Hotline Miami has been causing a stir for quite some time now in the world of PC gaming. A retro themed, neon trenched, blood bath, It has found favour with both gamers and critics alike. Now, in what seems to be a clever move by Sony, It has made its way to the PS3 and Playstation Vita. We’ll save you the pretense of implying it’s all gone wrong, it hasn’t. This is a glorious game, read on to see why.
The game casts you in the role of Jacket. An unreliable narrator,
we view the world through his eyes as he commits acts of horrific violence. Without
giving too much away it’s clear from the start that something isn’t quite right
and you will likely spend much of your play through trying to work out exactly
what is real and what isn’t and what on earth is going on.
Our anti-hero is drawn to each new location via the
answering machine in his apartment. Each night a new message is left detailing
a location and time. This then leads into the next level where you must choose
which mask to wear and go about causing chaos and mayhem.
Viewed from a top down perspective, the game has a highly
unique visual aesthetic. It’s certainly retro styled and characters and levels
are built to look like this in an old eight bit game. The colours used though
are often vibrant and strong. This makes things like the constant flow of blood
seem to stand out and highlights just how much damage you are doing. Indeed, we
can’t recall when pixelated violence looked quite so painful and disturbing.
Along with the strong visuals comes an incredible soundtrack
that keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout. The film ‘Drive’ is a heavy influence
and the sound certainly seems to have taken inspiration from artists who had their
music on the film. Kavinsky is the heaviest influence as the beats pump and
pound away while the bullets fly and bones crack.
Indeed, if it ever came out that the game was based on the Drivers
untold back story it wouldn’t really seem that surprising (minus the surrealism
perhaps). Although it’s very hard to tell, it seems to us that the main
character in Hotline Miami is also donning the iconic white scorpion jacket,
but perhaps that’s just our imagination running away with us.
Of course, all the style in the world doesn’t mean a thing
if the game doesn’t work. There’s no need to worry on that count as once you
get used to how the control system works it becomes almost second nature. The ‘gimmick’
as such is to chain kills together for as long as possible. In order to do this
you need to move quickly. Taking a single shot or hit will also kill you and
require a restart of the current stage.
There are a vast array of weapons at your disposal to deal
out the death and destruction. Guns are plentiful, but firing one will alert other
enemies in the level to your presence and send them charging after you. It’s
often better to use a bludgeoning weapon and sneak up on enemies before
dispatching them. Simply punching also works but only stuns your opponent (see
also - hitting with doors or throwing a weapon) and you will then need to spend
a few seconds finishing your opponent off by smashing their head repeatedly
against the ground.
To aid your progress are the different masks which can be worn
throughout. Some you get for completing stages while others will need to be
found hidden away in the levels. These all have different properties and allow
you do things such as kill with punches or kill people by bashing them with
doors. Finding a mask to fit your style is all important as you will want to return
to completed stages to better your time, score and overall grade. It’s
incredible how much better you become at the game as you progress and stages
that took ages will soon turn into a race for the biggest kill combo. Levels also
never become repetitive with the layouts offering up different types of scenario
to play around in. There are also more than a fair few surprises to keep you on
your toes as you progress.
Each stage is set out to test not only your reactions but
also your puzzle solving skills. Often gunmen overlook corridors safely from
behind windows or an enemy may be sitting down and thus hiding the weapon they
carry. Working out the order to take out enemies is as vital as actually trying
to kill them as one wrong move and it is all over. There are variables as well
and enemies don’t always patrol in the same way or carry the same weapons upon
restarting after death. This means you also need to be able to think on the
move in order to make it through.
One minor point here is that on the Vita screen it can be very
difficult to see the dogs when they move through dark coloured floor areas. There
were a few occasions when we died without realising a dog was standing right
next to us. It can also be difficult to spot the mask and secret message pick-ups
due to the screens smaller size. This isn’t really a major problem though and
once you have cleared out a level you are free to search around for things
anyway.
The games controls do take a bit of getting used to and feel
awkward to start. As you progress things do become second nature with a couple
of minor exceptions. The drag to look control on the Vita can be difficult to implement
unless you are certain you’re safe. It’s not easy to look a room ahead when the
enemy are closing in and this can lead to a few leaps of faith.
The lock on control can also be a bit fiddly. Pressing the
square button locks onto the enemy you
are facing (you can also use touch on the Vita), but it would have perhaps been
better to lock onto the enemy who is nearest to you as you can often be left
firing a gun at a character two rooms away rather than the three gangsters bearing
down on you. We also found the lock on cursor to be very hard to see on the Vita
and colour blind gamers will struggle even more. A number of times we had to unlock,
and lock over and again to try and work out exactly who we had targeted. These
are very small flaws though and there was nothing here that prevented us from
making our way through the game.
A few (mostly colour blind related), niggles aside it is no
over exaggeration to say that this is a master piece of game design. It’s hard
but fair and it always leaves you wanting one more go on a level. Aesthetically
perfect it has managed to capture an ethos and moment in time and channel it
into an exception game with an intriguing and disturbing story. This is one of
the most essential games to come out on any format and should be owned by every
PS3 and Vita owner.
9/10
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