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By now you’ve probably seen the scrawled warning found on the Hotline Miami booth that delighted journalists at GamesCom. Printed on a pillar in handwriting as erratic as it was threatening, it basically warned not to ask about Drive, or why the game appears to be the same as before.
It is what it is, get over it. It’s fast, it’s violent, it’s adrenaline-injection addictive, and it’s smarter than it looks at first glance. The GamesCom demo wasn’t the most stable – it crashed out on me at least twice, and hitting escape reset the whole build. But it was another example of how Dennaton Games understands the notion of pacing and risk vs reward.
Whereas the first game simply got you started, told you that you were a savage bastard (with some noise about your girlfriend), and told you to murder on command, here the game is framed, in the beginning at least, as a movie: Midnight Animal. After an initial level on a film set, you’re then transported onto a chat show, where – after answering several banal questions – you soon hallucinate the death of everyone in the studio.
After that, it’s back off to another seedy-looking building to smash some skulls, and it’s here where the game naturally shines. Picking Corey (zebra mask), I smash the front door open, taking a guard down, before quickly picking up his Uzi and spraying bullets into the next three sentries who run to his aid.
The few moments of quiet that follow outnumber those of violence, but the latter lingers even as I step over their bodies, before the rampage begins again. On subsequent plays, there will be no break, as I (and everyone else) seek to hone their par times and kill streaks. But on the first play, feeling both powerful and vulnerable – one hit kills, of course – I’m reminded of Hotline Miami’s genius.
I die, a lot, but I’m not deterred and soon everyone is dead, dropped faster than an empty machine pistol, and the level ends. Not before, of course, it asks you to walk past the corpses that you’ve left, an eerie quiet replacing the pounding soundtrack that was playing seconds before. Skipping over the bodies to your getaway vehicle has always been one of Hotline Miami’s sobering moments, and, freed from the rush of combat and movement, it’s here you get to see what you’ve really done. Never was I impressed with my deeds.
Later on, I’ll try the next level as Tony, whose tiger mask enables him to kill with one blow. The downside is that he can’t pick up any weapons. Playing as Tony makes the game harder, but when you get it right it emphasises Hotline’s reliance on player agency and skill. Flitting from kill to kill, hand-to-hand, is addictive and graceful. Well, for the duration, at least. Again, when it’s all over, and you survey your handiwork – busted heads spilling gore, brain matter, people spattered on gaudy carpets – you’re reminded that, like any good vice, while it feels great to play Hotline Miami, remorse, in some form, isn’t usually far away. But that will pass, and you’ll soon be doing it all over again.
Hotline Miami 2 has faced controversy already – an implied rape scene right at the start of the ‘movie’ feels very out-of-place, even in context – and is a misstep for a developer that knows exactly what it’s doing. In terms of mechanics, setting and agency, however, this could be another classic.
