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[Virtz]

Oh yeah, so I like beat the game and stuff.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The true ending was not what I expected. Except it was, mostly. I suspected the player character was a sort of programmed killer, that someone obviously had an agenda and you were their tool. But a Ruso-American conspiracy? That's pants-on-the-head silly even by the 80s standards. So there's an organization of militia/conspirators/wing nuts who developed long-distance mind control, thought and sensory manipulation so they could undermine the Ruso-American conspiracy by....killing lots of gangsters? Oooook. I guess with a game like this, all bets are off. You just have to take the ride. Still, it seemed like a cheesy rationale for what's been a really grim and twisted game up until now.

I kinda don't know what to make of the ending. For a game that gave you only impressions and subjective interpretation, having the actual plot (since it's the truth regardless of whether Richard or Motorcycle Guy lived) laid out for me kind of left me underwhelmed. Maybe that's just the nature of secrets, I guess. There's an implied occult angle as well as an implied larger conspiracy beyond the 50 Blessings (we have powerful friends....) and it's left to debate who the three characters in the PC's dreams really were. Maybe they were just facets of his subconscious, an expression of the player character's psyche lashing out against the domination they were experiencing. Maybe they were members of 50 Blessings just fucking with Richard's head to keep him off balance. Maybe they weren't even human. I'd like to believe they're actual entities, even though the masks were ostensibly provided by the 50 Blessings. I suppose we'll find out more in the DLCs.

It's odd that I found myself morbidly drawn to the Hotline Miami "World", and now with the curtain sort of pulled back it's not quite as interesting. At least the grand conspiracy part of it. (There's plenty of other things to speculate about.) I was prepared for pretty much anything. The Devil, Just Plain Crazy, Pawn of the Government, even It Was All A Dream. But the US government in a secret conspiracy with the Russians? It's just silly!

I guess I do have one lingering question though.....why pay attention to the phone calls at all? Was the character compelled in a way that was never expressed by the story, either by mind control or by madness? What convinces the wearers of the masks to actually do as they're told? Why does no one, as I think a game hint implies, just turn themselves into the police? My only real answer is mind control.

Anyways, my take on the story. Disaffected guy who lost his GF gets chosen by the 50 Blessings as a subject. They manipulate his mind and he begins to question reality, and which point he starts taking the missions for them (for some reason.) In rescuing the girl he alerts the patriots that he's going off mission and Richter is sent to kill them both. He fails. Somewhere in Richter's storyline, he gets arrested and the player does him in. The Three's ultimate desire is for Richard to kill Motorcycle Guy (or maybe work with him), since once he learns about the larger conspiracy he's a threat to the order. Once the player kills Motorcycle guy, they have no further use for Richard, hence "Nothing you do matters anymore."

This is why I think ultimately that the Three are not the player's subconscious, and they're not members of the 50 Blessings manipulating them. Their prescience, if we can take anything the story presents us at face value, says they're more than that. When I first saw Rasmus was an Owl and the mask allowed you to "see" secrets, I thought there's some sort of spiritual/occult connection here that's being covered by several layers of disguises and plausible alternatives. (There's some weird occult-looking symbols scattered around toward the end game, including right outside Richard's apartment door.) And I think the Three are opposed to the 50 Blessings and whatever else is behind them. The Horse (Blue) in Richard's dreams actually seems to feel a little sorry for him, while Rasmus seems to hate what the player is doing regardless of why they're doing it. Richard (Yellow) seems to be detached from his fate, the balance between the two extremes.

Another thought I had was that all the "nice" clerks you meet before shit starts going weird are secretly dosing you through the food, the drinks and the movies so you're in the control of 50 Blessings. (Notice how in the early game you never have to pay for anything, "your money is no good here..." ect...After you rescue the girl and the nice clerk is replaced by the dick, you're on the outs with the 50 Blessings. And all the dead guys you see as you go through the later game are probably just fractured chunks of psyche. Maybe.

