The Hong Kong Massacre

VRESKI is a small indie game studio based in Malmö, Sweden, that has decided to make its debut with The Hong Kong Massacre, an action-packed, gore-filled work that clearly draws inspiration from Hotline Miami while paying homage to the action movies of the late 80s and early 90s.

The Hong Kong Massacre is quite obviously inspired by the classics of action cinema, presenting us with a title that has the flavour of a 90s film.

In each and every one of the levels in the game we will find action, shooting, scenery destruction and a lot of blood that will stain the levels with its characteristic crimson colour, along with the good pile of corpses that our protagonist will leave in his path. In terms of plot, the game does not go very far, nor does it pretend to. We are put in the shoes of a former Hong Kong police detective who wants to avenge the murder of his old partner and take down a dangerous criminal organisation that terrorises people.

We won't find deep dialogues or long conversations, but we will find a handful of clichés that means the game's main character would played by Keanu Reeves, Jean Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal...

The game's shooting mechanics are fairly simple and well executed, limited to aiming where you are aiming and firing at the press of a button. To add some variety, there are a total of four weapons (pistol, shotgun, SMG and assault rifle) which, truth be told, fall a little short, but do have an upgrade system in their favour.

Improving the performance of each of the weapons will be fundamental to survival in the more advanced levels of the game, and we will need to be able to count on the upgrades of each of them if we want to achieve the protagonist's revenge.

The Hong Kong Massacre's 40 levels are not large or long, but they are challenging enough to keep you stuck in each one for a good few minutes.

The biggest difficulty we will have to face is that we are dealing with a game that does not allow mistakes, a single shot will end our life making us have to start the whole level from scratch.

To make the game a little more bearable we have a bullet time limited to a few seconds that will allow us to slow down the action, aim more accurately and dodge enemy shots.

Another ability that we will have at our disposal to survive, apart from shooting mobsters, will be a dodge move that, in an acrobatic way, will prevent bullets from hitting us for a second.

Both mechanics are executed very well throughout the game, with good flow and good animations, and will need to be mastered if we are to have any chance of completing The Hong Kong Massacre.

To increase the life of the game, VRESKI has added three challenges in all levels. Completing each of them will earn us a star that we can then use to upgrade our weapons.

Graphically, the game doesn't break the mould, although it does have fluid animations both in the movement of our character and with the ability to dodge, in which we will see him do all kinds of acrobatics in a fairly skilful way, even in bullet time.

The Hong Kong Massacre is a good, entertaining and fun game that will most likely appeal to those who enjoyed Hotline Miami or other shoot 'em ups that have been released over the last few years. The title has a good mix of action, shooting, bullet time, challenge and rankings that will have you itching to pick up the controller and not want to put it down until you complete the level you've been struggling with, bringing a big smile of satisfaction when you're able to get through it.