Note:

I have been saying that I would make a post about this game reviewing for way too long, so finally I have played enough of it, I have beat the game story and tried out the bonus levels.Hence for my standards I am ready to criticize and review this game.

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Hotline Miami Review

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1).Overview

This is an amazing top down action indie game, where you will die and harm people.You will play as a guy named jacket, how receives weird phone calls inviting him to do seemingly mundane things while wearing a mask, However when he reached the destinations to enact the tasks, he is received aggressively by the Russian mafia.

So you play as a masked lunatic trying to cleanse a place out of people, while dying by the slightest hit, ignoring masks special abilities. Hence you would die A LOT, yet that is fine as you would return back to killing gangsters before you knew it.

While playing you would be accompanied with some great music mostly electronica. On the other hand once you finish a level the music stops dead, as if you have noticed what you have done. "Do you really want me to reveal who you are? Knowing oneself means acknowledging ones actions. As of lately you've done some terrible things..." Don Juan to the Jacket

2).Gameplay

Let us begin with the most prominent feature of this game, other than magnificent soundtrack the brutal violence of this game is well known. Hence now we are going to explore it.

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I).Movement

The combat and movement of this game is fairly easy to understand, yet hard to master. First and foremost we start with the movement, as in most games you move with the "WASD, where your movement is not affected by where the cursor is, meaning that you can not change the orientation of the camera (the place you can see the world through) with the cursor.

You can control where Jacket (the name of your character) is facing through your cursor (moving your mouse), doing so would determine both where your punches would hit and where you would through objects. The place your are facing can as well enable you to execute actions to interact with objects (just as picking up throwables) or finish off enemies.

There are also some extra controls that helps you navigate the stage. One of these controls let's you look further than normal with the camera moving in the direction of the cursor.This action can be done by holding the "SHIFT" button

and aides you in uncovering the positions of your enemies, so you can concoct a plan

Provided that you found an enemy rather tricky to defeat, then you can try locking on him so you character would always aim/face that annoying enemy, by pressing the "SCROLL WHEEL" you would be able to lock on foes.

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II).Combat

First of, we should commence with the most basic of combat actions, you can punch enemies with the left mouse button. This button is also used in for shooting at enemies, if a firearm is equipped. Moreover you can throw both firearms and melee weapons on targets to knock them out for a jiffy.

In addition there is another valuable to trick that knocks down enemies (Note that all the aforementioned actions do not kill enemies except for shooting with guns). This trick is using door to knock down enemies as any enemy how touches a door that moves towards him would be brought to the ground.

Other than that you can neutralize your foes by shooting them or finishing them (there are other methods like hitting them with a melee weapon, throwing a knife or using masks special powers, but that is beside the point). To finish an opponent you would have to face your enemy and press "Space". Bear in mind that all executions take some time and even some needs you to keep on punching the enemy. It is recommended to only finish an enemy while he is grounded though you can execute enemies in in any position. For shooting you simply have to aim your cursor towards the target and press the left mouse button to shoot.

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III). Masks

Masks in this game offers special abilities that would aide you in your venture.

Although you shall obtain a mask after completing a stage for the first time, there are some masks that are found as collectibles when you interact with a fallen masked lunatic assailant.

These masks carry different powers some for improve your offensive capabilities like Tony the tiger mask that enables you to one punch enemies. -except for the large foes, whom only defeated by firearms- others offer you abilities like being able to survive a bullet, or walk fast etc...

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IV). puzzle

In a first glance this game may appear without any collectibles, nevertheless you would be mistaken. Since you not only can collect some masks through completing stages, and you can unlock more weapons (the weapons would begin to spawn in game.) for getting a high score in each stage, but you can also collect letters that would constitute a puzzle.

First of all you would have to gather the letters, then you should be able to complete the puzzle by rearranging the letters in the right order.

Do not worry about not knowing the order as the letter becomes immediately attached to its place once you put it there. This puzzle well contribute into the story, but to avoid spoiling the story for you I will put it in the story section of this article after a clear spoiler warning.

