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Hotline Miami

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Army levels were a weak point IMO, primarily because their sightlines were too damn long (I didn't mind the weapon setup since I tend to play like 95% melee anyway). I occasionally got stuck enemies but only once or twice did they cause me to die, and that's not much in a game like HLM. Never had any trouble progressing, though sometimes it wasn't clear where the actual exit I was supposed to use was since it would have arrows pointing back to the way I came from, which was confusing sometimes.

My biggest criticism of that sort is that it's not always obvious what's full cover, what's movement-blocking non-cover, and what's open ground. There's also generally quite a bit more clutter than in HLM1 which can make movement annoying sometimes.

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Christmas Hotline Miami

Oh my god a Hotline Miami version of A Christmas Carol would be amazing

"Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only? Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead, but if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

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I like it so far. The middling-to-bad reviews for it are weirdly the ones that best explain why - one compared it to a giant quake map pack, another to DLC.

 

Reading Chris Thursten's review especially, I got the impression I'd feel the same way but I wasn't sure. Maybe I'll jump on this game now instead of waiting for a sale. I also liked Only God Forgives (though not as much as Drive). 

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He (CT) talked about it a lot on the latest Crate & Crowbar podcast, it's a good listen.

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I beat it and my opinion is unchanged. Why did they get rid of the mask selection, that's what I can't figure out. Also, I was waiting for one of the playable characters to be a woman, and I guess one of the twins is, but man if they didn't softball it.

 

 

As a millionaire mobster, I'm going to construct my multi-story mansion with all-glass hallways. Privacy is for the law-abiding and the poor!

 

In a weird way, I'm actually pretty glad they changed up the way mask selection works. In HM1, I found myself initially trying out all of the new masks as I got them, and then at some point I just settled into using the same one over and over for the rest of the game. I was given a lot of choice, but in the end I found myself just going for what I knew worked best rather than what would be most interesting. I like how in HM2, you're challenged to change your playstyle from level to level. 

 

I was also bummed about the lack of playable females.

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Reading Chris Thursten's review especially, I got the impression I'd feel the same way but I wasn't sure. Maybe I'll jump on this game now instead of waiting for a sale. I also liked Only God Forgives (though not as much as Drive). 

 

I think the wildly varying press reaction to this game is a really good example of why I'm not a fan of the concept of review scores. 

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In a weird way, I'm actually pretty glad they changed up the way mask selection works. In HM1, I found myself initially trying out all of the new masks as I got them, and then at some point I just settled into using the same one over and over for the rest of the game. I was given a lot of choice, but in the end I found myself just going for what I knew worked best rather than what would be most interesting. I like how in HM2, you're challenged to change your playstyle from level to level.

 

I agree in theory, because Lord knows I'm always after the path of least resistance unless otherwise tempted, but there's something that rankles about loading up a level and seeing that it's specifically tuned to be difficult for the character they've forced upon me. I enjoy finding ways to break a puzzle, if Hotline Miami has to give me puzzles, but being given a specific character to beat a specific level increasingly feels like I'm trying to read the designer's mind about what I should do. I don't particularly enjoy that, not for twenty-odd levels.

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I agree in theory, because Lord knows I'm always after the path of least resistance unless otherwise tempted, but there's something that rankles about loading up a level and seeing that it's specifically tuned to be difficult for the character they've forced upon me. I enjoy finding ways to break a puzzle, if Hotline Miami has to give me puzzles, but being given a specific character to beat a specific level increasingly feels like I'm trying to read the designer's mind about what I should do. I don't particularly enjoy that, not for twenty-odd levels.

 

Yeah, I can understand that viewpoint. And yeah, the mask restrictions + the more complex levels do make it feel more like you're playing a set of puzzle boxes than in the first game. 

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I agree in theory, because Lord knows I'm always after the path of least resistance unless otherwise tempted, but there's something that rankles about loading up a level and seeing that it's specifically tuned to be difficult for the character they've forced upon me. I enjoy finding ways to break a puzzle, if Hotline Miami has to give me puzzles, but being given a specific character to beat a specific level increasingly feels like I'm trying to read the designer's mind about what I should do. I don't particularly enjoy that, not for twenty-odd levels.

Hm I never really felt like that. I mean, there were parts of levels like that, but it felt like just as often there were parts that were total softballs because of my character, which is pretty much what you'd expect.

 

I did end up doing the last normal gangster level with brass knuckles though, which got pretty interesting later on...

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I don't know how far I am, maybe twenty levels into the game, but I'm getting a lot of feelings, not all of them good. The story is way too big, with way too many characters, really to be supported by the mechanics of Hotline Miami

 

The levels are also too big, too open, and often too puzzly, the lattermost not being helped by certain playable characters with extremely specific strengths and weaknesses being typically forced upon you without choice. In Hotline Miami, if I was eating shit with Jake, it was time to change things up with Tony or Louie. In Hotline Miami 2, save for a few exceptions among the levels, if I'm eating shit, it's probably just because I haven't found the best path through a given level yet. There's just not that much strategy to mix up without the masks and a denser level design.

