A lot of games are all about killing, but Hotline Miami’s combination of stylish graphics, incredible music, twitchy, risk-heavy gameplay, and brutal violence added up to an experience that made killing in games feel newly exhilarating. With each mangled enemy corpse, I was one step closer to getting out of there alive. It was kill or be killed each time I stepped out from behind cover to take a shot at one or to charge at one from behind, my body tensed up because of the huge risk I was taking, and each time I successfully shot or hacked or beat one of them into a bloody mess, I felt a little jolt of satisfaction as I stopped holding my breath for a moment before preparing myself for the next kill.
The presence of every individual enemy got my pulse racing to an almost uncomfortable degree, because in the blink of an eye, any one of them could end my life.
The neon visuals searing my retinas, the exceptional electronica soundtrack propelling me forward, I tore through its levels in an adrenaline-fueled rush. Hotline Miami felt to me like the sort of game Michael Mann might have made in the early 80s, if he’d gone into designing video games instead of directing films like Thief and producing TV shows like Miami Vice.
