Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami came out to some hype as one of the best indie games to play last year, so when I found it ridiculously cheap in a recent Humble Bundle, I knew I had to take the plunge. With a distinctive 80's/Miami Vice style aesthetic, it sort of has the feel of if GTA: Vice City had come out before that series moved to 3D. Using a top-down perspective, you play as a hitman sent on missions by a mysterious source and basically have to clear out room after room of bad guys, utilizing melee weapons and guns equally. Getting hit even once means death, so it's the type of game that will have you restarting a level every ten seconds like thirty times just to get to that one perfect run. Hotline Miami can get frustrating, but it's very satisfying when you finally clear out a level. The whole thing's over in a few hours and you rarely deviate from the room-clearing gameplay, but the game does start to get weird halfway through with some fourth-wall breaking that can get kinda creepy. A few bonus levels promise answers but really just raise more questions. Perhaps whatever the hell was going on in the game is best left unexplained; maybe there's a jumbled message on violence in games, but the game itself it pretty fun and worth a play. Check it out.