Review for Hotline Miami (PC)
1-player action/puzzle, Developed by Dennaton Games
There's something to be said for the kind of game that can truly get its hooks into you. From the very title screen of Hotline Miami, its rubbing your skin preparing to pierce - the psychedelic colours, the dreamy soundscape, the utterly captivating bobbing Russian title text, and the bizarre 16-bit-esque pixel aesthetic. Less than ten seconds in, you hit "start game," and Hotline Miami has its rusty, bloody hooks in your arms. All it has to do now is to pull firmly and gently. You now belong to the Hotline Miami.
The tutorial is adequate as a way of teaching you the basic controls, but what it does better is to establish the tone of this dark, unbelievably violent videogame. An unseen man barks instructions at you as you smash men's skulls in with a baseball bat, the surroundings - a dimly lit, murky basement - concealed of their true terror though the captivating, and often times trippy, faux-16-bit art style. The background flashes slowly through several gradients of gaudy colours, the screen wobbles back and forth like you're drunk (or high), and there's a very subtle film-grain effect that creates the illusion that you're viewing the whole thing through a busted VHS player. In other words - its the 80s, baby, viewed through the murky rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, but recreated from memory, resulting in a setting that is both wholly authentic and unsettlingly off.
