This game is very short. My game time was something below two hours, completing 40 levels. Apart from one level where I did not find the solution because it was late, almost all other levels felt like a tutorial. The idea of the game is an interesting puzzle about placing differnently shaped elements on a map, also some elements need to be “reduced” (e.g. loading munition into weapons) to save room. The game introduced several elements one by one every few levels. The last one, gunpowder, comes into play around level 30?), but neither element proved especially difficult, complex or had more than a trivial interaction with established elements. The level design is mostly trivial and halfway reveals the solution, as it’s often laid out trivially for placement of the weapons and other elements. For me the only non-trivial, non-tutorial level with a nice challenge was the last one. Unfortunately it was the last one. Graphics and sound is … functional, but not that important for a puzzle game. The atmosphere tries to get into the safe room mentality, but the thriller background music is annoying and distracting for this kind of game, so I played with sound muted. The UI/controls are quite clunky, sometimes don’t react properly and are just not polished enough to be unobtrusive. You need to choose whether keyboard or mouse is better as you cannot mix them. It shows the developer is cleary unexperienced here and should take example from games like Big Pharma or Into the Breach, which have much better controls. Because of the shortness, the uninspired level design and lack of good controls, I cannot give more than two stars, but at least it’s reasonably priced.
The soundtrack of Hotline Miami is fantastic, matching perfectly to the quick and deadly levels. They have become game music classics. I will very much recommend these. But, all tracks except for “Vengeance” are already included in the main game. Just have a look in the game folder! They are encoded as Ogg Vorbis, which might be a bit less of a quality, but frankly, for this style of music it’s mostly undiscernable. If the soundtrack GOG offers would provide FLAC versions in best quality, a four- or five-star review would seem appropriate. But with just about no advantage and a price HIGHER than the full game including all tracks (except one), this is only for enthusiasts and collectors (with too much money at hand).