Or maybe it's all just a fantastical, barely related, 4th wall-breaking acid plot, that's not supposed to make any sense. I thought, right before The Motorcycle Guy chapters, that's what it was. And then the game took an abrupt turn for the rational and the coherent because you're seeing it through the lens of a character that isn't batshit crazy. And now I'm left thinking that there might actually be an internal logic to the whole thing, and they weren't just fucking with the player through constant misdirection.

super fake edit

Ok. What if the nice clerks you see in the beginning of the game are actually the clerks from the future. Think about it. Everyone knows you, "you lost your girlfriend", "your money is no good here" "this one's on the house." You're being remembered and rewarded for cleaning the whole city of scumbags.

What if the scenes in the early game is actually you walking around AFTER the events of the game? When the clerk points to the corpse on the ground and is like "that's not really here", that's what he's trying to tell you. You've already been through everything at that point. You assume when people tell you that you look terrible, it's because of the levels you've been doing. It's actually because of everything you've been through.

And then when things switch and the nice clerk is replaced by the scumbag clerk, that's you actually walking around in the present time. The game is showing you moments of Richard's life out of sync and you're unable to tell just from context what time period it is, except for the small contextual things the nice clerks say.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's been specifically explained in the secret ending that the phone guys threaten members into doing these things. No mind control involved. And if you think back, the first mission did say something along the lines of "Failure will be met with dire consequences.", or something of the sort.

Also, I'm not that sure if the Ruso-American Coalition is supposed to be evil. Like you're undermining it by going after the Russian Mafia, but then if you read the newspaper snippets, the whole thing, including the phonecalls, gets pinned on the Russian Mafia as well. Not really sure how it goes after you kill the boss of the Russian Mafia, but there you go. They're giving Russians a bad name in the news, possibly making the political movement (which may actually have little to do with the Russian Mafia) fail. Or at least that's my take on it.

And yeah, I think the 3 entities are just there to break the 4th wall. Richard says you'll never see the bigger picture after killing the Morocycle Guy, implying he knew Motorcycle Guy would've gotten to the bottom of it, which the protagonist couldn't know.

I'm still not sure about Richter, though. He starts appearing near or instead of the shop clerks. He goes after you and then somehow gets caught by the police. I think it's even mentioned he didn't put up a fight. So he willingly gets caught by the police for some reason.

One thing I noticed at the start of Motorcycle Guy's chapters is that when he throws the store clerk, something falls off his head. Like a mask? Maybe the storeclerks were different people, just masked as the hippie clerk?

[nenjin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I still think it's mind control because a) Richard is batshit crazy and b) no one resists. There's not even a hint of resistance except from Motorcycle Guy and maybe Richter, and "threatening" people on the phone doesn't quite jive with people becoming psychopathic killers on command to me. Seriously, what does Richard care what they do to him? His life is already seemingly in the gutter when they first contact him.

I mean, it's a justification but I think there's more to it than that. I'd have to replay the secret ending again but I recall seeing machinery and technology in the sewer. And it stretches credulity for me to think that their whole conspiracy works simply on threats. Besides, mind control is so much cooler than just plain 'ol fashioned coercion.

Bottomline though. Why was Richard so crazy? And not just disturbed but, like, reality-shredding insanity. Did the game creators just decide to cast a lunatic as their main character, thinking it would dovetail and confuse the story nicely? Or is he crazy for a reason that we can only infer from the game?

Also, I'm not that sure if the Ruso-American Coalition is supposed to be evil

The tone I got from the conversation with the 50 Blessings is that the Ruso-American conspiracy is evil because it undermines the fabric of American independence. That bit sounded every inch like all the screeds you hear from RL American conspiracy wonks and pseudo-militias. Plus, if this were really just about the Russian Gangs, there's be no need for most of the secrecy and manipulation. That to me is all clearly there to avoid the attention of American authorities.

I'm still not sure about Richter, though. He starts appearing near or instead of the shop clerks. He goes after you and then somehow gets caught by the police. I think it's even mentioned he didn't put up a fight. So he willingly gets caught by the police for some reason.

Maybe Richter thought he'd be safer in police custody than trying his luck disobeying the 50 Blessings. He didn't exactly seem like a willing participant.

I guess there's two distinct kinds of people working for 50 Blessings. Actual agents like Motorcycle Guy who didn't have to be coerced/manipulated/mind-fucked.....and then unwilling operatives who are part of the organization because of all three of those things.

