takes every opportunity to deteriorate your ability to comprehend the game. The post game section titled "Answers," seems to provide the opposite of what the title suggests. A short textual choice sequence at the end asks the player, "What was the point?" After a level that involves butchering two floors of innocents, its a tough question to answer. Like any burned out druggie you aren't really sure anymore. After all, you were just chasing the high.
The boss encounters feel just right, they are a different kind of toy. Seemingly fitting into that retro style difficulty that borders on frustrating, the game asks you to fit the square peg into the square hole. Sometimes the shape is not so obvious, but its a breather from the fast paced violence that consumes most of the game. The stealth level may seem forced, but its not awful, and it is oh so necessary to the game. It comes in about halfway and it feels like the painful weight of sobriety after a particularly intense bender. It feels awful and it feels forced, because it is not what you want, it isn't fast paced, it isn't killing, it isn't the drug you've been riding for 8 levels. It's not the level you want, it's the level you need.
The game is very replayable and this is due mostly to the mask system. There are some 25 masks or so and each adds a game play mechanic. Some masks let you take two bullets, make all the weapons silenced, equip most of the enemies with guns, equip most of the enemies with melee weapons, make you harder to spot, run twice as fast, or translate the game into French. While they don't change the run and gun game play entirely, they do alter it. The reviewer asks for a difficulty setting, but the developers cleverly alter this mechanic to further challenge the way we think about games. There is no easy, normal, or hard, instead the masks act as micro difficulty changers. The game is incredibly easy using the mask that makes all gun shots silent and it's incredibly difficult using that mask that equips all the enemies with firearms.
The faults that the reviewer found are things that Hotline Miami is not interested in providing solutions for, because, to the developers, they are't problems. The bosses are meticulously designed so as not to be easy. The stealth level is there to be unwanted. The difficulty is not supposed to be black and white. This is a game of challenges, mentally, morally, and mechanically. Hotline Miami delivers, and at five to ten bucks for a hit, its the cheapest drug you'll find.