I totally agree Gormongous. Although in general I'm not sure I think it's even a very good game. I feel like the story is just trying to be way cleverer than it actually is. Do you think they actually believe it's really smart? Or do you think they've just thrown it together and see what people do with it?

 

I can't believe they've taken away the mask element to most of the levels either. It's turned into a sub-par top down shooter and that's not what I was after here unfortunately. 

 

Also what were everyones reactions to the scene right at the beginning of the game with the woman?

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I beat every level in Hotline Miami with the same mask (I think it like increased combo bonus timer or something, 'cause I was going for A+ on everything), so I appreciate being forced to do different things. I honestly never considered Hotline Miami to be anything other than a twitchy puzzle game, and the masks I was using had very little bearing on that until I finally started going for high scores, when, like I said, I wasn't even using a mask that gave me a new ability. It just gave me more points.

 

That said, I think I'm less likely to go for A+ on everything in this game. Some of the levels are super long, and that's off-putting. I just beat act four, I think it was.

 

Other than long levels, though, it's still very much what made the first game great. A+!

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So I'm only through Act I, but I dig this game a lot so far. Sure, it's more Hotline Miami. And yes, it's more difficult and there's more plot. But you know what? I'm okay with everything so far (weird sexual violence of the opening aside). Maybe it's not as memorable as the first game, but that shit was lightning in a bottle. Overall I'm satisfied with how this plays and sounds, and I'm glad that Dennaton branched out as they have.

 

For whatever reason, this is the kind of ambitious sequel I want to see (as opposed to something like MGS2 or Halo 2).

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I totally agree Gormongous. Although in general I'm not sure I think it's even a very good game. I feel like the story is just trying to be way cleverer than it actually is. Do you think they actually believe it's really smart? Or do you think they've just thrown it together and see what people do with it?

 

I don't know. The story feels more focused, even though it doesn't seem to be focused on anything in particular, and I feel like that implies some sort of coherent intent on the part of the developers. I will say, the fan wiki turned me onto a couple of statements by the developers that make me feel like they think they've made a really powerful and compelling story here, for instance them saying that the Fans (and what happens to them, maybe) represent the people who wanted Hotline Miami 2 to be the same as the first game.

 

So I'm only through Act I, but I dig this game a lot so far. Sure, it's more Hotline Miami. And yes, it's more difficult and there's more plot. But you know what? I'm okay with everything so far (weird sexual violence of the opening aside). Maybe it's not as memorable as the first game, but that shit was lightning in a bottle. Overall I'm satisfied with how this plays and sounds, and I'm glad that Dennaton branched out as they have.

 

For whatever reason, this is the kind of ambitious sequel I want to see (as opposed to something like MGS2 or Halo 2).

 

I mean, I felt that way after the first act too, but then the game lasts for three more acts, each with increasingly longer missions. Satisfaction spreads thin after a point.

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I think the game bogs down around the middle where the military missions are at their thickest, but the missions get shorter and more focused (with fewer long sightlines) for the last couple acts.

 

I feel like a lot more people judge HLM story for what it isn't than what it is. Like, I hear a lot of people who are down on it as a superficial critique of violence, when I don't think that's ever really what it was intended to be so much as just making a game themed around the violence that's core to its mechanics. Like, in that episode of the pod where Chris was talking about how if Max Payne was a real person he would have personally murdered more human beings than almost any other person who has ever lived, and how we would be a huge fucking deal on the news with world governments wanting to know where this living disaster was at all possible times, and Hotline Miami is just a story about when you take a bunch of Max Paynes and put them in the same city and it goes fucking insane because what else could possibly happen if you did that. It's weird to me that people think that idea is pretentious, when it's really just stripping away a lot of the pretense that other games put over their treatment of violence.

 

Rape scene is weird, though. Weirdly leaving it in after the uproar almost seems more like a fuck you to the people who insisted that they leave it in than to the people who thought it was inappropriate, because within the story of the game the person who decides that its inclusion is 'necessary' is the pig butcher. Although, outside the immediate context of the game the person who makes that decision is the player, which is itself something one could interpret rather interestingly if one were so inclined, heh.

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Nearing the end of Act 2 and still loving the game. Maybe y'all play these games differently, but I'm the kind of dude who will finish a mission or two and then switch to something else or stop playing games for the night. I don't mind that the levels are longer and more difficult--and I wouldn't even say I'm finding the game more difficult to any real degree. Those complaining about the "puzzle" nature of the level design confuse me, because that's how I played the first game: as a puzzle to be solved.

 

I get the impression that HM2 is as good a game as it could possibly be. Is it as provocative and amazing as the first? Probably not, but Dennaton was basically damned if they did, damned if they didn't. So far HM2 has delivered exactly the experience I was hoping for--Hotline Miami with a larger soundtrack and some bigger, more grandiose ideas. Maybe I'm not asking enough from a $15 game?

