Monday, September 2, 2013

Hotline Miami

Hyper violent. Fast paced. Twitchy. Innovative. Brutally unforgiving. All words and/or phrases that accurately describe the experience of playing Hotline Miami. You can toss in some comments about the fantastic 80s beats, as well as descriptors like headache or seizure inducing, given the strobing neon colors of the game itself.

In Hotline Miami you play a vicious killer who gets voicemails that tell you where to go. When you get there you don on an animal mask of your choosing and proceed to kill every living thing in sight. That’s the whole story right there. This isn’t a game that tries to mask your actions in a noble mission of revenge, or justify killing as an unfortunate side effect to your quest to save many more for the greater good. Nope, Hotline Miami has you killing because you can.

Also because you might be a little bit mentally unstable. After all, most people don’t have visions of several sofa psychologists going all Sigmund Freud while wearing animal masks.
Taking out a building full of Russian mobsters doesn’t sound like a particularly hard task, right? I mean, if video games have taught me anything, it’s that I’m an unstoppable killing machine capable of taking out the entire Russian army with just a pistol and combat knife. Okay, maybe an M4 if you want to get real fancy. So all I need to do is open up this door and go kill that guy over there, no problem. Except with that attitude, it’ll take you about one and a half seconds to realize this isn’t your typical game. You are not invincible. You are not God’s gift to violence. You are not your body count. /Fight Club

No, in Hotline Miami one shot with a gun, one slash or smash with a weapon, one bite from a dog, or one punch from anyone is all it takes to kill you. And in less time than it took you to read that last sentence you could have tried, and failed, a level 3+ times. In a way, that’s the beauty of this game – the fast paced ballet of punching the first guy you see, stealing his weapon, charging through a door to knock down one enemy, while throwing your weapon at the second target before he can shoot you, then grabbing his gun to finish off the heavy hitter that is about to round the corner and take you out in a single hit. Oh, and having to do all of that in about 5 seconds, and flawlessly, if you want to have any hope of just making it past this first stage of a level.

You don’t pick up ammo for a gun that you have equipped, so sometimes the best thing to do is throw it at a target and then either finish him off while he is down, or grab his weapon to rearm yourself.
There are a few things that help with your whole murderous rampage. The first is the mask system. As you progress you’ll unlock masks, either by finding them scattered around certain levels or performing well enough when you play that you score highly enough to unlock a new mask. Each animal mask has a special ability associated with it. One will increase the amount of ammo each gun carries, which is great since the booming of a firearm will draw enemies to you like a flame draws moths. Another allows you to look further than you can by default, letting you scout out a bit more before you act. Another prevents dogs from attacking you, while yet another will save your life the first time you’re shot. There are plenty of masks in the game, a total of 26, and they really do change the way you can play, from turning doors into weapons to having the ability to steal your enemy’s weapon on kill rather than having to pick it up, the strategy you’ll have to come up with to clear a level will be drastically different for different masks.

The second thing you’ll unlock, in addition to masks, for doing well are new weapons. Samurai swords, Uzis, all kinds of stuff, become available as you get some high scores. Weapons do behave differently, most notably the ability to use someone as a human shield when you have a one handed firearm, like an Uzi. Another difference is the range on some weapons, like the Samurai sword versus a kitchen knife. These things matter more when you actually have the time to slow down and pick your weapon, which is a rare enough thing in this game. Additionally, multiple play throughs of the same level result in different weapons being available. A common one is to find guards who were carrying a shotgun now holding an assault rifle, which can pretty drastically change the course of a level.

The wrong weapon in the right place can make all the difference in the world. If that first guy has a firearm this can end up being pretty easy. If not, that's a long ways to go without getting shot.
Control wise, I’ve given the game a shot using both the traditional mouse + keyboard approach, as well as streaming the game to a big screen TV and giving it a shot with an Xbox 360 controller. Personally, I think the mouse and keyboard is the way to go. You’ll need the rapid, smooth response of a mouse to get your aim right, and the distribution of keys, such as shift to look ahead, space to finish off a downed enemy or use someone as human shield, and mouse 1 and 2 to use a weapon or pick up/drop/throw just feels right. Sure this seems like an odd section to include in a review, but on some games the means of control can make a world of difference, particularly when you’re playing a game where you can’t adjust the keybindings. Or the resolution, which might be a bit more problematic if you want to, say, take a bunch of screenshots and then post them on your video game reviewing blog.

In addition to that above little quirk, there are a few other things that the game does that lessen the experience. One of the biggest is the occasional lack of consistency when you’re fighting the same enemies repeatedly. It is really annoying to get to an area and take out 3-4 enemies with your shotgun, only to start walking away when one gets back up from being stunned by the shot, to immediately charge you or pick up a fallen comrade’s weapon and kills you. Does it keep you on your toes? Does it add an extra layer of difficult as you pay attention to multiple hotspots? Does it frustrate the heck out of you when you die to the same stupid play dead trick for the 10th time? Yes to all three.

Probably the closest thing to Hotline Miami I’ve ever played is Super Meat Boy. You might think this an odd comparison, because how can a 2D platformer be equated to a top down hyper violent shooter/slasher where you go around smashing peoples heads in? True, the games are drastically different in the end, but they share a few common traits that make them like kin. The fast paced, short levels that require near perfection to complete, the unforgiving nature of the games that only gives you one shot before you must start everything over, and the general amount of frustration that these aspects of each game induce are the things they have in common. Hopefully that paints a picture of the kind of experience this game is.

Though not a particularly high scoring strategy, sometimes the best I could do was to lure a group of enemies into a room by firing off a round, and then proceeding to kill them as they came in one by one.
For me, Hotline Miami is the kind of game that I only play through once before I move onto something else. You are more than welcomed to go back to it and replay levels over and over again, finding inventive ways to kill enemies with more variety than a shotgun has to offer, all with the goal of getting a higher score, but that isn’t for me. I managed to get through the game in about 5 hours, and that’s with replaying each level plenty of times. The game is normally $10, but it has been on sale for $2.50. Given the short nature of the game, which only has about 21 levels, you might want to stick it out for that lower price. In the end Hotline Miami is an interesting gaming experience, one worthy of an 8 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:
Score: 8/10
Suggested Price: $2.50




*****
For more Hotline Miami, check out this collection of screenshots otherwise unused in this review. Click any one for a full sized image.

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