Dishonored (2012) vs. Hotline Miami (2012): Masks

I've noticed alot of my reviews tend to open with a discussion of some sort as to way people criticize and write about disposable junk like video games and nerd media.  This is a bad habit, and I hope to change it, but this review is going to do the same thing.  That because I have been agonizing for a few days on how to approach my feelings about Dishonored and Hotline Miami.  And I came up with something, but it's embarrassing because it's the sort of thing you'd imagine reading on a Gamespot review.

Still, it struck me as weird that there were two games launched within a month of each other that featured a basically silent main character who wore a mask.  I then thought a little more, and realized something:  both masks basically are a perfect description of the game they inhabit.  (I guess I should say this review has some fairly minor spoilers for both games)

In Dishonored, the main character, the bodyguard/assassin/formless lump of person Corvo gets to wear this mask.  It's totally, sick man.  It's like a robot skull that makes little hissing and whirring noises as it opens up, there's a zoom function, so sleek and polished and intricately designed and goddamn pointless.  Everything about this mask, and about Dishonored in general, basically screams "high design for idiots that don't actually understand what that means."

I don't want to make it sound like I hate Dishonored.  It's a fun game.  But so many people have treated this game with the same reverent, breathless adulation that they've done with other games of this type.  By "this type," I'm referring to games like Bioshock and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, fun games that are for all intents corridor shooters that, since they featured distracting ancillary elements like COLLECTING MONEY FOR UPGRADES or MORAL CHOICES or PLOTS SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN TOTAL GARBAGE are heralded as examples of the direction that video games should be heading.  Frankly, that sounds horrifying.

The big thing about Dishonored is the whole shebang about choice.  Everyone in this game talks to you about it in between sucking your dick for being Maximum Murder Machine Numero Uno.  But what's choice?  You can choose to kill people which will lead to ramifications of slightly more uninteresting zombie enemies in later levels, or not kill them which will lead to I don't really know because my non lethal playthrough ended because it's so goddamned boring.  While the violent killface option allows you to teleport around stabbing dudes in the neck and slowing time to drop like five mines in front of a guard, nonlethal gives you the option of A) trying to sneak around which is a bad idea since stealth mechanics in this game are indecipherable, B) shooting a SLEEP DART, or C) sneaking behind them to noogie them (to sleep).*

thank god I can tell the creepy 14-going-on-40 princess where she can sleep

Oh yeah, and every mission also gives you some MORAL SIDEQUESTS that are either (surprise) "kill someone or spare them"  and the assassination targets all have non-lethal means of getting rid of them that the game treats as some huge puzzle but are embarrassingly obvious.

To be fair, gameplay is fun (when you're king murder man).  The main power you have, Blink, lets you basically pretend you're Nightcrawler.  There's other murder powers, but generally I just spent my ADAM Rune Points to get more agility based powers so I could explore everything.  Because for the first half of the game, I just checked every area.  The problem is that this got kind of dumb.  Levels are gorgeous, but they all follow the same pattern of huge open areas that have a few strategically placed windows and ledges leading to rooms with money (which I had no idea what to do with by the end of the game) or game lore.

Sorry Ma'am, my need for novels about whale oil production is too strong

Jesus christ this game loves lore.  The whole setting is basically steampunk English which no doubt is thrilling to most idiots, but the game just won't leave you alone with generic background information.  There's books, audio devices, like a million lines of dialogue from NPCs, and a magic talking heart that has an additional million lines of dialogue when you point it at those NPCs.  The writing isn't awful by game standards, at that level of pretty good fanfiction where the author thinks that more words means more smart, and there isn't a single skeezy "Rape for Emotional Impact" moment.

Ultimately, everything in Dishonored is just kind of vapidly pretty, existing in a vacuum of game design where if you just throw a bunch of random, not even necessarily connected, gameplay elements in a series of hallways with moderately concealed ducts, you can come out with a GOTY which everyone (except those that have only been exposed to garbage entertainment) is going to forget within six months.

