Hotline Miami

I have heard great things about this game, and it made me want to play it. What I did not expect was: 1. Being hard as you progressed through it. 2. The story. Seriously, it got so weird and crazy, but I enjoyed it for what it was. I could go on and on about how great this game is. I'll say this: This game is packed with crisp graphics, especially when it comes to the look of the video game, great gameplay, an interesting story, and an excellent but creepy soundtrack. If you haven't played this video game yet, play it, but once again: This game gets hard as you play more of it, and you will need to rethink your strategy at times.

I walked into this game expecting a shitty retro styled game. What I got has to be close if not thee best game released this year. I got sucked in for like 5 hours when I only expected to play it for 10 minutes. The game rewards twitchy precise play styles. It feels like True Lies on the SNES if it decided to go 12-bit, do copious amounts of LCD, and be more of a stealth game. The controls are really responsive and when you mess up it usually makes you want to try again. At first I was like: this game is stupidly hard! But after I carefully monitored how enemies acted and the way the environment worked it went from super hard to just right. If you want a retro-like game with a few stylized modernized features, consider giving this game a try. I am very impressed.

Great atmosphere, incredible music selection, simple control! The gameplay is uncomplicated, but the difficulty is sometimes challenging, as you progress trough the game. I recommend it to everyone who likes old school shooter games!

The music ranges from great to forgettable, the visual -- though strange-- are perfectly fine, and the narrative themes are disturbing and compelling. Combine all that with the brutal, fast-paced combat and it *should* add up to a really nice experience, but sadly it doesn't. Ultimately, the combat feels more reliant on luck than skill. Beating a mission feels like it's less about learning the layout and enemy placement, and moreso merely hoping everything happens to work out in your favor. AI behavior is erratic, and runs the gambit between sometimes being unstoppable homing missiles heading straight for you and other times not even noticing you're killing their friends right in front of them. Controls & hit detection seems rather unreliable too. I also suffered from it crashing to desktop every hour or so. Hotline Miami is not a *bad* game, but it's far more beloved than I can possibly understand. The price isn't terrible, but I'd suggest waiting for a sale. Not bad, but falls far short of its potential.

Don't know how anybody plays this. It feels like I'm swimming rather than punching or firing a gun. Good luck if there's multiple targets you need to take out in quick succession, which is the entire point of the game.