Game:

Hotline Miami (2012)

Duration: 15:25

60 views

3

Gameplay Performed by: Peggion

Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter video game by Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, collectively known as Dennaton Games. The game was published by Devolver Digital and released on 23 October 2012 for Microsoft Windows.

Set in 1989 Miami, the plot consists of two protagonists, Jacket and Biker, who have been receiving phone calls instructing them to commit massacres against the local Russian Mafia. The game blends top down perspective with stealth, extreme violence and surreal storytelling, along with a soundtrack and visuals influenced by 1980s culture. The game itself was influenced in part by Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 neo-noir crime film Drive, as well as the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys.

At release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise regarding the narrative and themes, soundtrack, and gameplay, and has since became a cult video game. A sequel, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, was announced in 2013 and was released on 10 March 2015.

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 shown 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".

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.

The Hotline Miami – Official Soundtrack could first be found on Devolver Digital's SoundCloud account. It was later made available to purchase on Valve Corporation's digital distribution platform, Steam, as downloadable content for the main game. Although the soundtrack is available for purchase, all of the music files can be found within the game folder in Ogg vorbis format (albeit often in edited versions).

Hotline Miami received critical acclaim upon release, 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.

Support us!! Subscribe to Refresh Games!! Help us to create more content for everyone!! Thanks to watch!!

Just 15 Minutes is a Refresh Games productions.

Other Statistics