Hotline Miami Simple Review

The walls are swaying, the fashion is atrocious, there's an electric menace in the air, and I'm smeared in fluids that defy identification. No, this isn't the last Halloween party I went to - I'm playing Hotline Miami, the cult hit game of top-down, high-speed, high-stakes murder. Set amongst the palm-lined boulevards of Honda's tawdriest mega-city, it's a grisly flashback to the retina-scorching days of EGA graphics and video nasties.

Yet it's so much more. Playing Hotline Miami is an engrossing experience. Perhaps an indelible one. And its difficult to imagine it becoming a commercial reality anywhere but on an open PC format.

Granted, there is still something of a Wild West atmosphere in the mobile phone space, but the most sophisticated touch screens in the world struggle to match the precision and versatility of conventional controllers: joypad, keyboard, and mouse. And while the mainstream console makers have cottoned on to the cost-effectiveness and hipster cachet of digital downloads, there are always gatekeepers that screen these games before the public can sample them - and gatekeepers take bitter satisfaction in making life as difficult as possible for those in their power.


Picture an office cubicle, perched high above picturesque Kyoto. A portrait of Satoru lwata stares down benevolently from the wall, as a shapeless man in a shapeless grey suit shuffles paper on a mahogany desk the size of a car. Indio dev and deadset legend Jonatan Saderstram sits before him, supplicant, resisting the urge to fidget with the fraying upholstery of his folding chair.

After an interminable wait, the functionary speaks.

"First of all, I love the high-concept idea. A mystery story with lashings of nostalgia, and some of those hip tunes all the kids are listening too. I also like the extra-chunky pixel graphics. This means that you have a game that will actually run on our system, unlike those jerks from Crytek I had in here yesterday."

Sederstrom smiles. His spirits lift. But then: "I'm not sure about the content, though."
"Specifically?"
"Specifically, the way you murder just about everyone you meet. And I'm not talking PG-13 murder, with bullets that don't leave leave any blood, let alone exit wounds. Did you see The Dark Knight Rises? That obnoxious cop looked like he was taking a nap. Pathetic.

"No, the murder in your game is more akin to Dredd 3D. The way you pin foes to the floor and bash their brains out, leaving little squares of grey matter in amongst the vermilion arterial jets. The way the oblique camera angle lingers on your every sin, as you paint every square inch of lino with innards. Even the box art shows a guy with his guts hanging out.

"We believe these gameplay aspects could prove mildly unsettling, even for jaded adult garners. Casual garners, our primary market, will be baffled by the non-linear narrative and vexed by the extreme difficulty.

"We also believe the ghoulish animal masks could scare small children."

SoderstrOm counters, beginning to suspect the fight is lost. "But.., this game isn't for children."

"They'll play it, all the same. Parental controls can be circumvented, and besides, these days every child is a latchkey kid. Left to their own devices, juveniles will seek out the most transgressive and stimulating entertainment products available. And if the next mass-murdering fruitcake is found to have our console in his home... No. No, we're a family company, Mr. Soderstrom. Perhaps you could try your luck over at Sony."

They said I'd have to add trophies before they'd even look at it."

"Then you have your work cut out for you, Mr. Soderstrom. This meeting is over. Oh, and help yourself to a Virtual Boy from one of those crates on your way out."

Big companies are serious business. They strive to maximise profits and minimise risk, but they make spectacular cock-ups all the same. Sony's shares have recently been degraded to junk bond status, and some are already tarring Nintendo's Wii U as the blunder of the century. It's easy to imagine a near-future world where Microsoft is the only console maker left standing. Too bad their attempt to integrate an all-encompassing app store into Windows 8 has driven Valve to start developing their own gaming hardware.

The seductiveness of an idea is often directly proportional to its destructiveness. And since tech companies are built on ideas and little else, they can see their fortunes change very quickly. Take THQ, now reduced to flogging Humble Bundles.

Hotline Miami has captured the imaginations of PC gamers, and if there's any justice in this world it will make its creators very wealthy men. But it could not exist without open standards, open markets, and an open format.

http://hotlinemiami.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Miami