Hotline Miami

[Chiropteran]

Picked this up when it was on sale at gog.com a few months back, just got into playing it last week.

Wow.

I hate most game story-lines. Terrible writing and nonsense plot filled with stupid puns seems to be par for the course, so much that I normally skip the story as much as possible in any game I play.

Well, I started playing Hotline Miami without really paying attention to the story but I quickly found myself replaying those early levels to see every little detail that I skipped over. Not going to say it's the best story ever, it uses a fair share of common tropes, but for a computer game story it's pretty high up there.

Gameplay is incredibly basic on the surface, but actually ends up being extremely fun. Some say the game is very hard, I think it's just a matter of training yourself to do each level- none of them were really all that hard after a few (dozen) attempts to learn the enemy locations and figure out the best strategy. Even if it's not sold as a puzzle game, figuring out the best way to clear each stage room by room almost feels like a puzzle.

The graphics are retro, but work well IMO. I never subscribed to the idea that graphics makes a better game.

The soundtrack is excellent, it actually got me interested in looking up other music by the artists involved, even though I normally don't care for electronic music of the sort. There are enough songs that it never gets stale, and they each seem to fit their chapter perfectly.

Value? For all the good things I have to say about the game, it's only worth it's normal $9.99 price just barely, because it's a fairly short game, probably 2-5 hours to play through the first time, and it doesn't have any multiplayer component or "hard mode" for additional content. At half price or less though, it's a great deal.

 

[blackwhiskers]

aye, this game is great. I found myself in a similar pursuit of little details in my first playthrough. They really did a good and wonderfully simple job at building what little backstory there is.

regarding difficulty, latest patch added leaderboards (again? iirc, something like that once already was in the game), so you can go after high scores. or, if you're feeling adventurous, there are certain masks that, arguably, do nothing but make things more difficult.

 

[Chiropteran]

It's half price now on steam, as part of the sale. If you were thinking about trying the game, now is the time.

Worth it at full price, if you ask me, so I'd certainly suggest buying it on sale.

 

[robvp]

this game is great, was the first game i finished in a long while, sometimes i would try to clear the level with stealth until i say f*ck it and go berserk on everyting, the soundtrack fits the game amazingly well too

 

[QueBert]

good game, I'm stuck on the level where there's the man on a chair in the middle of the room that's wired to explode when the doors opened. After that part there's 2 sniper like dudes ducked behind some barricades. I can't shoot them because of the barricades, and like all other enemies they shot me dead the second they see me.

I'm probably missing something obvious here, but how the shit do I kill them?

 

[robvp]

i dont recall exactly but i shot at the door there to make it blow up and for the snipers i just used the shotgun spread to shot at their general direction i think

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I played a great deal of this game drunk and loved every frustrating minute of it.

Usually I hate games which you easily fail and have to re-do over and over but the sheer speed at which you could restart an area made retrying fun and painless, game was trippy as hell and being drunk made it that much more fun.

Indy games are brilliant, it's an awesome little game.

 

[JamesV]

I thought the story was good also, but this game aggravated the hell out of me. I could figure out how to clear a level, but the execution was another thing... I'd call it hard because of that. If I know exactly what to do, but it takes me 20 attempts to do it, then it is hard.

Not exactly enjoyable hard either, but I'll give it another chance, because I did enjoy it's presentation.

 

[Plimogz]

Very fun little game. Weird as [insert expletive here].

And I'm not at all convinced that it even needs a harder mode at all. It seems to me that the masks+combos+time bonus system is all that you'll ever need to make things as hard on yourself as you could desire: just trying to clear levels while carrying the combo multiplier and hitting as many multi-kills as you can makes it virtually infinitely replayable.

 

[Chiropteran]

$2.50 today. A bargain.

 

[zanemoseley]

Really fun game, one of the first indie games I've played. I kinda stalled out at the police station. Really fun atmosphere.