Be Excellent To Each Other

The atmosphere does nothing for me, soundtracks have never interested me at all, I don't even notice background music.
Gratuitous violence isn't a draw for me either.
Plus i've never got on with twin stick shooters, or repetitive gaming.

I've only given it 15 minutes, so i'll give it another go, but I really don't think this is my kind of game

It's not a twin-stick shooter. It has twin-stick shooter-esque controls, but it's hardly Geometry Wars. It's not Robotron or Smash TV either. Play it like a twin-stick and you'll never get on with it.

It requires some element of planning. You can see what's going on in all the rooms on whatever floor you're on, so you need to spend a moment working out the best approach for clearing each room. The enemies are mostly randomised, but their behaviour can be more or less predicted, so you may decide to knock out the guy in the hall, stamp on him to kill him, pick up his shotgun, wait outside the door to one of the rooms until one of the guards walks past it, open it so he's slammed out of the way, blast the two other guys in there and quickly stamp on the guy you hit with the door and pray you can take out the other guards who pour in having heard the shots fired.

Or... maybe you need to be more stealthy? In which case, kill the guy in the hall, grab his shotgun, slam door into first guard, lock-on and then lob the shotty at one of the guards to knock him out, dash straight at the remaining guy with your fists, quickly stamp on all three and clear the room without alerting anyone else.

There's a lot of trial and error. You will be killed a lot. You'll try things and they obviously won't work, you'll try things and see maybe they would work if you can time it better or if you adapt your plan slightly, you'll try things knowing they'll work but get unlucky this time, etc. You'll do levels again and again and again and again until you get it right. Sometimes things will go spectacularly wrong with your plan, but you get lucky and clear the stage anyway.

No way is Hotline Miami for everyone, but I, for one, fucking love it.

Yeah, that's what I have a problem with. I'm not saying it is a twin stick shooter, or that i'm playing it like one, i'm saying i've never got on with twin stick shooter controls, which this has.

I totally get what the game is, I understand it, I understand how to play it.

I don't like it. Sorry

Actually, I mostly play it twin-stick style. But that's because my two favourite tactics are rushing with a melee weapon and luring people into an ambush with gunfire, covering a chokepoint (e.g. a doorway or a corner) with my gun. In the latter case, the lock-on is unnecessary, and in the former, it can be downright unhelpful.

I find that I do this too, but I run out of bullets to quick.

i finished the game (including bonus levels) without even noticing there was a lock-in function.

You need to keep swapping weapons, or use the Rami mask.

a) Lock-in?
b) Twin stick shooter?

This is all nonsense! Are you guys playing it on a console? I wasn't aware it was out on those! (quick google: It looks like it was released the other month?)

If you're playing on PC and don't like the 'twin stick' style controllers, try using the mouse+keyboard?

Top Tips:

Kick doors into people's faces. Use the Mule-Face and doors into faces means dead faces.

You can still (and often should) use the lock-on on the PC version.

It's a fantastic use of the touchscreen on the Vita version. I actually think it's the definitive version of the game because of it.

Same with Thomas Was Alone.

Me too. I much preferred playing it on Vita than I did on PC.

I've tried it with mouse and keyboard and with an Xbox controller, and it is so much better with a mouse and keyboard for me. How can you even use the lock on effectively with a controller? (I know the Vita version uses touch screen for that).

Although talking about the lock on. I completed the game when I got sent a preview build that featured the lock on, but never told you about it, so I beat the whole game without using the lock on. This meant I got really fucking good and aiming manually/quickly.

Chapter 2: pan of hot water found (upstairs on the hob) and applied to baddies face. Ace.

Yeah, I love how that it (I think) the only place you can do that.

I'm doing my puzzle piece run-through and I haven't seen it anywhere else. I'm keeping an eye out for unique weapons after finding that though. There's some unique kill sequences for a few weapons I've found - like jumping on a downed enemy with the glass bottle intact or with scissors or the machete. I don't know why this kind of ultra violence is so darn appealing.

There's a cheevo for doing evey kind of downed execution. Some of them are sneaky too - the pool cue has two, one when it's whole and one when it's broken.

Puzzle pieces: done.

It was worth it for the fun 2nd playthrough but not worth it for the alternate ending.

Bloody groovy game though. Chapter 3's music is my fave.

If you like the music, have a gander at Perturbator. He contributed to the soundtrack, and that latest album is 80s sci-fi heaven.

Stuck.



I guess it's just keep trying until I do it, like the rest of the game!

Use the square button lock-on to put the target on the ninja (who's a girl, btw). It's faster than tapping the screen. That fight was where the game got a little too frustrating for my tastes, though.

Oddly, I got that bit first time (well, second time, after working out what happens on the first run) - it was the actual boss with the machine guns after that I had major trouble with.

It's great that he's getting noticed. Last time i checked he was making two movie soundtracks. I really hope he gets more recognition. "I am the Night" is absolutely brilliant. He also has a new EP out called "Sexualizer" but it's not on his bandcamp page, only on his label bandcamp.

