Movement is about as perfect as it can be, giving an incredible sense of control over your ball. It's easy to understand why the game is so singularly focused when it feels so good to play.
It retains the "easy to pick up, hard to master" sensibilities that are so common in arcade games, emphasizing player finesse over just about everything else. Similar to fellow coin-op Marble Madness, you merely work your titular Monkey Ball through a bunch of obstacle courses until you either clear them all or run out of continues. As you may expect from a platformer with arcade roots, there really isn't a whole lot of depth to the gameplay. The key to Super Monkey Ball as a whole is simplicity. It's among the most pure, focused platformers I've ever played, which is a pretty damn tall order for a game where you can't even jump. Super Monkey Ball is one of my favorite examples of irony in video games. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number would go on to lose sight of what made the original great (particularly the tight level design and the "less is more" approach to the narrative), but it's probably also worth checking out if only for its custom level support and the amazing soundtrack. Its entertainment value may be what earns the game its place on this list, but it's also a wildly unique, creative game that presents its ideas in a fashion you rarely (if ever) see from big budget productions. Hotline Miami is maybe one of the best poster boys you could have for indie games. The look and sound really complements the addictive nature of the gameplay, making the act of playing Hotline Miami a hypnotic ritual unlike anything else. UI elements like the player's score and ammo (plus the aforementioned close-ups) gently wave back and forth whenever onscreen, and the background at the edges of the stage pulsates with each enemy you kill, giving the combat a surreal accent to its ultraviolence. Character sprites are reasonable facsimiles of the human form, but there's something about the close-ups during cutscenes that's particularly unsettling. It's borderline ugly looking in spots, but the strange crude visuals (along with the often-murky music) go a long way towards establishing the hazy, dreamlike aesthetic of everything. Hotline Miami was made in Game Maker, and to be frank, you can probably tell by taking one look at it. Most of you reading this probably know damn well how good the game's neo-retro soundtrack is (especially later on in the story), but the art design deserves just as much praise. Of course, the elephant in the room is the impeccable sense of style. Again, Hotline Miami and Trials are almost kindred spirits in a weird way (hell, just look at Trials of the Blood Dragon). You don't have to be a particularly great player to see the ending, but the grading system encourages you to get the stages down to a science and execute a flawless run through each of them, which is maybe the most fun you can have with the game. These can accommodate different playstyles, which can be pretty interesting, but I mostly used them as a means to achieve the highest score possible. Most of the game's replay value stems from the various masks that you unlock, which give you different perks to experiment with. You're back in the game as quickly as you were shot or bludgeoned out of it, and you never lose much more than a minute or two of progress thanks to how the levels are segmented. Instead, it lets them throw as much shit at the wall as they need to until it sticks.
#Secret delivery pso bb trial#
Like Evolution, Hotline Miami's emphasis on trial and error doesn't let the player dwell on their failures, which could've easily gotten in the way of their entertainment because of how fragile the player character is. If I wanted to, I could probably copy and paste what I said about Trials Evolution's difficulty and make changes to reference killing people and getting killed by people. The constant action and vicious deaths make for an exceptionally fun, gory time, but the real secret to Hotline Miami's stellar gameplay is how it handles its difficulty. There's a lot I could say about how the speed and brutality of Hotline Miami makes it deeply satisfying to play. "Okay I'll just lure the big dude out and then- god damn it" "Maybe if I knock this dude down and take his bat I can- oh come on" "Alright, lemme just swing around this corner, grab this shotgun and- fuck"
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