Hotline Miami

            I will never understand the masochism that allows people to enjoy unbearably difficult games. In the beginning, the beginning here meaning the 8 and 16-bit eras, video games were hard because the challenge was the only thing they had going for them. If a video game was easy, you were done with it and probably never wanted to play it again. If a game was difficult enough, it could become legendary. Most gamers still know the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start) because of Contra. Cheating was almost necessary to beat that game. Nowadays there is no reason for the difficulty to be that high. Storytelling in games, even small indie games with archaic graphics, has advanced greatly. This has allowed games to not be so hair-tearingly frustrating. Developers can balance the difficulty to give enough challenge that winning feels satisfying, but not so difficult that you want to smash everything you own in anger because you’ve died eighty times in the same room. Hotline Miami spits in the face of this development, then douses it in gasoline and lights it on fire.

            The game is about a psychopath who murders a lot of people because he keeps getting phone messages from some unknown source. Every once in a while he also talks to a bunch of guys in animal masks. In between missions he goes to various local establishments like bars and video stores, which all seem to be run by the same clerk. While there, the clerk offers him something for free while saying a bunch of cryptic stuff, and then the psychopath protagonist leaves. It’s not much of a story, but it’s intriguing. You know that there’s something weird going on as you’re playing, and it’s tantalizing enough to make you want to keep play for a while. The ultra-violence is potentially a little off-putting, but it works with the seedy Miami underground they’ve built. What would Scarface be without a lot of blood? The art style is also extremely cool. Everything is 80’s neon. The music is jarring and haunting, but can also be funky at times. Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you about the story. There’s an 80’s psychopath, it’s violent, and the style is cool. Why is that all I can tell you? I quit at Chapter 11 because I couldn’t take the gameplay anymore.

            The actual style of gameplay isn’t the problem. It’s a top-down shooter kind of like the online flash game Endless War or, more appropriately for the style of the game, like the 80’s arcade games Smash TV and Robotron. This vantage point provides more of a tactical view in practical terms, and it allows more distance from the character in terms of narrative. Unfortunately I found the actual controls to be incredibly loose. I was constantly running into walls when I was trying to make it through a doorway, missing people right in front of me with an attack, or opening and closing doors when I really didn’t want to. While these may seem like minor problems, they become vastly more important when every shot is a one hit kill against you. It doesn’t matter what kind of weapon they have; it’s going to kill you. This forces you to think more tactically, which is usually fun and rewarding. In Hotline Miami it’s tedious and frustrating.

            For one, the enemies will always see you. They can’t see through walls, although eventually there will be windows they can shoot you through, but if you’re in the room with them then they know you’re there. You can’t sneak up on these guys for some reason. I have walked into bathrooms in that game where a man is urinating and could have no way of knowing I was there, and yet after one step he spun around and shot me in the face. Who is so cautious and fast that they can stop peeing and shoot you in the face in the time it takes to cross a room? But the most egregious, stupid, and frustrating part of the game is the complete unpredictability of the enemy AI. The room that made me quit the game had me start by busting into a room with a guy at the end. I didn’t have a choice; the door just opens. Having a shotgun, I was forced to shoot him rather than take him down quietly.

Every single time I shot that guy, a different configuration of enemies came from different directions. I never knew how many guys I would have to kill, or how many were waiting for me in the different rooms. I could never get a feel for where I should go or what I should do, and I inevitably met a horrible end every single time. It was infuriating. I woke my girlfriend up just from yelling at the stupid screen. Also, it’s not like I could sneak around them to advance. The only way to advance is to kill everyone in the level. So even though I knew it was a bad idea I had to go into a room with three guys on multiple occasions, try to shoot them, miss because the aiming is atrocious, and then get shot and pummeled to death by the Russian mob. I understand that this game is a love letter to the difficult games of the past. The retro style, the blocky graphics, and the frustrating difficulty make this more than obvious. Here’s the thing about those old games though; they were predictable. The reason it was ok that Super Mario Brothers or whatever was hard was that there was a pattern. If you could figure out the pattern, you had the level. I still remember most of the Sonic and Knuckles. There is no pattern in Hotline Miami. Guys will come at you and you have to figure something out because they have every advantage. It sucks.

            This is not a game that was made for me. I like stories and worlds I can get lost in, not dying over and over until I happen to get lucky and make it past an area. If a game is going to be difficult, it has to be consistent. It has to be fun. It can’t feel like you’re being unfairly dispatched by imaginary gangsters. I really wanted to like Hotline Miami. It’s weird, and has a really cool soundtrack. Unfortunately, loose controls and the frustrating difficulty really hold this game back. I hated it. Feel free to call me a wuss in the comments.

           

            Sorry this is a day late. I was at my cousin’s wedding reception most of yesterday. Everything will be back to normal next week.