Hotline Miami

[Twig]

Is there any song people won't mash up with Space Jam?

This one's better done than most, I think. Or maybe it just fits better.

[Nappi]

Jesus. I started the game, selected the bonus chapter that I hadn't noticed before, and started scrolling through my masks when my computer suddenly froze completely. After resetting the system and starting the game again, I noticed that I had lost all my progress as well as my masks. I can't even begin a new game because I can't get past the mask selections screen in the first chapter.

So yeah, this game has some nasty bugs.

[TurboPubx-16]

Jesus. I started the game, selected the bonus chapter that I hadn't noticed before, and started scrolling through my masks when my computer suddenly froze completely. After resetting the system and starting the game again, I noticed that I had lost all my progress as well as my masks. I can't even begin a new game because I can't get past the mask selections screen in the first chapter.

So yeah, this game has some nasty bugs.

You should contact the developer; they have been helping people with bugs since release day, even people who admitted to pirating the game.

[Problem Machine]

...I was hoping for a more convincing explanation on

how they actually managed to force the people to commit these deeds.

(I may have missed something, though)

I thought it was interesting how lackluster their explanation was. IMO, as much as they try to sell the line about forcing people to do things by threatening them, it's pretty obvious that the plan wouldn't have worked if they hadn't stumbled across some total fucking whackjobs in the process. Beginners luck? Or is it just that MOST people are really secretly just waiting for their excuse?

...but overall I share Chris Remo's "games that try to say something about violence by making you wonder why you are killing all these people are being lazy."

violence... [is] a common cause of ludonarrative dissonance. Therefore, in order to make a unified game, one must either implement non-violent gameplay, and create a narrative context suitable to that gameplay, or address the violence somehow. Implementing a non-violent gameplay paradigm is much more difficult than it sounds, because most of the progress of the industry has been in honing inherently violent gameplay elements to perfection. It would be foolish and naive to discard this experimental data entirely, which is a big part of why even people who want to forge out into non-violent directions find themselves creating implicitly violent games. Non-violence is an exciting field of development, but any time you’re experimenting with untested game tropes you run a risk of, well, creating a kind of shit game.

So, if you want to reap the full benefit of everything we know about game design, you basically have to make a violent game.

. This is why we’re starting to see games like Spec-Ops: The Line and Hotline Miami pop up, because it is the obvious, and necessary, first step towards consonance. Hotline Miami doesn’t treat the violence as real violence, but it acknowledges it and raises the obvious next question: What kind of person does that sort of thing?

[brkl]

I circumvented the bug through magic, now I got to the final stage of the final boss, but I doubt I'll try to finish it again. Odd that the game got no critique at all regarding the bosses, even though the situation is no different from Deus Ex.

[Problem Machine]

I circumvented the bug through magic, now I got to the final stage of the final boss, but I doubt I'll try to finish it again. Odd that the game got no critique at all regarding the bosses, even though the situation is no different from Deus Ex.

Wat? That's like the #1 most common complaint about the game as far as I can tell.

[Twig]

I don't complain about the bosses, because they're pretty similar to the regular levels. Figuring out the pattern you want to take is key. They just have a bit less unpredictability to them. They're also really short and easy!

[youmeyou]

I wasn't really a fan of the bosses because it felt like you had way less options in how to approach them. So: similar to DE:HR in that regard. But at least they were violent encounters in a game built around violence unlike Deus Ex which ostensibly offered a non-violent playthrough.

[brkl]

Ah, I guess I just haven't been paying attention. Anyway, I wouldn't say they are very similar to the rest of the game. AI behaves in a preprogrammed way, not in a reactive way like in the rest of the game. There is only one solution. It's more like those awful QTE fights in Fahrenheit, except you have to remember the sequence instead of reacting to instructions.

In any case, doing the same three seconds a hundred times over is just annoying.

[Nappi]

I circumvented the bug through magic, now I got to the final stage of the final boss, but I doubt I'll try to finish it again. Odd that the game got no critique at all regarding the bosses, even though the situation is no different from Deus Ex.

The one with the panthers? The boss is actually quite easy once you know the trick:

Kill the panthers with the trophy, throw the trophy at the ninja, let her crawl behind the fountain on bottom left and then execute her. Kill the boss with throwing knives once he is reloading.

I agree that it's stupid, though.

[osmosisch]

From all reports, this sounds like one of the best games that I will never, ever play. And I'm OK with that and applaud it.

[ThunderPeel2001]

From all reports, this sounds like one of the best games that I will never, ever play. And I'm OK with that and applaud it.

Ha, I know what you mean. Plenty of the comments by people like it make me not want to play it :-/

[brkl]

The one with the panthers? The boss is actually quite easy once you know the trick:

Kill the panthers with the trophy, throw the trophy at the ninja, let her crawl behind the fountain on bottom left and then execute her. Kill the boss with throwing knives once he is reloading.

I agree that it's stupid, though.

I just hate that every time you finish one stage of the boss for the first time, you are instantly killed and have to do it again.

There's no way to anticipate the purple panthers even being alive. When you kill them, the woman immediately kills you. The throwing mechanic is really imprecise when you don't have time to lock the aim (if you lock your aim on the woman before you kill the panthers, the aim is released during the short cutscene). After you struggle with the controls long enough to get the woman, the boss immediately shoots you. Where do those daggers even appear from? I could have used those before. Anyway, at this stage I'd had enough.

[osmosisch]

Ha, I know what you mean. Plenty of the comments by people like it make me not want to play it :-/

This is as many have said a testament to its success. It's amazing that it's taken so long for games to come out that really challenge the idea that every game should be enjoyable to everyone barring some very strong personal preferences.

[Nappi]

I just hate that every time you finish one stage of the boss for the first time, you are instantly killed and have to do it again.

