Developer/Publisher: Dennation Games/Devolver Digital Released: October 2012

Played on: Vita (also available on PS3, PC, Mac, Linux)

Hotline Miaimi’s pixel-art belies a deeply violent, unsettling game that fuses disturbing aesthetics with strategic-stealth-twitch action to create one of the best experiences I’ve had on my Vita.

You play as a hitman in the 1980’s, the pixel-art style suiting the era perfectly with sudden floods of blood and mindless violence recalling the best action films of the era. The soundtrack is one of the strongest characters in the game – overbearingly intense and just short of terrifying.

The top-down view gives the player a sense of the layout of the building they are about to infiltrate and the location of the goons within it. After developing a strategy, stealth is often worthwhile, you burst in and need to react quickly. This is a one-hit-and-you’re-dead kind of game, adding to the tension and difficulty but the quick restart makes trying again a compulsive pleasure. The variety of weapons and mask “powerups” give you the opportunity to approach each level using different tactics each time. In later levels I played like a true coward; hide, hit, run, hide, hit, run, etc.

A mysterious and suitably oblique story ties it all together. Hotline Miami is a treat!

Verdict: Addictive, fun and disturbing. A worthwhile challenge.

Should Bradley play this: Oh yes.