So, Hotline Miami is pretty great. It's basically a top-down beat-em-up / Commando light mash-up (or the old NES "Mission Impossible" game!), but with snazzy graphics, an.. interesting story, and a whole mess of weapons to toy around with, which work very well with all the unique animations! It's got just enough random in it's layouts and behavior to make it fun to grind a mission, yet still keep a pace and flow that feels challenging and well-planned.
I do have to say, though, I find it's controls to be kinda... meh? Maybe not controls, but the refinement. It's frustrating how many times I tried to activate a stealth kill / punch a guy, and overlapping bodies and overly-specific activation areas made me miss.
Due to this, I never 100% achieved that "Everything is going exactly as I wanted!" feel; there was always a messy element to the controls, that found it's way in, when I was feeling confident.
But beyond that, it's a pretty high-class indie game, to be sure. And the music reaches fantastic levels sometimes! It was all well layered, and seem to take the "retry forever!" length of stages into account; it rarely sounds repetitive.
I'm glad a game like this has become so popular, because it does seem to be the perfect example of "Quality over Quantity". There's really not that many stages, there's no voicework, and the gameplay is just as samey as a Dynasty Warriors or D&D: Tower of Doom.
AND THE ENEMIES ARE DUMMMMMMBBBB. Wow. I'm surprised. They ignore shots from the silenced Uzis (since 2 hits needed to kill, the first non-killer won't even ALERT them! WOW.) Silenced SHOTGUNS can't be heard, even when RIGHT beside someone else (while wearing the unicorn mask), they take NO concern over corpses, layers of blood, or seeing a friend fall dead RIGHT beside them (as long as killed with a silent move!), and their "amazing notice of you, even with their backs turned, while off screen!" feels kinda cheap and lazy, honestly. This really hampers stealth-derived fun, as it easily feels that the game strongly favors swift brutality over all. And who cares that there's few enemy models!
But the surroundings are so strong, that none of that sticks out. The almost turn-based nature of timing your melee swings feels like good depth. Door usage and ammo-rationing make the game feel more strategic than you'd expect. And every weapon has it's own satisfying after effects!
I really enjoyed it, but I can't help but feel that it's darker narrative and awesome music make people gloss over the weaknesses that they'd be ready to shout from a mountain top for many other games...
