Hotline Miami

August 21, 2012 • Devolver Digital

Imagine it's the year 1989, and you're sitting outside on the south Florida beach, a half-gone pile of cocaine spread out in front of you. That's what Hotline Miami is like, some kind of blitzed-out psychedelic insanity that evokes that hot and hazy atmosphere while also being dissonant and alienating. It's a weird experience, but a good one.

"Synthwave" is the new buzzword for this kind of music—retro-inspired synth pop and house music—though I find the name a bit misleading, at least when it comes to this soundtrack. As a various-artists collection there's actually quite a number of different things going on, going from thick psych-rock to deep thumping house and techno. It's a good sampling of how wildly different genres can still provide a similar mood and aesthetic to a soundtrack (then again, maybe it's just that I already associate all these songs with the game). And it's just plain weird, too; flipping around the songs might seem kind of normal at first, but there's always something just a little off that makes them feel a bit uneasy.

Hotline Miami itself isn't really a game I'd recommend for everyone, and I don't think I actually like it all that much myself. But I do know that it did bring us a pretty good collection of tracks to go along with it. There are a few forgettable tracks here and overall it doesn't inflict me with the same sense of awe as a lot of other recent soundtracks have, but it's still worth a listen just for the weirdness.