3).Options

In consideration of the options, I am not sure if they are limited or expansive. There a plethora of options in the launcher, this however is reversed in the in game menu.

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I). Game Launcher

To initiate the talk about the options let us start with the more filled menu, it contains:

Option to change the resolution Option to change the language Option to play on fullscreen or windowed Option to enable v-sync to mitigate screen tearing Alienware which syncs your RGB keyboard with the in-game music Rumble which allows vibrations if the game is played with a controller Original and updated which enables you to play the updated or the original version of the game

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II).Main Menu

For the main menu you would be faced with some options including:

The ability to start a new game The ability to level select The ability to check your ranking the ability to check the controls (not change them) The ability to change the music volume

Leader Board

Inside Options

Inside controls

Inside Volume

4).Story

Despite of this games nature, it has a enigmatic story that is fully explained in Hotline Miami 2. To be frank, I have used the video of a guy called Squatch gaming official to fully understand, the story. As a result I have found that his videos have enriched my experience with the game and made me have a new appreciation for the game. Thus in my opinion you should check out his content after completing the game, if you are planning to purchase this game

I have tried to give a glimpses of the story is in the overview, moreover I will make a brief summary of the game story in this sections of the review, hence.

Spoiler Warning for the incoming section of the review, If you want to skip the spoiler skip to the end of this section (story)

So, as aforementioned before you play as a person called jacket, he is a war veteran of a special ops unit in the Russo-american war, where a friend named Beard saved his life saying that is on the house. Beard wanted to work at a convenience store after the war ends, however that was short lived as he died in a nuclear blast sent by the Russians in San Francisco.

Then afterwards the story-line of hotline Miami 1 begins, where jacket registers in patriotic organisation that calls itself 50 blessings. thereafter weird phone messages ordering him to do simple things at different addresses had appeared. In These locations he is meet with angry gangsters of the Russian mafia that he has to kill to accomplish his objective which he happily obliges die to his deep hatred towards them. After each mission he goes to his friend beard who works at multiple places and gives him stuff on the house

Things keeps on like that for awhile; him receiving phones and killing Russians. He founds a girl in there once and chose not to kill her,

he however chose to take care of her. He meets with three people one being aggressive one being informative and the last being caring, Then one day after completing his mission a phone has rang at the place of the massacre ordering him to kill someone and a phone company.

He accomplishes the mission, nevertheless the mission became progressively harder and more dangerous. He starts to hallucinate dead Russians around him, once even while meeting beard he sees the corpse of the man he killed at the phone company, however beard reassures him that that did not happen. One day he returns home to find the girl he cares for is dead and there is an assassin indoors. He is shot. Then he meets the informative person one more time informing him that he whatever he does now is useless and that he would not know the truth.

To elaborate he was in a coma, and all of the game thus far was jacket remembering what happened. The three people in he meets are parts of his psyche; where one blame him for the killing, the other reminding him and connecting him to the truth of his past and the last one trying to protect him and justify his actions.

Moreover, it can be concluded that the statement by beard is true, where despite of jacket beating the biker he met at the phone company, he fails to kill him. Therefore the organisation behind the phone calls tries to punish him for his failure, by giving him risky missions, yet he survived them. As a consequence they ordered another of their masked gowns to kill him.

Now jacket wants revenge for the girl. He starts with escaping the hospital where he heard that the police captured the murderer. Hence his next step was hunting him, he goes to the police station and confronts the killer. The killer state that he is just like him; being manipulated by the phone calls to do horrendous things, he wants to be forgiven and he knows he wont be. In addition he leads you to the evidence collected by the police about the phone calls.

Following the police evidence, jacket discovers that the calls are coming from certain Russian hideout. Thus, jacket proceeds to bring the Russian mafia to its knees by beheading their bosses. and here ends the story of jacket in hotline miami 1.

The story has not come to its end just, yet though as answers are coming. You know play as biker the guy who was once thought to killed by jacket, he wants out of the hotline assassination calls. So he goes to the guy who recruited him for some answers, to which he was directed to a place where someone set a system at the phone company to direct anyone searching behind the messages to the russian hideout.

