Flagging enthusiasm about Hotline Miami

At first Hotline Miami gripped me. This is not surprising as it is one of those rare indie classics that receive universal praise and mega sales.

As many others have pointed out the gameplay is superb. You must kill all your enemies without getting hit once. You will get hit over and over and have to reload many times but the rapid pace of the game means you don't care. It is a perfect addictive blend of quick fire tactics and precise control.

The atmosphere is even better than superb. Ugly blurry graphics and a sublimely dissonant soundtrack really nail the retro 1980's drug fuelled gangster vibe for me.

Surprisingly the thing which increasingly disappointed me was the story. At first I didn't expect the game to have a story at all or perhaps to have a very wierd one. As I play through the game however it is slowly becoming clear that there is a fairly mundane story hidden behind the frantic killing. Knowing that I wouldn't have the patience to hunt down all the story clues through multiple play throughs I googled it. Sadly the story is pretty silly and in no way a fitting reward for all the effort retired to unlock it. Worse still the story affects the gameplay in an undesirable way. Some of the games later levels are actually easier than early levels which is a disappointment.

Embarassing list of games I have played in the last month

Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter (Played a couple of chapters, will prolly go back)
Serious Sam 3 (Played main campaign up to final boss.)
Trine 2 (Ongoing campaign with my daughter)
Torchlight 2 (Played a few hours and got bored)
Shadow of the Colosssus (finished main campaign)
God of War (Played a few hours. No inclination to continue this inferior clone of Darksiders (joke))
Katamari Damacy(played about half an hour to see what all fuss was about)
The Last Remnant (Played a few hours, interested in trying some more)
The Walking Dead (Finished first chapter)
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (Played through to end of main campaign)
Dishonored (Played through to the end of main campaign)
Stacking (Played with my daughter for a few days)
Shatter (Whiled away some time a few evenings)
Dogfighter (can't remember what I did with this)
EVE Online (only logged in to take advantage of skill changes in patch)
Star Wars The Old Republic Online (Played for a couple of hours and got bored)
Open TTD (Played this with my daughter for about a week)