[Virtz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The technology I think was simply just to call people and remain untraceable. As far as threats go, do keep in mind that they only do this to members of 50 Blessings. These aren't average joes, these are extreme nationalists and/or psychopaths. Richard could've been like "Well, it's either me or them." or just "I guess I ain't got nothing better to do.". I suspect most others would operate under the former reasoning.

I'm not sure how you'd expect resistance to happen. Like if someone decided to ignore the message and package, then I suspect the janitors wouldn't really do anything, just sign off that person as a lost cause and look to others among their legions of members. All the other "active" operatives besides Richter and Motorcycle Guy you find dead or dying, suggesting some just weren't cut out for it quite like Richard.

Also, I was under the impression that 50 Blessings are these extremist nationalistic assholes that just don't want dirty foreigners (Russians in this case) in their country taking their jerbs. Hence I wouldn't put much weight in their words and what they consider "independence".

Though yeah, Richard might just be crazy. But mostly I think so because of how he names all these masks and simply wearing them alters his perception of reality. It's like he's got 26 split personalities.

[nenjin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I dunno, Richard doesn't seem to have the faintest idea what's going on, and even begins a search for knowledge and vengeance at the end. Not exactly the motivation of a nationalist sect member. That says to me that 50 Blessings picks people to do this to. Motorcycle Guy is the exception to your average joes, because he's a badass and likes wet work. He's more the member of 50 Blessings you're talking about than Richard would seem to be. And even Motorcycle Guy doesn't have the slightest idea what things are about.

[WealthyRadish]

8 day old necro? Nah, I can get a pulse out of this yet!
The drill is overpowered, in terms of score. 5600 points per execution is just silly. I also didn't notice any discernible difference between the walrus/elephant mask and normal play, though I'd imagine that it would only work when hit by a stray projectile, since all enemy weapons are either shotguns or automatic.

Fantastic game on the whole, though, aside from some of the more serious glitches. The soundtrack goes great as background music in pretty much anything else as well.

On to more sensitive discussion...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

'Don Juan', or the horse mask, is the woman you rescue in 'Decadence'. Looking at le poster you can see that they wear the same shirts, and you also unlock that mask at the end of the level. Also notice that the owl is in mafia clothing, indicating that he's either a spy or a traitor. I think he wears it as a spy, since he's being held hostage by them in 'Tension' before being killed by your delicate diplomatic interaction with the wired doors. In the phone message leading up to that level, they say that they already sent someone that 'didn't do a very good job', which makes me think that you've been sent to finish the hit and kill him. That would explain why the horse lady thought you were there to kill her in the previous level, anyway.

I assumed like everyone else that she was just some random hooker/his previous girlfriend, but that poster definitely gave a clearer picture. The fact that the motorcycle guy is just casually walking around with a porno mag in the background is fairly hilarious as well.

The theory that the chapter cutscenes are interactions with his subconscious still makes sense though, since each of those masks seems to fit their personalities. I would agree that the unlocked ending deflated the story, though. It was much more interesting trying to piece things together from the different perspectives than it was to have it all rocked by something that blandly silly.

[hemmingjay]

yeah great game but it has moments where it's harder than Charlie Sheen in a viagra factory.

[nenjin]

Honestly I don't even "see" the difficulty anymore. Not to say it's not hard but....the game has this wonderful ability to let you fail but it makes you wholly responsible for it. There are only a handful of times where you get "screwed" by the randomization. Otherwise it's all on you, your planning and your execution. In a game anymore complex than Hotline is now, it wouldn't work. There'd be....stuff that you'd lay the blame on. But as it stands, Hotline is really that perfect blend of randomization and skill. When you're on, you can decimate a level just like in the videos. When you're off.....I dunno, it's like a rat hitting a button to get a dose of cocaine. You start playing so fast and furious that failure and success blend together.

@UrbangGiraffe Wow, I never made half of those associations.

[WealthyRadish]

The challenge does go away eventually, yeah. Having player made maps would extend its life hugely, but I'd say it's still great value for money.

[nenjin]

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/hotline-miami/1226684p1.html

Hotline Miami's DLC will be "about as long as the original game" and it will most likely not be free, which I don't mind in the slightest.