Hotline Miami

I can't count how many times I've been lured in by the initial promise of a game only to find it's been a letdown in one way or another...but here, not so. This is game is perfect at what it does and follows through on what it promises to be. It is a brutal, ultraviolent run and gun (or pummel, depending on the situation), that requires forethought and on-the-run reflexes to survive. Weaved in is a clever story which I won't go into detail about, short of saying I found it added to the experience and unsettling surreality of the game rather than feeling tacked on. It's more than worth the $10 for this gem, I couldn't recommend it highly enough!

Hotline Miami is an achievement in fast, frenetic action - the game will make you feel like god through it's high difficulty, fast movement, and of course: brutal violence: you will feel every shot, every knife, every kick to the face in this game. It's not a simple 'run 'n gunner'; you really need to think both off your toes, and be ready to react fast on your toes. This alone would be enough to hail the game as fantastic, but it is also imbued with a hot, GTA: Vice City-esque, 16-Bit style that is both atmospheric and appropriate the story, along with an amazing, distorted electronic soundtrack. The story it's self is a surprise; both thought provoking and in some ways surreal. HLM is simply glorious and must be played by everyone that has a little bit of blood lust in them. Well done Dennaton Games, you should be proud of your work and I hope to see more from you.

My mind is slipping. I am following murderous orders on my telephone answering machine. I think... maybe it's in my head. Did I really kill all those people? Did I really survive? I feel uneasy. Nauseated. The room won't hold still. There's static in my brain. Colors seem to crawl around in my head. Hideous hues of Pepto-bismal pink, convenient store neon orange, and baby poop green. I sniff hard through my nostrils and fight back the urge to vomit. The only way to stop thinking about the killing is to kill more. In the killing there's no time for remorse, no time for pondering long term consequences, there is only action. My eyes dart around every corner, door, and exit. My muscles twinge in reflex. My brain plans its moves: Shoot. Sprint. Pounce. Stab. Hide. Fire. Run. As I take life, mine is reaffirmed. I am alive. I'm bound tight like a rubber band pulled on both ends, about to snap. But I can only think a few steps ahead. I don't know what lies ahead other than danger. I must be vigilant. I must be aggressive. And when it is all over, I will think I must be sick. Horribly, horribly sick. But there's not time to think about what's wrong with me now. I'm already through the door. The trigger has already been pulled. I'm already in the chase. Guns are blazing. I'm in it. There's no turning back. Hotline Miami is that. It's not just a game, it's a psychological experience that emerges out of the ugliness of the graphics, the head-bending visual effects, the trippiness of the music, the andrenaline fueled gameplay, the tension before opening a door, the horror and quiet of walking out of a room where you have murdered every living soul and their bloodied bodies are in piles. To break it down into gameplay, graphics, sound, control doesn't seem to do it justice. It is killer's instinct, confusion, evil, guilt. It is terror. Surprising calm. It is a disoriented nightmare. It is succumbing to that urge at night to just swerve into the headlights. It is waking up in someone else's blood. It is all your fault

If you're desensitized to extreme violence and gore... or if you just get a kick out of it, you'll probably be able to appreciate what this game has to offer. This game is about murdering a bunch of people because someone on the phone is vaguely telling you to. The story evolves beyond that, but it still seems like a mess and doesn't make you feel any better about what you're doing. And if you don't find all the secrets, you won't get the "true" ending. Instead you'll get an ending where two completely bogus sounding characters spout dialog that only makes you want to shoot them. The story pieces you along with atmosphere, but I didn't get a good sense of what the writer was trying to tell. Maybe that's not the point. For people just looking for a very good action gameplay experience, this is the game. It's gritty, fast, doesn't hold your hand and doesn't forgive. There is no quicksave in between levels, and when you get shot, you go down. Same with the enemies. I can't tell you how much of a blessing that is. So many games these days give everything a ton of hitpoints, which I think breaks the immersion and flow of the game. As unforgiving as it is, this game doesn't punish you for failing (like all those NES games did back in the day). The levels are floors in buildings, and once you clear a floor, you can go onto the next level with a fresh checkpoint at the start of that. When you die, just hit R and you IMMEDIATELY respawn at the start of that floor. This makes it so you can't do save/load cheating, but you don't really want to either. It promotes using different strategies and experimenting with weapons, timing, etc. This is a fantastic GAME, even if I wasn't as fond of the story. When I want story, I'll watch a movie. Also, the music is perfect.