Hotline Miami Collection Review

"Complete Insanity"

Campaign

April 13, 2020 at 4:05am
By Jason Stettner

It’s about time that this collection has finally graced Xbox One, and I’m sure glad it did. This is one gruesome, insane and over the top sort of experience. There are few games that literally don’t hold back like this one does. If there were lines to draw, this one would pass them all. Anyways, there are two games to play here.

The first is just Hotline Miami, and the second is subtitled 2: Wrong Number. They’re similar, but the second is a very stylized and even more hardcore entry. The initial game plays like somewhat of a mystery. You get an interactive cinematic portion, and then a mission to play. These missions are quick in design, yet take a long time to play as you’ll die quite often.

That’s a lot of these games, tons of death. I’m just preparing you for it. The second game expands upon this concept with more intense themes and a deeper narrative from distinct perspectives. It’s even more messed up, and contains even darker, more graphic content. Between the two you actually get quite a lot of content, and it’ll take awhile to battle through it all.

Gameplay

This is one violent pixel based game. You’re bashing people’s heads in and blasting away many individuals. It’s actually got an excellent level of strategy to it, and one brutally satisfying difficulty curve. I did however find the second one to be a tad much at times. This was largely due to the layout of the more open levels as you’d get sniped off the screen which felt purely cheap.

The first has far better level design, but it is not nearly as intricate. The controls are largely easy going, and there’s not much of a difference between the two. When it comes to visuals they’re quite incredible. It’s a neon soaked world that gets drenched with blood and conflict.

A heart racing track supports the action, and seriously the music is great in this. It was one intense experience, and certainly surprising considering the material at play here. It all played quite well, I didn’t really have any issues and it looked great on Xbox One X.

The Conclusion

The Hotline Miami Collection is an insane compilation of non-stop action and over the top violence that’s just soaked with neon. The soundtrack is stellar, and really helps beat in the intense material that you’re witnessing. I find both of the games to be rather compelling, as the mystery is intriguing and the method to the madness is interesting.

It’s very easy to play, yet insanely difficult and you will die a whole lot. This is often in tragic, and almost frustrating ways. I find the first game to have a better balance of level to difficulty, whereas the second is clearly expanded narrative wise. Both are intriguing in their mystery. I just wish that the second game didn’t have so many cheap long level layouts that sort of felt cheap to play within.

Still, a great and really out there sort of game. The titles do definitely stand out as experiences you likely won’t forget. Remember, nobody cared who you were until you put on the masks. Those masks grant some twisted changes to what’s going on.

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Hotline Miami Collection Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Tinsley PR

Rating Overall: 8.0