I realized the typo after turning the edited captured clip into a GIF I was not going down that rabbit hole again to fix it

This in-turn lead to the fight between jacket and biker at the phone company, where it in biker's perspective that it was an easy fight,

where jacket is defeated. Thereafter after getting a threat from the phone calls, Biker heads to the address he retrieved from the phone company, where he faces a janitor. He was browsing his computer, however once he sees you he shuts it down and go down the sewers.This computer is cannot be unlocked unless, you had solved the puzzle mentioned above in game-play then you would able to confront the janitor to uncover the truth. Either way if biker confronts them with the information or the absence of it, he would move out of Miami in fear of the bigger picture.

5).Style

To be frank, I find myself not able to talk much about this section actually, perhaps I do not know much about it. Yeah of course I can point out if the game is aesthetically pleasing with wonderful graphics and immersive music, yet I can not get into the meager details to state pinpoint precisely why is it that good. As a result I will post a game-play video after this (Without commentary) for you to inspect the style yourself

Nevertheless, I will try anyway. This game has an 80's vibe, with its music, themes the neon lights and flashing lights that can be present in the menu screen. Also through its pixelated retro topdown shooter atmosphere.

6). Problems

I).Crashes

Although there are some burdens that plague this game, they are mainly harmless bugs that can make you restart a level or aide you in speed running the chapter. Nevertheless during my 12 hours of play time I have faced some crashes. Where the game froze thrice during that period, which can be annoying. other than that I personally do not have any crutches against the game.

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II).Difficulty

Some individuals might have an issue with the difficulty of the game as it has a steep learning curve. Well I do not recommend to the easy quitters, who wont stand a couple of loses, yet again for those who are strong willed, they would find the game quite enjoyable. It is a fun game for those who endure the early struggle.

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III).Discomfort

That although does not mean that everyone would agree with me, as the "high" like theme present in the menu screen (the camera tilting, the colors) can induce motion sickness and headaches. thus making the game unplayable for some.

7).Final verdict

So instead of giving out a number where I think the game would rate,I would prefer a more practical approach by asking simple questions, to state my opinion about the game.

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Question 1: what is my general impression of the game?

The game is good, where everything works out to deliver a certain emotion and it really works in favor of the theme and the enigmatic story. What is in there for terms of story is enough to get you theorizing, similar to situation to jacket you wont get the full answers from this game. The game-play is spot on though, I kind of wished for the dual wielding I saw glimpses of in the next game. The difficulty of the game leaves you to focus on the game-play and the music, where you would feel unmotivated to leave the game after completing a stage of fear of losing progress. That in turn aides you to just keep on playing until you "git gud".Then the real fun starts.

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Question 2: Am I willing to continue the game to collect all the collectibles?

Well yeah with my increasing, as of now I enjoy the game so much more and I would not like to leave it, even though I went through all the levels multiple times

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Question 3: Am I willing to go full on completionist on this game?

Although, I am less liable to play the game to full completion, I can see myself doing it. I would also predict some rage quits in the midst of it. I have already got multiple aces on a few of the missions (the frog mask that increase the combo timer has been a major help. and I have collected 5 of the letters of the puzzle so I am already has passed a sizable chunk in my venture to full completion.

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Question 4: Provided that I complete the game fully would I return to it?

To be honest, I do not know, What I know that like most games, it is unlikely for me to visit it again after 100% and having nothing else to do inside the game. I can attempt to doing it again. but that would not be in the near future. I would utterly play it if there is no internet connection in the vicinity.

Hope that, that review was entertaining and informative of the game. I would apperciate if you inform of anything I have missed about this game. and tell me your thoughts upon this review.

The game is made by Dennaton games and is out on steam for $10. it is currently on sale for $2.5. It is also available for mac, linux, ps3,4 and vita and android.

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TL:DR just read the overview, the problems and final verdict. The rest is just details I believe you do not have time for.

Note: all the gifs and pictures are captured and edited by me, except for the thumbnail were i got the poster from chrono.gg and edited it with my logo.