Here’s the weird thing about Hotline Miami. After I finished the first one, there was no part of me that felt as though I needed to play any more. I loved that game. I loved it as much as any game I played that year, but I was happy to have that experience start and end with the original.
But I think I may have changed my mind.
It’s the music. It’s all about the music. That music that never stops whether you live, die or kill everything in the vicinity. It’s something that I noticed whilst playing the first game: despite being an extremely difficult game, there is no frustration in Hotline Miami ever. It’s because when you die, the music continues. It doesn’t skip beat. You are enjoying the game through the music and the music through the game. I had forgotten about that. I had forgotten about that quiet, cold, zen feeling that comes with mutilating multiple retro-styled human beings with a chainsaw.
That’s a brutal sentence to write, but that’s essentially how Hotline Miami works. You could argue that little has changed, but I would argue that very little has to change. Hotline Miami felt as though it was birthed as this perfect little capsule of slaughter, and I’m happy for it stay that way until the end of time.
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