Hotline Miami Download PC

Gameplay

Hotline Miami is divided into several chapters, each of which is further broken down into several stages. At the start of most chapters, the unnamed protagonist wakes up in his apartment and listens to cryptic messages on his answering machine. These messages tell him to perform an arbitrary task at a certain location, which in each case is inferred as a metaphor for killing every person at that location, such as giving VIPs at a hotel a 'great stay', or taking care of a 'pest infestation'. Prior to commencing a mission, the player is asked to select an animal mask to wear, each of which provides unique advantages or handicaps.

In each stage, the player navigates a building from a top-down perspective, and the goal is almost always to kill every opponent therein. Occasionally the player must also defeat a boss at the end of the chapter or find key items as they explore, but most levels are very straightforward. Some levels will also include hidden masks for the player to find along the way. The player has access to a wide variety of melee, thrown, and ranged weapons, and will need to handle challenges through either stealthy tactics or overwhelming force. However, the player character is no more resilient than the enemies, so mistakes are usually fatal.

Enemy AI varies slightly, causing them to occasionally move unpredictably, making it difficult to plan a perfect approach. To make up for this, the game allows the player to restart each stage the moment they die, allowing them to quickly fine-tune their approach over several attempts. The game grades the player's performance at the end of each chapter based on a number of factors, also granting them points that unlock more weapons, and may also unlock additional masks depending on their score. Hotline Miami Game free Download Full Version.

Synopsis

Plot

Hotline Miami, taking place in Miami in 1989, employs an unreliable narrator and events are sometimes presented out of chronological order. The player takes the role of an unnamed man dubbed «Jacket» by fans for his distinctive letterman jacket. One day, Jacket receives a voicemail about a supposed delivery of 'cookies' to his home. He finds a package outside which contains a rooster mask and instructions to perform a hit on a group of criminals and steal a briefcase in their possession, threatening that he is being watched and that «failure is not an option.» After Jacket completes this mission, he receives further messages on his answering machine, each asking him to take care of an innocuous «problem» at a specific address; these locations invariably contain a criminal operation, usually run by the Russian mob, that he must eliminate. Throughout the game Jacket has visions where he is confronted over his actions by three masked figures; the cryptic rooster-masked Richard, the hostile owl-masked Rasmus, and the sympathetic horse-masked Don Juan.

During a raid on the estate of a movie producer, Jacket rescues a woman who was being sexually abused and brings her home. The two begin a romantic relationship. In another mission Jacket is called to a phone company where he finds everyone dead except for a lone biker, whom Jacket then kills. Jacket can find other animal-masked killers dead or dying during his missions, and after each mission he visits a store or restaurant where the same bearded clerk greets him. «Beard» gives him encouragement and free samples of merchandise.

Jacket's perception of reality becomes increasingly surreal. He begins to see the talking corpses of his victims during his everyday life. Beard abruptly dies, his bloody corpse remaining at his places of work, and he is replaced by an abrasive bald man, Richter, who offers Jacket nothing. One day Jacket arrives home to find his girlfriend murdered and a man in a rat mask on his couch, who shoots him in the head. The attack puts Jacket in a coma; he wakes up in a hospital and overhears that his attacker is in police custody, whereupon he escapes and storms Miami police headquarters.

Jacket discovers his attacker was Richter, who had also been following the orders of threatening voicemails, and steals the file on the police's investigation of the killings. With this he raids the mob-owned nightclub the calls were tracked to, finding the address of the headquarters of Miami's Russian Mafia. Jacket then goes to this address and kills the syndicate's leaders. Hotline Miami game free Download for PC Full Version.

The game's main story ends with Jacket killing off the Russian Mafia's leaders, but afterwards the player can play bonus levels as the Biker from the telephone company. Another recipient of the mysterious phonecalls, the Biker has gotten fed up of carrying out their assignments and is trying to track the callers down. From raiding the phone company the Biker traces the calls to the mob-owned nightclub, and when Jacket arrives the Biker kills him. At the nightclub the Biker finds a hidden basement, where two janitors have been sending out the mysterious phonecalls. If the player has found secret letters hidden in Jacket's levels, the Biker will crack their computer's password and learn the janitors work for 50 Blessings, an ostensibly-peaceful patriotic organization, and have been using its membership to carry out killings to derail an alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Janitors boast their «experiment» is only the «tip of the iceberg» of a larger conspiracy. Without the password, the janitors claim they were acting out of boredom and mock the Biker's attempt to rationalize his actions.

Characters

Most of these names are unofficial because they were not named in-game.

