Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review
Hotline Miami 2 is a new take that nobody asked for.
I loved Hotline Miami enough to cosplay as “Jacket” (the main character) at an anime convention. I walked into a costume store and bought a rubber chicken mask, a baseball bat, and some fake blood. I’m probably on some sort of government watch list now, but it’s all worth it for the beautifully brutal 80s murder simulator.
Which makes me kind of sad to say that the sequel is a letdown. The developers messed with the winning formula, and now we’re left with some sort of gooey purple slime that almost tastes good. Almost.
I’m not saying it’s bad: It’s filled with all the ultra-violence and insane difficulty of Hotline Miami 1. But when the pumping 80’s techno dies down and the drug-haze of Miami wears off, it’s forgotten what made Hotline Miami 1 great: Tense, rapid fire action that kills you every two seconds.
The story takes place before and after the events of Hotline Miami 1, following several characters as they react to Jacket murdering his way through the Russian mob. You follow several characters from a writer who’s trying to publish a book based off of the masked men killings, to a group of wannabe vigilantes trying to imitate the events of the first game. All of the characters have some deep personal flaw they’re trying to hide, and all of them begin to question their own sanity as the killing sprees start again.
Without getting into spoilers, the story has a few great moments, but it stumbles near the end. Hotline Miami 1 had a minimalist story that forced you to analyze it. The main character in HM1 is an unreliable narrator, and you have to work a little bit to piece together the difference between the truth, and the ramblings of a broken mind. I loved it.
The sequel starts off by going in a completely new direction, with a story that’s grounded more in reality. Some characters fair better than others: The HM1 fans & the son have the best stories, and narratives that parallel each group’s core flaw. Unfortunately, the mood is ruined by having each protagonist go insane, without really explaining why they would. Richard, The chicken mask delusion from the first game, comes back as some sort of bargain bin Satan.
All he does is say some cryptic stuff about someone’s fate, before vanishing.
It’s as dumb as it sounds, because there is no story line reason for him to be there. Most of them are relatively sane (for people who go on killing sprees). It was implied that Richard was just a figment of Jacket’s dementia, but now he’s some kind of supernatural being giving dark omens to everyone? Every time he shows up, the character sounds like a Twitter account parodying a high school english student.
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This is a metaphor for commercialization.[/caption]
And that’s not even getting into the characters whose stories are complete non-starts or end abruptly. Minor spoiler here: The Pig Butcher character in all the trailers? He dies in the first act, and in such an abrupt way that made no sense to the overall plot.
From what I can guess, Hotline Miami 2 was trying to go for a nihilistic plot, one where everything is pointless and nothing matters, but rather than using that to construct a well written story, it seems to just be an excuse to kill off some characters for shock value. It’s a real shame, because there’s so much potential for the story to transcend it’s humble beginnings, but it never does. Not that I’m saying Hotline Miami 1 was some sort of revolution in storytelling, but it told it’s tale very well.
But whatever, you don’t care about the story right? It’s Hotline Miami! Let’s talk about the mass murder!
Don’t worry, Hotline Miami 2 is fast, brutal, and and unforgiving, just like the first game. It’s also soul crushingly difficult. I was able to get A rankings in HM1, but in the sequel I was a straight C student. They’ve made changes to the game that seem small, but drastically alter how you murder your way to victory.
The writer I mentioned before? He doesn’t want to kill people, so he will only use blunt weapons, and every time he picks up a gun he just unloads it and throws the clip away. He leaves his enemies writhing on the floor in pain, but alive. The game becomes a tense stand off as the gangsters have no such reservations about killing you. It’s interesting, and I like that they’re not afraid to break the mold a little.
Another character is actually two characters, one holding a chainsaw, with the other one using a gun. Then there’s Tony the Tiger, who can kill anything with his fists, but he cannot use any weapons. It’s so satisfying to watch those big thugs get utterly destroyed in short order.
I like that they changed the game.
Why do I not like Hotline Miami 2? They changed the game.
In the first one, it was awesome to hack through all the bald mobsters, watching their guts litter the fur rugs and pastel chairs. Now, there are more guns and wider spaces, which means charging into battle with an axe will get you jack-hammered across the room. Unless you bring a gun yourself, you’re at a major disadvantage. If you play as one of the weaponless characters, the game changes from a fast-paced slaughter fest to a game of peek-a-boo.
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But if you can play it with machine guns, peek-a-boo is pretty fun.[/caption]
And some of the new characters have abilities that are just useless. There’s a zebra masked character who has a dodge roll, which sounds cool until you actually try it and die.
You do this awesome cartwheel, an acrobatic wonder, which you complete the second before a bat shatters your skull over a very nice bear rug.
The worst mechanic has got to be the soldier. He has a knife and a gun, and when you run out of ammo, you can’t pick up other weapons. You have to find one of the scarce ammo boxes. It’s less of a tense assault and more of a tedious shopping trip when you just keep running back to refill ammo because there’s an enemy ahead that you can only kill with bullets.
It’s a change to a winning formula that only works half the time. I was hammering the “restart” key out of frustration more than pride, because the flow of the game had been ruined. HM1 was a tense and punishing struggle, but it never got too frustrating because you would just hit “R” and you’d be back at it. But these new characters have slowed the pace down; Now victory isn’t a reward, it’s a sigh of relief that you don’t have to waste any more of your time.
The soundtrack saves this game. It’s awe inspiring; It made me wish I could buy a vinyl Hotline Miami compilation. Seriously, take a listen and tell me you’re not headbanging to these rocking 80’s inspired tracks.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyfJlcrN09w[/embed]
But all this leads up to the big question: Do I recommend it? Yes, but only if you’ve played the first game, and only if you keep your expectations low. Despite the disappointment, it’s still a sequel to a game that was nearly perfect, and tries it’s best to deliver something new. That’s still worth the $15(Canadian) price tag.
Is this the sequel we needed? No. It could have been it’s own beast, but it tries way too hard and ends up stumbling over it’s own inferiority complex. As it stands, if you liked the first game and wanted the same thing with a few twists, then give this a shot. If you’re just jumping into this series? Play the first game, and check this one out if you’re wondering what a hard mode for Hotline Miami might look like.
