Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami is a high-octane action game overflowing with raw brutality, hard-boiled gunplay and skull crushing close combat. Set in an alternative 1989 Miami, you will assume the role of a mysterious antihero on a murderous rampage against the shady underworld at the behest of voices on your answering machine. Soon you’ll find yourself struggling to get a grip of what is going on and why you are prone to these acts of violence.

Hotline Miami is divided into several chapters, each of which is further broken down into several stages. At the start of most chapters, "Jacket" wakes up in his apartment and listens to cryptic messages on his answering machine. These messages tell him to perform an arbitrary task at a certain location, which in each case is inferred as a euphemism for killing every person at that location (e.g., "giving VIPs at a hotel a great stay" or "taking care of a pest infestation"). Prior to commencing a mission, the player is asked to select an animal mask to wear, each of which—with the exception of "Richard", the default rooster mask—provides a unique benefit, such as faster movement or a starting weapon.

In each stage, the player navigates a building from a top-down perspective, where the goal is almost always to kill every opponent therein. Occasionally, they must also defeat a boss at the end of the chapter or find key items as they explore. Some levels also include hidden animal masks for the player to find along the way, often in the bodies of other killers who failed the assignment now being undertaken by "Jacket".

By default, the player starts each assignment unarmed, just outside the target location. Most enemies carry a wide variety of melee and ranged weapons which can be collected both from their bodies and the environment. Far outnumbered, the player must rely on their increased awareness (being able to see inside every room within a large radius) and either stealth, overwhelming force or a combination of both to overcome challenges. However, because the player character is no more resilient than enemies, mistakes are often instantly fatal. Despite the game's high lethality, attacks such as punches, weapon throws and door slams merely knock enemies down, prompting the player to gruesomely execute them on the ground. In addition to the more common white suit-wearing mobsters, the player is later pitched against guard dogs, police officers and other opponents that require different strategies to defeat.

Enemy artificial intelligence varies slightly, causing them to occasionally move unpredictably and making it difficult to plan a perfect approach. To make up for this, Hotline Miami allows the player to restart each stage as soon as they die, allowing them to quickly fine-tune their approach over several attempts. At the end of each chapter, the game grades the player's performance based on factors such as speed, variation and recklessness, with high scores unlocking new weapons and additional masks. (Credit: Wikipedia)

We managed to get the game running with a smooth 60 frames per second on both PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®Vita and we greatly improved the stability of the game to a rock-solid level. The controls are completely optimized for both systems with an improved locking system (using the front touch screen of the PSVita). Naturally, we added Trophies, Online Leaderboards, Cloud saving and synchronization between the two console and to top things off we even added a completely new mask, exclusive to the PlayStation® versions.