Hotline
Miami

Hotline Miami (2012) is a retro shooting adventure about a brutal hitman out to bring brutal justice to the 1989 Miama underworld. Play involves taking on missions to rampage through buildings to kill your targets (and anyone else who gets in the way). It stands out for refusing to cast you as the good guy as it both relishes in and critiques the violence you perpetrate.

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It's a highly charged game full of pixilated brutal shooting and high-impact close combat. You play an antihero who takes on assassinations from messages left on his answering machine. In each level to traverse a top-down view of the world and so can ready weapons for the thugs waiting around each corner. Reactions and quick decisions are essential to survive, as is a strong stomach for the bone-crunching, skull-crushing depiction - even though it is only pixels.

As you progress you discover a story through the phone calls and newspaper clippings that gently question your motives. The only option is to press on with the killing, and then talk through the blood-soaked floors as you exit, but the more you do the less sure you are of why you are doing it.

The result is a game that wears its violence on its sleeve. It's never overt, but it pushes this destruction to create a darkly critical perspective of the killing. "Do you like hurting people," the game asks near the beginning. On one level it's fun to play the (very) bad guy but it leaves you wondering why and whether it was worth it - both for you or the character you play.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Hotline Miami 5 days ago.