So then there's Hotline Miami.  Here, your character just wear a bunch of random rubber animal masks.  There's nothing sleek or hip about them; the main character just sort of slips one over his head each mission, and if he's killed, the mask flies off.  And yet, I'm certain I'm going to be fondly remember this game for years.

I'm going to forego the breathless love that every reviewer seems compelled to blather on about the gameplay.  What's important about Hotline Miami is that it knows what it wants to do, and doesn't throw distracting balls of yarn in pursuit of that goal.  You go into buildings, you fight the Russian Mafia with a melee or ranged weapons, gore just explodes everywhere.  There's a combo and scoring system that is sort of fun to play with (though a particular mask utterly breaks this), but really the lack of distractions (especially when said gameplay isn't some fucking platform retro reacharound) is sort of refreshing.  Honestly, the very fact that Hotline Miami foregoes any sort of awkward LOOK GUYS IT'S RETRO VIDYA GAEM REFERENCES puts it on my "this is good" list.*

One thing I will note is that I really REALLY appreciate the designers just shuttling me to my destination.  In a universe where "hub world" seems to be a requirement for every video game, it's nice to see one where I'm not having to wander around empty streets trying to find HIDDEN COLLECTABLES before getting to the actual storyline section.

The story also follows this lack of padding.  Some people may bitch about the fact that the story elements are not really completely resolved in the game, but who cares when everything is so lean and mean?  It was a breath of fresh air when I tentatively clicked on the newspaper clipping on my table after the first murder mission and it was just a twenty-five wordstory about my murder mission.  The overarching mystery about why you're going around hurting people is interesting enough to stand on its own without a bunch of unnecessary fleshing out.  The narrative flow is amazing, a series of short, almost film-like vignettes that both entice the player into its world while also (and this is something that 90% of indie art games fail at) functioning as a playable game.

One aspect that fascinates me about Hotline Miami is the sheer passivity of the protagonist.  For the most part, your character doesn't seem to have a reason for murdering people, simply following the orders of an answering machine.  People love the morality systems of Bioware games and Dishonored because you can choose to impose your morality systems on that of the main character, but I honestly much preferred the cruelty of Hotline Miami.  When you beat the first boss battle of the game, he is laying on the floor in pain.  I walked up to him, half expecting some bullshit SPARE/LIVE choice.  But no, there's only one button, and that feels like actual realism.

Also, the music.  It's a combination of embarrassment/happiness to see nerds raving about the game soundtrack.  Embarrassment because while the tracks are good, there's way better examples of that musical genre out there.  On the other hand, it's nice to see a game with new musical avenues, as opposed to the current game music meta of dum metal/tepid classical/ironic 40s.  Ever since I've played the game, I've tried to think of another game that had a single noise/no wave track.  Needless to say, I'm stumped.

No, what makes Hotline Miami's soundtrack so goddamned good is how well it ties into itself and the game.  It's akin to the soundtracks in Silent Hill 2 and Persona 3, each track feeding into each other, calling reference to other sounds, while perfectly representing whatever situation you're in.  Despite the fact that multiple artists composed the soundtrack, there's a perfect uniformity of theme.  Each song perfectly encapsulates the level you're in.  I don't mean this in terms of setting, but in how the rhythm and progression matches the layout of the levels, what types of enemies you face, whether you'll be methodically hunting down bads with a golf club or getting into a running gunfight with masses of assholes.  I can't even remember a single song from Dishonored except for the godawful vocalized closing credits, which compares with Symphony of the Night's "I Am The Wind" for sheer volume of embarrassment after a HITTIN BUTTONS hard fought victory.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you paid sixty dollars to jump through morality windows, but don't want to spend ten (or five with the inevitable Steam sale) dollars to taste the ultimate in digitized bloody hopelessness, then you should probably kill yourself.

But be discreet about it.

*: there is a Nintendo in the protagonist's apartment, but without spoiling, I'd argue there's actually an interesting thematic reason behind that.