Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cthulhu]

I don't get the appeal of Dwarf Fortress.  You just move a cursor around telling smiley faces what to do.

I don't get the appeal of XCOM.  You just move guys around to shoot enemies like in many other games.

It's not even that hard.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Yeah, I was lead to believe that I'd open the front door of the level and get shot a billion times. The enemies in this react pretty slowly in most cases.

[hemmingjay]

I really don't see the appeal nor the reason people are so excited about it.

You just run around top view killing enemies like in many other games.
The only possible appeal i can think of is how hard the game is but there is a difference between hard and bullsh... hard.
And this game seems to be the latter.

I'm sorry to say that you appear to not know what you are talking about on this particular occasion. The game is not how you describe. Instead, it is a tactical puzzler with a strong emphasis on reflexes. The top down retro style is almost a misleading design element as if to lull you into thinking that this is a GTA style game. 15 minutes with the game would show you this.

[Virtz]

I really don't see the appeal nor the reason people are so excited about it.

You just run around top view killing enemies like in many other games.
The only possible appeal i can think of is how hard the game is but there is a difference between hard and bullsh... hard.
And this game seems to be the latter.

No. There's nothing bullshit hard about this. You just have to play it smart. The AI is predictable and they're at a disadvantage in terms of gameplay mechanics. You can easily manipulate them. And that's sort of the point of the whole game. To outsmart the AI, who's only advantage is in numbers.

For example, when you see a guy with a gun and you have no gun (or don't want to fire off a gun), you can run out in front of him and right back, luring him to a corner where you clobber him with a pipe. Or similarly, firing off a gun will make the more mobile enemies converge on the place where you fired. Like you can fire a gun and duck in a different room, wait for them to converge on that point, and then run out and melee them to death before they know what's going on. It takes some getting used to, but you can get really good at it.

Something I missed until now, if you play with the mask that makes "secrets easier to see" you can start collecting pink dots in each level,

You don't need the owl mask to collect the dots. They're just slightly easier to spot when you wear it.

[Sonlirain]

Well i didn't expect so much negativity but ok whatever floats your boats.

Also yeah i didn't play the game.
I just base on what Ohm said in his video and info given by hemmingjay in his main and subsequent posts.

The game both sounds and looks like something i wouldn't like and i just wonder why 100% of posters here act like if it was a godsend of sorts.

[Cthulhu]

Because it is.

[nenjin]

I pretty much ignored the game on the basis of the title, the format and repeated references to GTA.

But then I heard the music and saw some of the promos and I dunno, it just seemed like it had more of a soul than that. Turns out it does. Is it a godsend? No. But like Binding of Isaac, it is owns what it's doing to a T, and it's a lot of fun. And like Binding of Isaac, I hope they expand the game because it's got the right form for growing.

And like Cthulhu said, when you do it right, you do feel like a bad ass, because the game isn't forgiving on small fuck ups. Yes yes, you can be methodical and slowly take it apart guy by guy. That doesn't make it any less challenging. You still have to learn the sequence and execute the right way every time, and occasionally the game changes something, or you just simply don't execute.

It's not for everyone, but I think it's pretty brilliant.

[Vattic]

Really enjoying this so far. The controls were a little unwieldy at first but I think I'm settling into them well enough. When everything clicks into place it's glorious.

[Fikes]

Well i didn't expect so much negativity but ok whatever floats your boats.

Also yeah i didn't play the game.
I just base on what Ohm said in his video and info given by hemmingjay in his main and subsequent posts.

The game both sounds and looks like something i wouldn't like and i just wonder why 100% of posters here act like if it was a godsend of sorts.

I think most of us feel like you are missing the fun of the game just by explaining the most basic aspect. The fun of the game is trying a level a few times and figuring out how you want to go about each room and how you respond to changes.

Personally, I like to do things the hilarious action move way rather than the easy way. One of the early levels has two guards patroling a room, the first one has a shot gun. It would be easiest to knock the first one down and club the second one to death, but for me it was more fun to slam the door in the second guard's face, throw a pipe at the first guard, crub stomp the second one, the pick my pipe back up and beat the first guard to death.

There is something awesome about all of it.

How do you collect the pink dots and also how does scoring work?

[nenjin]

Right click while on or near the dots to pick them up and add the letter.

Scoring seems? kind of self explanatory. I think the stuff like boldness is an aggregate of events like "Exposed x1, x2, x3. I imagine it can be fairly complicated. But basically you get the highest score by moving through the levels as quickly as possible, since most if not all the scoring traits correlate to fast moving and fast killing. The only stat that's static is "# of kills", since you have to kill every guy in a level to advance.

It was honestly this trailer that made me buy. The image of an average looking guy turning into a violent, vigilante psychopath because he put on a mask is just cool, and the video is layered in an interesting way. I saw it and thought immediately about Splatter House, one of my favorites as a kid. Between the theme and the music, it had me.

[Vattic]

It also helps your score to vary your approach over a level.

[Cthulhu]

I got the real ending.  Now I'm wondering...

