Get Shifty

Take Hotline Miami, remove the acid trip, then add a "blink"-style teleport and you might end up with something like Mr. Shifty.

The premise is simple: teleport around to avoid getting shot, while punching henchmen to death. One hit will kill you, so skillful evasion is important, as is using the environment to block enemies' line of sight. And you don't have your own gun, which means you'll need to balance that one-hit-kill risk against the exhilirating reward of teleporting your fist directly into a bad guy's face.

Why are you beating all these people up? Well you see, this uh, nefarious businessman ... stole some ... Mega Plutonium. And then he took your blood? You know what, nevermind! Just keep climbing the tower so you can confront the cartoonishly evil boss. In terms of story, character depth, and world complexity, Mr. Shifty is pretty dumb; but it's exactly as smart as it needs to be.

Most of Mr. Shifty's 18 stages are only 5-10 minutes long (depending on how much you die), giving the campaign that addictive "just one more level" quality. And for the most part, it does great in checkpointing each stage so that death doesn't feel like a penalty.

The last couple stages have some lengthy, punishing gauntlets; but I guess that comes with the territory.

Every once in a while, you'll have a special objective like activating a switch, or be in a special circumstance like "restricted teleports" or "room full of lasers." But for the most part, Mr. Shifty is about beating dudes up; and the level design excels at keeping that goal fun. Punch a door so hard that it knocks a guy down! Punch a goon out of a skyscraper window! Pick up a mop and swing it at three dudes at once!

Mr. Shifty isn't an incredibly ambitious game, but it really does its premise justice. Occasionally-frustrating gauntlets aside, it's pure, dumb, explosive fun.

Better than: Hotline Miami
Not as good as: Dishonored
If it's sequelized: please add a stationary-aiming control.