Hotline Miami 2 intro discussion [Spoiler alert]

creative630

Warning slight spoiler for the opening of Hotline Miami 2!!
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So I just read this article:
http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/hotline-miami-2-wrong-number/

Having not played the intro I don't know if I can cast any judgement on the opinion of the article, but I want to discuss it anyway :P

So I feel like the writer definitely has a point, and I think the topic of the discussion is quite a scary one (I know I'm nervous about talking about it). So while I tend to agree with the writers immediate discomfort and rage at being "tricked" into watching a scene that can definitely alienate a good portion of players. I also tend to agree with one of the top comments that mention Hotline Miami's creators are known to push the boundary of violence and what is acceptable in games (while highlighting that the current acceptance of violence in games is pretty ludicrous).

What are your thoughts? Was it uncalled for and have they pushed things too far?

raithza

Isn't it awesome how they make you extremely uncomfortable with the violence and then immediately remind you it's fake? Like the writer points out, she was perfectly fine with with mangling a hundred mobsters, even with killing the innocents but that little bit of pixellated violence managed to push her over the edge. If we accept murder in games then why not rape? Is one crime worse than the other? I'm not trying to say one is worse than the other or not, but if you are perfectly fine with one and horrendously offended by the other, you are a hypocrite.

Anyway Hotline Miami is the best indie game I've ever played and I can't wait for the sequel.

WelshPixie

I suppose you'd have to know the developers' stance before commenting on how / why they executed it the way they did. If their am was providing a commentary on the things we mindlessly accept without any thought spared with the exception of one particular act, then judging by Cara's reaction, they succeeded. They made her feel uncomfortable, made her realise that she'd just murdered rooms full of people without any discomfort and yet paused at the rape scene. If that's what they were going for, then they succeeded - with a female player, at least. I don't know how male players will respond, if any differently - and further I think it's worth asking whether that point really needed to be made, and if it could only be made with a man raping a woman. If the end result is a bunch of people stopping to think about what we tolerate in games, and maybe even think more seriously about gender roles in games, then I think it was worthwhile.

raithza

If the end result is a bunch of people stopping to think about what we tolerate in games

And here we are :)

I don't know how male players will respond, if any differently

I find the thought that males are fine with rape pretty offensive.

WelshPixie

I find the thought that males are fine with rape pretty offensive.

Exactly. Cara felt betrayed as a woman, and men will (hopefully?) find the typecasting offensive. Everyone, regardless of gender, might feel as manipulated as Cara felt into watching/playing along.

Tuism

So... because both men and women can kill people, we're fine with it. It's only when we are victimised by "attribute" that we're offended. Equal opportunity offenders are fine, but gender and race and whatever are not fine.

Man we're fucked up.

dislekcia

Hotline Miami was a statement about how blindly we accept violence as an outcome of our desires when we play games. Finishing it made you feel horrible in retrospect, which was what it was intended to do as far as I can tell.

I wondered at the point of a sequel, but it actually makes sense to tackle the issue of rape in a similarly confrontational way. It's damn tricky to get right, but I suspect that the discussion will at least be worth having :)

Thaumaturge

So... because both men and women can kill people, we're fine with it. It's only when we are victimised by "attribute" that we're offended. Equal opportunity offenders are fine, but gender and race and whatever are not fine.

As I understand it, both men and women can rape, and can each rape both men and women.

In any case, I think that rape tends to have a strong emotional reaction tied to it -- perhaps sometimes, for some people, stronger than murder -- and that such a scene, if identified by the player as rape -- I fear that there may be some biases that result in people not recognising an act as rape -- could still have achieved a similar reaction.

In all fairness, I'll grant that cultural beliefs regarding protection of women by men might make a scene involving a woman being raped by a man more troubling to some -- perhaps even a large percentage of the population -- than a scene involving a different mix of genders.

... I'm not trying to say one is worse than the other or not, but if you are perfectly fine with one and horrendously offended by the other, you are a hypocrite.

Surely the claim of hypocrisy only holds if one does claim that the acts are close to equal, or that the act found offensive is a lesser crime than the other?