Terror 404 cover art is lovely

Yah, Sexualizer isn't that great though. I Am The Night has the benefit of a cohesive narrative/theme, whereas Sexualizer feels like a collection of half-formed ideas. There's Perturbator's Nocturne City EP and The 80s Slasher EP he did with Protector 101 on the Aphasia Rekkids page, too.

Other than him, Dynatron and the first album by Megadrive are quite good. Protector 101 has occasional spurts of goodness, but isn't consistent unfortunately.

You can tap and lock-on during the cutscene, whilst there's still text on screen. That's why I did. You can get the lock-on at your leisure that way.

Amazing!

Playing this off-and-on on the PC and quite enjoying it now I've I got my head round it a bit. Stupidly I've only just realised that you can actually play with the different masks you earn and that they all come with unique buffs so things might get a tad easier now I've noticed that! There are certainly moments of frustration when you come up with a plan you're convinced will work but bad timing, panicy aiming or random enemy movements conspire to send you back to the start over and over again; the overall experience though is fun and there's nothing like the sense of achievement you get when you steam through a few rooms dealing death to all who approach. My normal approach is stealth and as doing so in Hotline Miami allows you to almost treat each room like a stand-alone puzzle that's mostly what I've been doing but the last few levels (I'm only up to about nine) have forced me to steam in loud a couple of times which is pushing me to realise it's value as a tactic sometimes. From chat in this thread I suspect I'll get very frustrated with some of the later levels so it remains to be seen whether I actually finished this or not but I'm enjoying to for the moment certainly and would urge anyone who's not sure about it to at least play through five or so levels before you give up on it as it didn't really click for me until about that point.

Finally beat the boss I was stuck on. Was quite easy in the end once I watched a couple of videos on how it was meant to be done.

Done all the biker missions too. Not sure I really understand the story or the ending. Have I missed something?

There is a proper ending that you have to solve the puzzle to get.

Ooohhhh this is like a 2D Dishonored, me likey! It's a load of inter-connected mini-puzzles where you look at the landscape, look at your toolbox, look at the baddies and what they're doing, and work out a way to kill them all as stylishly and efficiently as possible.

Loving the music and the neons too.

£1.74 on Steam this weekend so I've finally snagged it.

Not quite getting my head (or hands!) around the keyboard and mouse controls. The keyboard I'm fine with but the mouse just feels a bit 'off' somehow, not sure if it's the sensitivity setting (WHICH CAN'T BE FUCKING CHANGED) or something else, but I'm finding that I want my bloke to do one thing and he does something else - and when death literally comes in about 0.1 seconds if you fuck something up, that's a problem.

I may have to experiment with a 360 pad instead.

Change it in Windows. Or on your mouse, of you can.

Finished, including the biker missions and the bonus mission! I have absolutely no fucking idea what happened in it though and the more I saw the less sense it made. I'm not sure if I'll want to get all the stuff to get the real ending, I'll need to read up on that and see what's involved. Also: how do I do even select the 'Puzzle' option for the each missions and what does it actually mean? Despite finishing all the levels I still can't select that option for any of them.

Oh, and I stumbled across a really easy way to do the last boss if anyone's struggling with it; although it's borderline whether this is a glitch rather than an actual strategy:

Each level has a pixel-sized purple dot in it, which you can pick up. Each one is a letter, which - when you have them all - opens up the Puzzle option on the main menu, and you can then rearrange the letters - once you've rearranged them, you can get the "real" ending.

Fair enough, I don't care about that enough to replay the entire game so it looks like I'm done.

Watch it on YouTube.

Aye, I'll probably read/watch up on it later on. I'd have quite enjoyed trawling the levels looking for hidden shit during my playthrough so it's a shame that the requirements for the real ending are so utterly obscure.

Several of the puzzles are pretty smart, and solving them does involve additional challenge. But many of them are just hunt the pixel.

MUSIC FANS!

I reckon "Do What U Want" (Lady Gaga ft. R Kelly) has freaking ripped off the music from Hotline Miami. Well, the first 2 seconds of "Do What U Want" anyway.

Hear for yourself.

The rhythm of the synths is certainly the same, albeit very slightly slower, as one of the Hotline Miami tracks; although the actual tune isn't the same. The Hotline Miami track is much better.

Yes, because electronic music like that never existed before Hotline Miami.

Have you listened to it? The beginning of it it is very reminiscent of one of the Hotline Miami tracks and I can totally see how Santanalian saw the similarity.

Yep, it also sounds like the beginning of a Nine Inch Nails song from 1994.

It was only a little silly thing I heard. It wasn't supposed to be a call to arms and to roll out the copywrite litigation machine out the cupboard. Geesh.

Anyhoo, I like Hotline Miami's music. Nice innit.

Aye.

I can hear one of the pieces of music in question, but not the other.

Not as blatant as Nelly Furtado's "Do It" ripping off a C64 demoscene track, anyway

Coming to PS4 and cross buy so if you've already bought the PS3 or Vita version you'll get the PS4 one for free

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/03/24/h ... ium=social