The Hong Kong Massacre

The Hong Kong Massacre is a somewhat generic top-down shooter game that's aimed at scoring, as the narrative is pretty bleak, while the action is very repetitive. The only defining feature are the bullet-t-ime and dives that the hero can perform.

The Hong Kong Massacre is a game with a specific goal--to capture the feeling of an over-the-top John Woo-style slow-motion diving kill shot, and it succeeds. The game's faults are washed away whenever you leap out of the way of a bullet and quickly take out the person who fired it. It's a game that sticks with you when you're not playing it, as you think through different approaches to the room you died in last time. You'll fail frequently, and the repetition can wear you down, but it's hard to resist the temptation of bursting through a window and perfectly lining up three kill shots.

The Hong Kong Massacre isn't as interesting as it looked, unfortunately. While gameplay is intense and challenging, the scenario fails to drive us through those very repetitive sequences.

The Hong Kong Massacre is fun to play at its core, but there’s no progress or evolution and soon the shooting becomes tiresome. Other causes of acute disenchantment include bland boss fights, lack of weapons and infuriatingly accurate enemies.

Challenging but repetitive, The Hong Kong Massacre has a barely-there story, but is big on gunfights and style.

There is fun to be had with The Hong Kong Massacre, but I don't believe it lives up to the years of hype following it. With some finer tuning and better balance, this could be a real contender for the Hotline Miami clone crown. As it is, this is an okay time that wears out its welcome well before the end credits start rolling.

The Hong Kong Massacre is a fun game that definitely delivers in the feel of those Hong Kong action movies. But input lag with controls and repetitive levels take away from it. More weapons or weapon choices that actually seemed to matter would’ve helped the game as well. If you like this type of game, in this setting and don’t mind a few issues it’s worth the buy at its budget price.

The Hong Kong Massacre is the kind of game you'd love to love. It's a very pleasant arcade twin stick shooter that makes us more than efficiently feel like we are in a John Woo movie. But it quickly shows its limits, as new ideas or mechanics never show up to give us more than expected.