The Text Adventures That Never Were: Hotline Miami

Ever wonder what the PC games of 2012 would be like if they were text adventures? Of course not, no one in their right mind would ever wonder that. In related news: I wondered that! So, rip out your GeForce GTX 680, plug in your dusty 10" CRT monitor, and stuff your programmable eight-button mouse in a stocking, because this week we're going to imagine five of this year's games the way all PC games used to be: as text adventures.

With its addictive soundtrack, nerve-wracking combat, top-down view and 8-bit throwback graphics, Hotline Miami is a slick and challenging action game. Luckily, the violence is so over-the-top gruesome and gory that it's hard to feel repulsed by it until you suddenly feel pretty darn repulsed by it. Throw in unsettling masked characters, an arcade-like scoring system, and some disturbing mindgames, and what do you get? I have no idea. This game is bonkers. Take out the graphics, and what do you get? Hotline Miami: The Text Adventure!

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.