There's no way to anticipate the purple panthers even being alive. When you kill them, the woman immediately kills you. The throwing mechanic is really imprecise when you don't have time to lock the aim (if you lock your aim on the woman before you kill the panthers, the aim is released during the short cutscene). After you struggle with the controls long enough to get the woman, the boss immediately shoots you. Where do those daggers even appear from? I could have used those before. Anyway, at this stage I'd had enough.

Yeah.. There is no way to get it right the first time. Still, I suggest that you watch a Youtube playthrough of that section and try again, because

the game does not end there

[Nachimir]

There's no way to anticipate the purple panthers even being alive. When you kill them, the woman immediately kills you. The throwing mechanic is really imprecise when you don't have time to lock the aim (if you lock your aim on the woman before you kill the panthers, the aim is released during the short cutscene). After you struggle with the controls long enough to get the woman, the boss immediately shoots you. Where do those daggers even appear from? I could have used those before. Anyway, at this stage I'd had enough.

The woman drops the knives when you knock her down. This fight took me a lot of attempts, but after a while, you get the timing right to take out the panthers. If you aim and move really well, you can actually run up and kill one completely before either pounces, then duck behind the right hand fountain. They only run forward when you show yourself, so you can time a melee attack to kill each. After that, using the fountain as cover, lock aim and throw the trophy to take out knife thrower, then while she's crawling around, take the knives and throw them behind the same fountain. Wait for her to crawl to a sensible place before finishing it, then retreat behind the fountain again. Lock aim, pop out and throw a knife at the guy each time he reloads. Make sure not to stand beside him during his last gunshot…

[Twig]

Man, I don't even wait for her to crawl around or throw the knives to a save place. I just pick them up right where they fall and hit the guy.

But either way, the point is, the bosses are really easy. It's just about figuring out the pattern.

[Luftmensch]

I finally got around to playing this game. I have an A+ rating through level seven and collected all the masks. I have mixed feelings about the hidden ending, I thought the tile collection could have been more interesting. The was a lot of potential for mixing things up, it's a shame they didn't do more. But going through and trying to get an A+ rating on all the levels is surprisingly rewarding and I'm glad the choice of masks makes it so interesting; it's neat how unexpectedly useful some of the masks turn out to be.

The level with the police raid was a great example of this. I really had to mix up my strategy to get that tile by the door. But the level also was totally designed to make it possible, which is great. I wish more of the levels had that sort of element to them, where the entire mechanics would change halfway through and you had to plan accordingly to grab the hidden things and make it to the exit.

I would love to see someone take the level data from this game and put it in a DOOM style FPS engine.

[Luftmensch]

There's no way to anticipate the purple panthers even being alive. When you kill them, the woman immediately kills you. The throwing mechanic is really imprecise when you don't have time to lock the aim (if you lock your aim on the woman before you kill the panthers, the aim is released during the short cutscene). After you struggle with the controls long enough to get the woman, the boss immediately shoots you. Where do those daggers even appear from? I could have used those before. Anyway, at this stage I'd had enough.

If you hide behind the pillar first thing before the cats start attacking, you'll have time to lock onto her before you start fighting the cats. then you just have to make sure you're running right after you kill the cats. Once again, you'll have a chance, after you knock her down, to target the man behind the desk before you strangle her. Of course, that's not necessary because you can just hide behind the pillar before he starts shooting.

Personally, I've been more successful aiming manually, because inertia affects the trajectory of your throwing, so unless she's coming straight at you auto-aiming is going to be a bitch.

[ThunderPeel2001]

So I finally thought I'd give this go... I'm a little underwhelmed. It crashed the first two times I tried to play it (and later, when I eventually quit).

The style and tone is undeniably awesome, don't get me wrong -- but! I was expecting I'd be able to sneak up behind someone and play the game stealthily, but as soon as you get close they apparently "sense" you. It's far more twitch based than I imagined it would be.

Also, where was the awesome soundtrack? There was no music at all for me. Does it kick in later in the game or something?

Overall: Hmm!

[Twig]

The music is there from minute one.

It's apparently incredibly buggy for a lot of people, in general. I had a bunch of hard-lock crashes when I first played it. Had to restart my PC. It was awful. First patch fixed that for me, never had any issues after that. Other people still do. ):

Oh, I do still have the bug where the cheesemint you get for unlocking all cheesemints doesn't unlock, but I don't really care about that, so.

And, yeah, it's a very twitchy game. I'm kind of surprised you thought it'd be stealthy at all, considering the comparisons to Super Meat Boy - both on and off the Idle Thumbs 'cast. U:

[Brannigan]

It's only stealthy in the sense that gunshots attract pretty much everyone while melee keeps it quiet. There's not a ton of sneaking around, though it is possible on some levels, but really that just ends being about what order you kill dudes in, since you still need to kill everyone to move on.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I don't listen to the podcast (I joined long before there was a podcast! ), so I'm pretty out the loop, and I skim read this thread. Super Meat Boy seems like the perfect comparison, though. Not sure why I'm not getting any music. Getting all the sound-effects, just not the music.

What control system are you all using? Mouse/KB or 360 Controller? Can't say that either of them particularly clicked, but I'm leaning towards the controller.

[Nappi]

The style and tone is undeniably awesome, don't get me wrong -- but! I was expecting I'd be able to sneak up behind someone and play the game stealthily, but as soon as you get close they apparently "sense" you. It's far more twitch based than I imagined it would be.

Stealth still works in a way, but instead of slowly inching your way towards the enemy, you have to close the distance fast and cut him down as soon as you have the chance. Or throw something at him first.

As for the controls. Definitely mouse+keyboard for me. Can't really imagine getting the same level of precision with the controller.

[Brannigan]

I did m/kb, didn't feel the need to use my 360 controller.