- Takes it upon itself to snub the idea that a game could be interested in anything other than gameplay
- Very much captures the worst of Pre-Gamergate white-male irreverence for the notion that video games should be treated critically
- Makes just enough smart artistic choices to get to pretend it's about American militarism or ""the consequences of your actions"" instead of what it's obviously actually about, which is how cool it is to wear a dog's head mask and eviscerate a guy with a golf club
- Punishes the emotionally invested player
- Actively insults any player interested in lore or coherent worldbuilding
- Treats its one female character as an object to be abused and then murdered to further the protag's blood craze
- Also, the developer sexually harasses women in real life
- Also also, I just don't find it fun
I don't understand why people celebrate this as one of the best indie games of all time and sometimes I feel crazy for disliking it as much as I do.
EDIT Feb 26 2023: I’ve never articulated it as such until now, but I feel confident concluding that Hotline Miami is a successful infiltration of fascist values into a language gamers circa 2013 were amenable to. Hotline Miami is a fascist game. Unfortunately - I am sorry but - I am not interested in explaining this assertion in any further detail in this space.
- Very much captures the worst of Pre-Gamergate white-male irreverence for the notion that video games should be treated critically
- Makes just enough smart artistic choices to get to pretend it's about American militarism or ""the consequences of your actions"" instead of what it's obviously actually about, which is how cool it is to wear a dog's head mask and eviscerate a guy with a golf club
- Punishes the emotionally invested player
- Actively insults any player interested in lore or coherent worldbuilding
- Treats its one female character as an object to be abused and then murdered to further the protag's blood craze
- Also, the developer sexually harasses women in real life
- Also also, I just don't find it fun
I don't understand why people celebrate this as one of the best indie games of all time and sometimes I feel crazy for disliking it as much as I do.
EDIT Feb 26 2023: I’ve never articulated it as such until now, but I feel confident concluding that Hotline Miami is a successful infiltration of fascist values into a language gamers circa 2013 were amenable to. Hotline Miami is a fascist game. Unfortunately - I am sorry but - I am not interested in explaining this assertion in any further detail in this space.
10 Comments
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Git gud
You actually just changed my opinion on the game. Props.
Is there not artistic merit in deceiving ones own perception of value by itself? That is to say, by simultaneously acting mindless and thoughtful, is there not something to be extrapolated, a more metatextual meaning on the merit of well, caring about meaning in a medium previously dismissed as pure fun? I can't comment on the developer thing, I just don't think this is a fair evaluation of the game and I'm not a super fan myself.
Pointing out the female character objectification is a bit of a strange reading when the entire game lacks any personality for characters in general. You can clearly see Jacket loves his girlfriend in the time she's there and she has an effect on the plot, I just don't know how you'd make her in a game so abstract not "objectifying" well, any of its characters, they're all plot devices and embodied themes, it might take away from the very visual approach to storytelling that the game is heavy on if they were to go against that.
Pointing out the female character objectification is a bit of a strange reading when the entire game lacks any personality for characters in general. You can clearly see Jacket loves his girlfriend in the time she's there and she has an effect on the plot, I just don't know how you'd make her in a game so abstract not "objectifying" well, any of its characters, they're all plot devices and embodied themes, it might take away from the very visual approach to storytelling that the game is heavy on if they were to go against that.
You can have a very visual / abstract approach to storytelling and not rely on misogynistic tropes. Thirty Flights of Loving is one example that comes to mind, though there are many. Jacket's girlfriend is a prop character who exists for two reasons: (A) to satisfy a very specific, very exploitative kind of male savior fantasy about women, one which absolutely necessitates her abuse at the hands of men, and (B) to give a plot justification for the last three missions. She could as easily be replaced with a sack of gems that Richard steals or whatever and it would work just the same. It's a very different thing from just "this woman never speaks because we're not doing dialogue".
As for your other comments, I feel like you're acting in good faith but I would also like to keep this brief so I'll leave you with this. I've thought about this game a lot over the course of many many years and the conclusion that I've come to based on the way i've seen people talk about it, the experiences I've had surrounding it, my many experiences actually playing it and, yes, Cactus' real life treatment of women, is that this game's values and my own are fundamentally and deeply incompatible. A full exploration of that would go beyond the scope of what I can write in a comments section like this, and besides I'd like a little bit of privacy on some parts of it anyway. Hope this helps.
As for your other comments, I feel like you're acting in good faith but I would also like to keep this brief so I'll leave you with this. I've thought about this game a lot over the course of many many years and the conclusion that I've come to based on the way i've seen people talk about it, the experiences I've had surrounding it, my many experiences actually playing it and, yes, Cactus' real life treatment of women, is that this game's values and my own are fundamentally and deeply incompatible. A full exploration of that would go beyond the scope of what I can write in a comments section like this, and besides I'd like a little bit of privacy on some parts of it anyway. Hope this helps.
#Fascism
Sometimes when I'm feeling down, I come back to this post just to have a good laugh
I find the final section to be the funniest part. "The anti-war game is actually fascist. I will not elaborate". Pearl.
You are facile and deeply incurious, but I’m glad I entertained you
TheLeoGabe
2 years ago