Mr. Shifty review - Hotline Miami, The Matrix, and Watch Dogs walk into a bar
|
| Mr. Shifty

Let's confront the elephant in the room right away - yes, Mr. Shifty is heavily inspired by Hotline Miami. It wears its influences proudly on its sleeve, and there are lots of them.

The visual style is very Mirror's Edge, the character design Watch Dogs, and zipping through a level beating up baddies before they can retaliate feels very much like watching The Matrix.

It's fine to be inspired, and not try to hide it - provided you put your own unique spin on it. I'd argue that Mr. Shifty has done enough to achieve that.

Shift

In Mr. Shifty, you play as a teleporting thief who's tasked with breaking into a secure facility to steal some mega plutonium. Maybe you're a good guy trying to prevent a nuclear war? Who cares - the plot's just there to keep things ticking.

And it ticks very much like Hotline Miami. It's top down, your main priority is beating up bad guys, and you can grab weapons to help you do so.

But there are some obvious differences. For a start, you're not butchering bad guys as senselessly as possible. For the most part, you're simply be knocking them out.

Then there's the fact you can teleport - that old chestnut. Simply tap the B button and you'll zip a short distance in the direction you're facing, with a handy reticle placed in the position you'll land.

It's a nice system, and one which makes you feel like a total badass even if you're not very good. Kick a door into a dude's face, teleport behind his bro and knock him out, grab a keyboard and chuck it at the guy running in to see what all the fuss is about. All in a day's work.

And it's fun. Man, it's fun. Satisfying, as well. But it's not perfect - not quite.

Missed the point

From my perspective, Hotline Miami was deliberately difficult so that when you pulled off the perfect murder you'd feel really good about yourself. The controls were super sensitive, death was a split second away, and having a gun didn't always make things easier.

Mr. Shifty is not that. In fact, it's pretty easy for the most part, and even when it does get hard, it's not in the same way.

Where Hotline Miami is thoughtful, methodical, and strategic, Mr. Shifty is fast-paced, twitchy, and action-packed. It's not necessarily a bad thing (like I said, it's fun) but it is a lesser product than Hotline Miami as a result.

For a start, it's so easy that I never felt like I truly engaged with it. I'd just go through the motions and if I failed, I'd start again. I wouldn't consider why, I'd just plan on teleporting a bit more next time.

And I'll be successful eventually. A lot of time, there is no greater method - just jump in, bust some skulls, and try and dodge all the bullets.

Shifting things up

So yes, as a result, things get a little repetitive. The developers are clearly wary of that though, and regularly introduce new stuff. It might be different types of bad guys, or traps you have to navigate.

And it does momentarily make things a little more interesting. I do get the feeling that the repetition should have been seen as a positive, rather than a negative though. Hotline Miami is quite repetitive, after all, but that's the point. You're repeating a mission until you get it right.

That's why the scoring system makes so much sense there. Here, it's kind of there, but not really. At the end of the level, you're given an indication of how long it took, and how many times you died.

Again, this demonstrates how the developer has missed the point a bit. We should be getting rewarded for what we did well - combo takedowns, near misses - because that leads us to want to beat that score next time.

It also encourages experimentation, as you try a bunch of different things to increase it.

But there's none of that in Mr. Shifty. You'll complete a level, shrug at your time and death count, and move on to the next.

The bottom line

Mr. Shifty is a fun and competent action game. The central mechanic, teleporting, feels great and is iterated on regularly enough to reinforce it as a standout feature.

But while it might be more instantly fun to play than Hotline Miami, it completely misses the point of its primary inspiration, and as a result becomes quite repetitive over time, and doesn't have any of the replayability.

I'll be digging back into Mr. Shifty to see what fun new feature comes next, but I won't be spending the wealth of time with it that I plan to put into Hotline Miami.

Mr. Shifty review - Hotline Miami, The Matrix, and Watch Dogs walk into a bar

Mr. Shifty is a fun, twitchy action game that fails to capitalise on what was so good about its primary influence
Score
Chris James
Chris James
A footy game fanatic and experienced editor of numerous computing and game titles, lively Chris is up for anything - including running Steel Media! (Madman!)