Hotline Miami Review

If you play Hotline Miami you'll likely die, many, many, many times. But it's just part of the game; Hotline Miami plays like a combination of Super Meat Boy crossed with Painkiller. As violent and horrific as the game is, it'll still bring you back for more blood-thirsty retro 80s styled fun.

What do you do in the game?

Hotline Miami is essentially a fast paced top-down arcade shooter/hack and slash/beat 'em up game. You'll be tasked with finding different, faster ways to take out bases filled with Russian mobsters. You can enter a room guns blazing, or take the silent approach with a knife. Either way, you'll be getting scored on how quickly and efficiently you finish the level. Different scores allow you to use more guns, weapons and Masks.

Masks are special ability items in Hotline Miami that give you bonuses. For example, the Cheetah mask lets you move fast, the Cobra mask allows you to do instant kills with thrown weapons and the Frog Mask allows you to get longer combos.

The style

Hotline Miami has a very interesting style that works quite well. The game takes place in the 1980s and because of this, the folks at Dennaton Games decided to take an 8 bit approach to the art style. As for the music, the retro 80s soundtrack will be ringing in your head for weeks after playing this game.

In conclusion

This game was a fast paced 4 to 5 hour blast. However, the game time can be greatly extended by looking for all the secrets or by just trying to unlock all the masks and weapons. If you have the stomach for lots of senseless violence in 8 bit form I would seriously recommend Hotline Miami.

Hotline Miami is currently avaliable for PC and OSX. It is also coming to PS3 and Vita sometime this spring.