Re-Review: Hotline Miami

I've recently picked up Hotline Miami for PS3 and Vita, and it has quickly become one of the titles that has absorbed a lot of my free time. Set in the late 1980s, with the feel and soundtrack to match, this indie gem has all the difficulty of NES era games, and all the nuance and style of more modern titles. It's not without problems, but, for the most part, they are easily overlooked, and all combine into an incredibly enjoyable experience.

The Story

Told in flashbacks, through the eyes of an unreliable(at best) narrator, Hotline Miami revolves around a nameless character who receives seemingly harmless messages on his answering machine, where the only relevant information is the address listed. Equal parts psychotic breakdown and vigilante fantasy, you are typically tasked with executing every last person inside, due to their connection to the Russian mob.

The Gameplay

This is an area that has been neglected in a lot of titles recently, trying to push style over substance, and this is where Hotline Miami truly shines. 

With the overhead view of each floor's layout, you can plan ahead and figure out how to best use the space available to not get yourself killed. In a game where one hit kills, and recklessness is rewarded, sometimes a bit of planning ahead before kicking in doors can save you hours of retries. 

The game particularly lends itself well to close range combat, with firearms alerting other hostiles on the floor to your presence, while melee weapons are generally silent, can be thrown at gun wielding thugs to knock them out(and, in some cases, kill them), and are easier to acquire. 

At the start of each mission, you select which mask you are going to wear during this particular killing spree, with each having varying affects. Some are unlocked by beating a particular score on a chapter, others are found in the environment.

The Visuals

In a perfect homage to the era in which the game is set, the psuedo 8-bit pixel art is something that enhances the game stylistically, rather than detracting from it. With the sheer amount of enemies on screen, and the vast quantities of blood spilled, had they gone another route, the game would've had to have been slowed down to compensate for any increase in graphical fidelity. While a somewhat controversial choice, it also helps convey the more psychological aspects of the storyline without spelling everything out for the player, leaving some room for interpretation.

The Sounds

Much like the visuals, the audio in Hotline Miami is intentionally dated, but the sound effects still match up perfectly. The soundtrack adds to the atmosphere, and it's one of the best I've heard in the past several years. The tunes are catchy and stick with you long after you put the game down, which can often be a driving factor in picking it back up again.

Replay Value

With countless ways to complete each chapter, and a large number of masks to attempt new things with as well, Hotline Miami never feels stale. With global leaderboards, and high scores to chase, there's always things to do, and with most chapters being clearable in under 1 minute(not counting deaths and retries), it doesn't demand a large amount of your time either.

The Total Package

Something that we've been discussing a lot behind the scenes when trying to figure out who is going to write what, and what games to cover, is the price point. For only $9.99 for the PS Vita and Playstation 3 with Cross-Buy, it is a fantastic value that is well-suited to both long hours of play tethered to a TV, and short bursts on the go.

There are, however, some things I take issue with, particularly in the later chapters, that I would be remiss to not mention here. In one of the early chapters, there is a room wired with explosives, and with no hints, I was stuck for hours, until I finally figured out that you need to shoot the door from a safe distance to set it off. Having been trained by the game that using guns is generally A Bad Idea, it didn't cross my mind to attempt this until almost two hours of attempts, some involving throwing objects, others involving attempting the entire chapter again with a different mask. Later still, there is a chapter where the police arrive, and there is a sniper positioned on one side of the building, which has four or so windows between you and the exit. There are also a few encounters that take some time to figure out, be it that the enemy is only vulnerable to gunfire, or that there is a pattern that needs to be learned through repetitious trial and error. There's even a chapter where, after the game tells you that you've completed it, involves an unexpected combat on the way out(and a few cheap feeling deaths at the hands of a wall-smashing van).

Overall, these issues are really only apparent on a first playthrough, as when replaying, it's fairly easy to recall the way these unique encounters are handled, and that, in turn, makes them far more enjoyable. It moves at a break-neck pace, and, more importantly, it is a hell of a lot of fun, even after the third time through.

Also of note, there is a sequel in the works, tentatively titled Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, so the first might be worth a play to ensure you aren't missing out if the sequel lives up to the original.