Hotline Miami: 'Do you like hurting people?'

Hotline Miami

This is one of the few games that has really made me sit down and think about my actions, and my personal involvements in the acts I commit. The 'acts' in Hotline Miami, are gratuitous, blood drenched, high octane feats of psychotic violence. Within the first 3 minutes of playing the first level, you will have smashed some guys brains out on the floor, then caved the next guy's head in with a bat while he is taking a piss.

The game's story is where it really hit home for me. It reminded me a lot of David Lynch's style of story telling where in you're never quite sure what is going on and any theories you may make tend to be quickly dashed. The characters you encounter are even presented in a cryptic way in the form of 3 people wearing animal masks.

However a question asked very early on which made me take my hands away from the keyboard and mouse was simply 'Do you like hurting other people?' A simple sentence but very sobering after leaving a room filled with gore and blood drenched corpses and I had to admit I did just have fun...

The gore and violence is enough to turn even the hardest of stomachs at times, with acts such as knocking someone down with a punch then taking a drill to their skull, or dumping a pan of boiling water over someone. But if you can stomach the violence and have some patience with the Nintendo hard difficulty this game is a lot of fun.

Special mention has to be made to the brutal soundtrack which matches the tone and pitch of this frantic flurry of violence perfectly.