Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami is a 2012 video game developed by Dennaton Games.
In 1980s Miami, our nameless protagonist is receiving phone calls telling him basically to kill people at certain locations. He obeys.
No, seriously, that's the basic story line of the game, it is very bare-bones in its structure. There's two kinds of sections on this game: the ones where you are just walking around interacting with the environment; and when you're killing people who seem to be part of the Russian mafia.
The game was published by Devolver Digital.
Tropes used in Hotline Miami include:
- Big Bad: Played with. There is no antagonist who may really claim to this position, but the last level for the main hero is structured in such a way you can clearly see the Russian mafia boss as it, since he is the leader of almost all enemies you faced until now.
- Black and Gray Morality: The protagonist is killing criminals, but he doesn't seem to be doing it for any altruistic reasons, something the people in masks he meets in the game seem to question him about. Is him doing it really because he is a vigilante or why he can kill them without receiving any retribution? As the game goes on, however he saves a girl that seemed to be being sexually abused by the criminals, making him slide towards the white side.
- Blood Knight: As the post-credits story reveals, the biker got involved with the organization behind the phone calls because he thought that committing murders for them would be fun. And then he turns on them because it feels boring for him now.
- Evil Old Folks: In the last level, the old man who seems to lead the russian mafia freely admits he isn't a good person, so he isn't surprised the protagonist is coming for him.
- Lone Wolf Boss: The biker the hero faces in the telephone company level has nothing to do with the mafia; actually, he is searching for the people behind the telephone calls.
- Mind Screw: The game has a plot, but the dialogue is so vague about exactly what is happening that is hard to say if things are really happening as we are seeing on-screen.
- Stealth-Based Mission: Trauma,set on a hospital. The hero must evades cops who are waiting for him to recuperate to interrogate him about the murders happening all around Miami .
- The Eighties: The game is set in this decade and shows it through room decoration and the soundtrack, clearly inspired by 80s techno.
- Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: After missions, the protagonist meets again and again some bearded man with glasses behind a counter. The thing is, the place changes from a pizza store, to a convenience store, between others. It don't would be outrageous to think he is an hallucination.