The Hong Kong Massacre mashes up John Woo with Hotline Miami
Action game is bloody and violent in the tradition of Hong Kong action films
It’s 1992. A flickering neon light shines through the window of a seedy apartment building. Suddenly, a man bursts through the door in slow-motion, two pistols firing away at a gun-wielding figure. Every shot is accurate, and the unnamed enemy’s blood paints the room in splashes of crimson.
If this sounds like a scene from the Chow Yun-fat classic Hard Boiled, well, that’s the point. Except this isn’t a movie, it’s a game.
The Hong Kong Massacre, out today on PC and PlayStation 4, clearly pays homage to the city’s famous action films. I played a couple of hours of it today, and came away pretty impressed.
While the visuals are pure John Woo, the gameplay heavily leans on another influence: Hotline Miami, the iconic indie game from 2012. Like that game, The Hong Kong Massacre is a top-down action game where death lurks with every bullet -- a single shot is enough to kill you, bringing some strategy to the, er, massacre.
The player’s advantage comes from their vantage point; having that top-down view means you can see behind doors and walls, allowing players to plan their routes and their attacks, figuring out which baddies to take out first and which bits of furniture to hide behind.
