Hotline Miami--Let's make those white suits RED! pt. 2

"Right after you pass me the Cheerios you rude, dead, man."

 Things get bad--Jacket enters a convenience store to find a strange bearded clerk (who also seems to work at a pizza shop, a bar, and a VHS rental store) as well as the corpse of his enemy, Biker.  The creepy clerk informs us, "All this is not really happening" which may be a wink at the player, this is a video game after all.  To prove that this isn't reality, the corpse of Biker, and what's left of his head, attempt to speak...but mostly he just gurgles--and he's not the only member of the talking dead we'll encounter.  Corpses of the slain mafia men pop up all over the place.  Outside shops, in Jacket's apartment, pleasant stuff really.  Also it would appear that Jacket is being observed by a pair of green suited janitors who seem to have little to do with the plot (and have a strong resemblance to Hotline's creators Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin).  One even has the nerve to enter his apartment and when the player attempts to speak to the janitor his reply is "......" nil. 

This game has more talking corpses than a Chan-wook Park film

 Things get worse--raging through the levels to a funky electronic soundtrack that may be as addictive as the high octane gameplay, Jacket continues to leave blood splatters all over the flashy neon tackiness that was 1980's Miami.  The beats keeps the player flowing through what can only be described as an eerie murder trance.  It's all routine until Jacket returns to his home to see the unspeakable happen.  Another assassin in a rat mask named Richter has broken into his apartment and slain his new found girlfriend.  That rattin' bastard does him another favor by putting a bullet in his head--Richter too is following orders from his answering machine--the protagonist has outlived his usefulness to this shadow organization.

                                       Mega 64's hilarious take on Hotline Miami

Things get weird--the player gets an automatic Game Over.  The end...that is until we wake up in a hospital.  We learn that while the events we've seen did actually happen (though to what extent who knows) we have been witnessing a coma dream up until now.  Surviving a bullet to the head will do that to you.  From the rest of the game onward Jacket is in the "real" world.  His first mission in reality, escape the hospital and return back home. 


From here the storyline gets a change of tempo.  This is now a tale of revenge.  Jacket wants to wipe out every mafia bastard as well as the rat-faced Richter, for the death of his girlfriend.  Even though he succeeds in offing the rat (though you can show Richter mercy), plus the Russian's and their leader, Jacket's story ends with a dangling plot thread. Who the hell was leaving these threatening messages on the answering machine that led to the slaughters in the first place?  To find out Hotline Miami uses a unique character switching mechanic.  Time literally rewinds before our eyes.  Controlling the pink vested hitman Biker, we are led back to the fight between he and Jacket--only this time around Biker wins the fight and executes the game's hero with a not-so-gentle stomp to the head.  Unlike the mute Jacket, Biker wants to get to the bottom of things and find out who has been ordering him, as well as the other assassins, to murder the Russian mob.

Biker, getting to the bottom of things, like bikers do.

Gameplay as Biker works a little differently from Jacket.  He maintains the cleaver and three throwing knives he used from the earlier boss fight, and can not pick up additional weapons.  After following address leads from his own answering machine, and threatening the right people, Biker comes to the house where the assassination orders are being made.  Upon entering the house we see one of the janitors who was spying on Jacket flee into a sewer manhole.

Biker follows him down and confronts not one, but two of the janitors who are hiding down below.  "Who are you working for?" he demands

"No one" the blonde janitor with a smug smile says.
"We're independent, we did it ourselves!" replies his brunet accomplice through his jackal grin.  This statement is a reference to the production of independently made video games.  In this case the company who created the game Dennaton comprises of just two men.  The janitors jerk Biker around and give him no straight answers.  Biker is left with the option to kill or spare these men, but will never know why exactly all this killing had to happen.  But wait yet, there is a proper ending, we just have to rewind one more time, only not so far.

Back to the surface level of the janitors' hideout is a password protected computer.  There are sixteen puzzle pieces hidden throughout Hotline Miami, each a different letter that when combined reveals a phrase that works as the password for the computer.  Discovering this code reveals what is known in the video game world as The Golden Ending.

This password is brought to you by The Boss!



This time around having hacked into the mysterious janitors' personal computer, Biker confronts them without having to ask questions.  He already knows all he needs to about the shadow organization they run known as "50 Blessings."

Wiping the self-satisfied grins off the faces of these jingoistic bastards is one of the most satisfying moments in video game history.

50 Blessing it turns out is an overreaction to the 80's return of The Red Scare.  The janitors have been blackmailing and coercing people through phone messages to go on killing sprees against what 50 Blessings saw as a looming Russian invasion.  Now that he has his answers, once again Biker has the option to kill or spare these men.

 This was one weird ride, but it is definitely one I'll be willing to take again when Dennaton finally releases the sequel they're currently developing.  Hotline Miami is a series where the corpses don't fade away after you kill them.  They just lie there dead, lifeless and destroyed.  It's a design choice that one of the creators, Jonatan Söderström, expressed in an article by International Business Times, "There are moral implications in trying to sanitise violence and we just didn't want to do that.  It's better to make a violent game than to try and tone down the violence. We wanted to show how ugly it is when you kill people."