So its Friday night and you're sitting around, thinking what to do. You don't need to be up early tomorrow, you have been drinking heavily and you're listening to your electronic dance music at an ear shattering volume when suddenly, work calls you. Not what you wanted to do tonight, you wanted to sit back, relax and watch some TV maybe.
But no, they need you, so you get up, you grab your animal mask and a baseball bat, and you head out to go kill some people. Just a normal day at the office.
Hotline Miami is one of the most unique gaming experiences available on the market today. Combining top down, twin stick shooting mechanics with a Dark Souls level of difficulty, one touch and you die; no checkpoints. But it is also one of the most rewarding and satisfying games in recent memory as well as being great value for money, seeing as its an indie game.
You play as 'The Jacket', a contract killer for the hotline, Miami's biggest crime organisation. Its 1989 and you are the hotlines newest killer, fresh faced and ready to go...despite having regular disturbing dreams about people wearing animal masks.
That's pretty much the extent of it without giving too much away, you wake up, you kill people, you go to bed and you repeat the next day with a different set of targets.
But rest assured, once it throws a few plot twists your way, Hotline Miami has a story that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat until the credits roll...again!
The game plays like a traditional top down twin stick shooter, with precision aim and fast reflexes needed to survive the onslaught you will face. You will die, a lot, in many frustrating ways; but fear not, you will continue to play, because you like many before you will succumb to the game's addictive nature.
Much like Super Meat Boy, a game that is easy to fail, but you acknowledge it is never impossible or unfair, but simply just an error of your own judgement.
The way missions structure themselves is that you have a floor of enemies to clear, rack up as many quick kills as you can for combo's and obviously avoid any contact with anything that could kill you...because you will die from a grazed knee. Once you clear a floor there is usually another floor for you to tackle, these levels increase in difficulty and complexity over the course of the game, but by the end of the game you will feel like a master of speed and precision.
At the start of a mission you are given the ability to choose your mask, this mask will grant you special abilities such as faster movement or the ability to see enemies from further away. But obviously each level requires a different set of skills to pass, meaning you can never stick to one play style for too long. This can also be said about the weapons. Guns and knives must be acquired from enemies, but they will never have much ammo, nor will you ever use them for more than a few seconds. Swapping weapons out on the fly is key, one second you will need to blast through a door with a shotgun in order to clear the initial group out, but you must franticly find an SMG to pepper the remaining enemies with, all whilst strafing and spinning around to avoid enemy fire.
Weapon varieties are large, with each one possessing different pros and cons to the player, its all about the right tools for the job.
Visually, Hotline Miami bares a resemblance to 16-bit retro titles, with 2D sprites representing characters and worlds presented in a pixilated, yet distinguished and detailed way. The use of colour in Hotline Miami is simply eye-watering, neons and flashes wherever you look, some could call it hideous but some might just call it the 80's. You must train your eyes to avoid the distractions the game leaves for you and concentrate on the matter at hand in your drug and adrenaline fuelled rampages. The game is also incredibly gory and violent, with blood being one of the most used colours in the game, you will regularly decapitate, gut and simply cause people to explode into a spray of crimson. This is not a family friendly game, nor is it exactly politically correct...but then again neither were the 80's.
The game's stellar use of sound is one of the greatest features. Not only are the effects simply brilliant, with guns sounding meaty as well as blood sounding...well wet. But the 80's EDM soundtrack is really something special, to the point that I bought it and listen to it regularly. There is no voice acting, but in a game that sounds this good already, its really not missing anything.
So should you play Hotline Miami? Yes, do it now! Not only is it one of the most addictive experiences you will play in modern gaming, but it is also one of the best examples of a modern game based off retro mechanics such as top down shooting and score based challenges. These are more than just throwaway gimmicks, but the pillars that support the rest of the game.
Its fast, frantic and fun fuelled murder, it may make you a psychopath after playing it with an insatiable bloodlust, but if we are being brutally honest, its probably worth trading your soul to the devil just to play this game.
Hotline Miami – 10/10
+Challenging But Not Frustrating Gameplay
+Just As Addictive As Cocaine
+Blood, Booze, Broads and Bullets...Everywhere!
+Off The Wall Crazy, Your Brain On Drugs
+Amazing Soundtrack
-Story Can Get Complicated