• Jacket — He is the main protagonist of the game. He wears various masks and performs a number of brutal assassinations in response to cryptic messages left on his answering machine. He is later attacked by another masked assassin, who kills his girlfriend. Because of this, he pursues those he feels are responsible. While he is given no name, various pieces of merchandise and cross-promotion have adopted «Jacket» as his official moniker.
• Biker — The protagonist in the chapters that occur after the main storyline is finished. He receives the same phone calls as Jacket, but is less willing to follow their instructions, eventually trying to end his affiliation with the group. This eventually leads him to a confrontation with Jacket. He is playable in the later chapters, but uses a different play-style than Jacket: he is unable to use stray weapons and can only use a cleaver as well as three throwing knives.
• Richter — Another person receiving the same phone calls. He is the one who attacked Jacket and killed his girlfriend.
• Richard, Rasmus, and Don Juan — Three masked personas that Jacket sees within his distorted reality.
• Hooker — A woman the protagonist rescues early in the game. While nursing her back to health, it is implied the two begin a relationship. She is later murdered by Richter.
• Beard — The only apparent friend of Jacket's, who works at every shop Jacket visits.
• The Janitors — A couple of sneering green-attired «janitors», blonde and brunette, belonging to the militant American nationalist group 50 Blessings. They turn out to be behind the campaign of brutal terrorist violence in which both Jacket and the Biker are involved as willing participants. They are modeled after the creators of the game, Wedin and Soderstrom.

Development

Early Concept

Hotline Miami was a spiritual successor to an unreleased game called Super Carnage. Jonatan Söderström started working on the game when he was 18, describing it as a top-down shoot-em-up in which the aim was to kill as many people as possible. The project was cancelled following difficulties programming the game's artificial intelligence's (AI) pathfinding. Söderström later met Dennis Wedin, singer and keyboard player in the metalcore band Fucking Werewolf Asso. They collaborated on a promotional game for the band called Life/Death/Island, which was again cancelled. Söderström and Wedin decided that their next game would be a commercial release, due to financial difficulties. They saw Super Carnage and its potential as a game. They decided to expand upon this, and thus they started developing Hotline Miami. Immediately after being show the prototype of Super Carnage, Dennis Wedin was excited to start working on the game. When asked in an interview about his initial thoughts on being shown Söderström's prototype, Wedin stated «I loved it right from the start! I played his prototype for quite a while (even though it was just one level) and that was the most exciting part, making a game that we loved to play ourselves. We never really thought about what anyone else would think, we just wanted to play it and to do that we had to make it».

Inspiration

The biggest influence on the game's story was David Lynch. Another notable influence on the story was the 2011 film Drive. Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist from the Half-Life series, was also of influence. The documentary Cocaine Cowboys influenced the developer's decision to use 1980's Miami as a setting. On the use of masks, the designers said they were inspired by the movie Kick-Ass and tried to figure out a way where someone without a lot of money would be able to disguise themselves.

Reception

Critical reception

Hotline Miami received positive reviews from critics, with praise given to its neon-soaked depiction of 1980s underground Miami, overflowing with raw brutality and ultraviolent close combat as the player finds himself outgunned and using his wits to choreograph a way through impossible situations. The game's soundtrack was lauded for accentuating the already heightened tension and gritty violence. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation Vita version 89.17% based on 12 reviews and 87/100 based on 12 reviews, the PlayStation 3 version 86.06% based on 17 reviews and 85/100 based on 27 reviews and the Microsoft Windows version 85.33% based on 32 reviews and 85/100 based on 51 reviews.

Eurogamer scored the game 10/10, with reviewer Tom Bramwell saying that the game was a blend of elements, all of which are integral to the overall experience.

PopMatters scored the PlayStation 3 version of the game 9/10, reviewer Eric Swain wrote «Hotline Miami is still an introspective surrealist dive into the mind of a maniac who lives within the neon gloss of the late '80s. You still go around killing groups of thugs at the behest of a voice on the other side of the phone calls, which is somehow sufficient to addle you into killing everyone you find at an address that that voice provides. You still choose an animal mask to wear before entering these kill zones, and you still have a variety of weapons at your disposal to stab, shoot, and bludgeon your way through crowds of Russian thugs and the police.»

IGN gave the game a score of 8.8/10 emphasizing its «striking blend of fast ultraviolence, a dense, challenging story and brilliant presentation.» In its final verdict for the game, the reviewer Charles Onyett stated «Hotline Miami's momentum of mystery builds right up to its finale, where snarling cynicism is offered as a justification for why all this machinery of neon fuzz and thumping bass, bright blood and fractured identity was started up in the first place. Yet the justification is also disarmingly simple, the same reason why quarters were dropped into arcade machines built during the late '80s era Dennaton Games so clearly reveres. Why bother with Hotline Miami? Because it exists. Because it's fun. Because it deserves to be played.» Hotline Miami Free Download Torrent.