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Nearing the end of Act 2 and still loving the game. Maybe y'all play these games differently, but I'm the kind of dude who will finish a mission or two and then switch to something else or stop playing games for the night. I don't mind that the levels are longer and more difficult--and I wouldn't even say I'm finding the game more difficult to any real degree. Those complaining about the "puzzle" nature of the level design confuse me, because that's how I played the first game: as a puzzle to be solved.

 

The line I draw between "game" and "puzzle" in the Hotline Miami series is the ratio of improvisation to memorization in my play. In the first game, it was only really the hospital level that required extensive memorization from me, there because of intentional mechanical restrictions in place. In Hotline Miami 2, there are so many situations from which not even quick reflexes can save me, usually long hallways or glass walls leading to a guy with a shotgun. I just have to die that first time and commit the location to memory in subsequent tries, because I'm invariably dead if I don't remember it and do some peek-a-boo cheese to get around it, which I don't recall being such a ubiquitous element of level design in the first one. Also, by the end, I was beginning to notice how ridiculous the architecture of so-called houses and apartments was in this game, like the long glass hallways of the mansion I mentioned a few posts back, just to keep me from using it to my advantage, and it all adds up to a game that pushes back hard if you don't come at it exactly like the developers intended for a given level.

 

It's just a more linear game, which is clearly working for you, but it definitely didn't for me, not all the way through.

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The line I draw between "game" and "puzzle" in the Hotline Miami series is the ratio of improvisation to memorization in my play. In the first game, it was only really the hospital level that required extensive memorization from me, there because of intentional mechanical restrictions in place. In Hotline Miami 2, there are so many situations from which not even quick reflexes can save me, usually long hallways or glass walls leading to a guy with a shotgun. I just have to die that first time and commit the location to memory in subsequent tries, because I'm invariably dead if I don't remember it and do some peek-a-boo cheese to get around it, which I don't recall being such a ubiquitous element of level design in the first one. .

I agree with this, so many cheap deaths caused by a dog or shotgun at the end of a hallway, it's much different to 1 where as you said, quick reflexes and skill could save you. I'm constantly hiding behind walls and baiting enemies towards me. When I'm not doing that, it's great, but I'm doing it a lot, so it's only good.

I've heard a lot of people saying good things about the story, but I've pretty much given up on that.

Oh...and apparently you can pick up ammo in the army missions, but I just can't figure out how. What do the ammo boxes look like and how do you interact with them?

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Oh...and apparently you can pick up ammo in the army missions, but I just can't figure out how. What do the ammo boxes look like and how do you interact with them?

 

They're dark green boxes, about the size of a small table in the game's geometry, that only open up when your gun's completely empty. They'll have the small teal arrow for interaction then, you just go up and right-click at them. Fair warning, they don't refill your gun completely, for some reason. You only get maybe a quarter of the gun's full ammo count, so conserving your starting ammo for as long as possible is still very important.

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I have beaten Hotline Miami 2.

 

I have no idea what just happened!

 

I liked it.

 

I'm going to repeat things I've said a bunch here and elsewhere: some levels are really big and I think that was a poor decision. I don't understand the complaints about this game being too puzzle-y compared to the first game, because that's exactly why I loved the first game. Every level was a puzzle to solve, an exercise in efficiency. I honestly don't feel like this game is all that different, except for things like snipers or dogs coming out of nowhere because they move around so much they get lost. But I think that goes hand in hand with levels being too big. So I agree and disagree and agree again with those complaints. The short and concise nature of the first game (even if some levels had a lot of areas, each of those areas were relatively small) was sublime. This game tries to do a bit too much.

 

Regarding the story, I guess I should say first off: I'm dumb. I don't get stories that aren't spelled out for me. I'm really awful at digging into something and reading between the lines, unless I'm actually reading, in which case I find it much easier. That said, I actually like not knowing what's going on? The feeling of being confused at a story is a pleasant one to me, for some reason. So, taking all of that into account, I liked this game's story? What little I grasped of it (I think I got the basics down, but the minutia of it all escapes me) intrigued me well enough. But I dunno if it was good. I just know I like what it did to me.

 

When I finally realized what was happening in the very last level, I was pleased as pie at myself.

 

I don't understand why that opening scene exists, though. You know the thing I'm talking about. Like... what purpose did it serve? None, as far as I can tell? Except to be shocking. Which is really bad.

 

I came off this game much more positive than I initially thought I would. I might keep playing it, after all, going for all those cheesemints. Except for that "kill 50,000 enemies" one, that looks dumb. Who knows.

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A common thread I'm seeing in people critical of 2 is that they played 1 fast and loose and don't like the careful play 2 often requires. On C&C, Thursten mentions hardly ever using lockon, the far look or guns and resented needing to do so in 2. I can't imagine not using those.

I also played 1 as more of a puzzle game than as a test of frenetic execution, so the fact that it leans more heavily in that direction hasn't harmed my perception so far.

Also that he played it in long sessions over the course of a few days. I'm playing maybe a couple levels a day and I'm not getting burned out.

I do think it's weaker than the first, but still pretty great.

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There's a lock-on?!?! Was this in the first game, too, thisisimportant.

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