There’s definitely something to be said for indie games. After deciding I wanted to play Street Fighter 4 on Steam and spending a solid half an hour being dicked around by Microsoft Games For Windows Live login failures, password resets and security questions, I can see the appeal of a game that doesn’t have multiple forms of bullsh#t DRM, shoehorned into it by out-of-touch publishers.

With hopes of washing the taste of fail from my mouth I downloaded and fired up a game I bought in the Steam sale but had yet to play. That game was Hotline Miami.

Launch trailer:

Another trailer, because it’s awesome:

I’d heard good things, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was glorious. I know it’s been out a while (October 2012) but some things are worth spreading, like Boursin or STDs. This is better than both of those. The game plays like Ultimate Assassin or a sort of top-down Metal Gear but with all the silent yet violent je ne sais quoi of Ryan Gossling’s lead role from Drive (2011). Despite the 8bit look the violence feels gritty and visceral and the gameplay strikes a great balance between the arcade fun of busting a door down and beating someone’s brains in with a bat and the puzzle of how to do so without the guy on the couch blowing your brains out immediately after with shotgun he has resting on his lap.

If you want more gameplay videos, you won’t find them here, though there are plenty on YouTube. To be honest though, if you’re interested enough to watch someone else play it you should probably just man up, buy it and play it yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

It’s not often I get genuinely excited about a video game, and this is one of those times.

four and a half blood drenched baseball bats out of five.