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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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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