Spoiler: About the ending (click to show/hide)

Here's something I'm wondering.  Is the alternate timeline in the last few chapters what actually happened?  After you kill motorcycle guy, things get really trippy, and when you go to the quick-stop, the clerk says what you just saw didn't actually happen.  Are the last few chapters of the main timeline in your imagination as you die?  That would explain the ridiculous final battle with the panthers and the katana lady.

Spoiler: Alternatively... (click to show/hide)

Everything up to the point where Richard (We'll call mask guy Richard, since that's Chicken Mask) wakes up is a dream during his coma, which is why everything is so trippy.  His alter-ego says everything he does now is meaningless because only motorcycle guy can discover the truth and he killed motorcycle guy.

[Virtz]

I got the real ending.  Now I'm wondering...

Spoiler: About the ending (click to show/hide)

Here's something I'm wondering.  Is the alternate timeline in the last few chapters what actually happened?  After you kill motorcycle guy, things get really trippy, and when you go to the quick-stop, the clerk says what you just saw didn't actually happen.  Are the last few chapters of the main timeline in your imagination as you die?  That would explain the ridiculous final battle with the panthers and the katana lady.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't think you'd have time to imagine those last few chapters since the motorcycle guy basically stomps the first guy's head into a bloody puddle. I think the whole rewind and alternative timeline is just fourth wall narrative breakage.

Spoiler: Alternatively... (click to show/hide)

Everything up to the point where Richard (We'll call mask guy Richard, since that's Chicken Mask) wakes up is a dream during his coma, which is why everything is so trippy.  His alter-ego says everything he does now is meaningless because only motorcycle guy can discover the truth and he killed motorcycle guy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But then, if it was all just a dream, how would his alter-ego know that the motorcycle guy was onto the source of the phone calls?

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's not unreasonable to think that chicken mask would say something like that when he shouldn't actually know.  Hell, the janitors are Dennaton and in the bad ending they straight up talk to the player.

Spoiler: Here's the full story of what I think happened (click to show/hide)

Richard (We'll call mask guy Richard, since that's the chicken mask) is a disaffected young man who just lost his girlfriend and doesn't have anything to live for.  He hears about 50 Blessings, a nationalist terrorist group that attracts people like Richard and then manipulates them into killing Russians.  He joins, since he doesn't have any reason not to.  He goes on a series of killing sprees, finds a new girlfriend, and then they're both shot by Richter.  He's taken to the hospital and, in the course of his coma, fever dreams about everything that happened.

Simultaneously, Motorcycle Guy has also joined 50 Blessings, I'm assuming just to thrill-kill.  He decides he wants out though, and starts killing his way toward the answers.  Unfortunately, near the culmination of his search, Richard shows up and kills him. 

When Richard wakes up, he breaks out of the hospital, gets his clothes back, and goes on a rampage through the police station to get revenge on Richter, who ends up leading him on his own path to kill the Russian mob boss, which he does.  And also an old guy.  In the end, he's still doing 50 Blessings's bidding, and 50 Blessings is run by Dennaton, the IRL creators of Hotline Miami, because it's a video game and it thinks it's cleverer than you.

[Virtz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's not unreasonable to think that chicken mask would say something like that when he shouldn't actually know.  Hell, the janitors are Dennaton and in the bad ending they straight up talk to the player.

Spoiler: Here's the full story of what I think happened (click to show/hide)

Richard (We'll call mask guy Richard, since that's the chicken mask) is a disaffected young man who just lost his girlfriend and doesn't have anything to live for.  He hears about 50 Blessings, a nationalist terrorist group that attracts people like Richard and then manipulates them into killing Russians.  He joins, since he doesn't have any reason not to.  He goes on a series of killing sprees, finds a new girlfriend, and then they're both shot by Richter.  He's taken to the hospital and, in the course of his coma, fever dreams about everything that happened.

Simultaneously, Motorcycle Guy has also joined 50 Blessings, I'm assuming just to thrill-kill.  He decides he wants out though, and starts killing his way toward the answers.  Unfortunately, near the culmination of his search, Richard shows up and kills him. 

When Richard wakes up, he breaks out of the hospital, gets his clothes back, and goes on a rampage through the police station to get revenge on Richter, who ends up leading him on his own path to kill the Russian mob boss, which he does.  And also an old guy.  In the end, he's still doing 50 Blessings's bidding, and 50 Blessings is run by Dennaton, the IRL creators of Hotline Miami, because it's a video game and it thinks it's cleverer than you.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That depends on whether you think the janitors are actually supposed to be the creators or that they're just fucking with you (both the player and Motorcycle Guy) since you can't find out the truth without the password.

It's sort of strange for a game to make the easter egg ending the more accessible one. But then this game is really weird, so I guess that's possible.

However, nowhere is it implied that those joining the 50 Blessings willingly engage in killing Russians. Like it's a nationalistic group, and they sign a thing that says they'd give their lives for the country, but it's specifically mentioned they're threatened into complying, so they most likely don't even know it's 50 Blessings ordering the hits.

Spoiler: One (other) questionable plot point, though (click to show/hide)

Why did Richter go after Richard? Richard was totally obedient to the 50 Blessings, so I can't imagine them sending him after Richard like they sent Richard after Motorcycle Guy. Unless they had something against him saving the hooker? Or did Richter just go rogue? And why did he get himself arrested?