Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review

Brief information about the game.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is the brutal conclusion to the Hotline Miami saga, set against a backdrop of escalating violence and retribution over spilled blood in the original game. Follow the paths of several distinct factions – each with their own questionable methods and uncertain motivations – as unforeseen consequences intersect and reality once again slips back into a brilliant haze of neon and bloodshed.

Blistering combat against punishing opposition will require intense focus as new variables, weapons, and methods of execution are introduced throughout the struggle. Let the striking colors of an unmistakable visual style wash over as you meticulously cut down those that would stand between you and the ultimate meaning behind the massacre. This is the finale, this is the unquestionable end.

Price: £14.99
Developer: Dennaton Games
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS3, Vita
Version Reviewed: PC

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The original game, Hotline Miami. It seemed to be very much like a Willy Wonka Factory. Just with blood and gore instead of sweets and chocolate.  A brightly colored and violent game entirely in the moment. Dennarion Games created a world of Pre exhilaration . The different between life and death exists within your finger tips and the constant momentum regardless of what enemies and objects are in your way. Hotline Miami just kept going strong, even when the eighties reality is presented began to fray around the edges, giving the story a much added X-Factor hinting that all was not as it seemed.

The first game left me thrilled, I was looking for more. Wanting more, praying for more. For the sequel though. I left at ease with myself. I was relieved in a sense. Not because it was bad. No Hotline Miami 2 was a long, story driven, and incomprehensible where the first one was short and sharp. Yes the core element is in Hotline Miami 2. The tooth and nail, memory game combat, just something about the deliverer it presents is nothing like as cohesive as the first.

The game starts out nicely. very promising in fact. Right away you are thrust into the world and straight into combat. We assume the role of a psychopath known as the Pig Butcher in the process of invading a home. The acts which open the game is just to get the player back into the groove of things. Such as combat. planning and reaction time when something doesn't quiet go to plan. After all that, the situation turns, when suddenly the music cuts to a halt and the director\ wraps up the scene. It turns out that you are in the middle of making a movie retelling the story of Hotline Miami original mask wearing, face beating. gun shouting man known as the Jacket.

At this point the scene changes again, switching to a group of thrill-seeking thugs emulating the actions of Jacket. "Aha, so this is where the story begins in earnest!" I thought. Except it doesn't, because the story isn't really about these hoodlums. Neither is it about the detective investigating Jacket's killings, or the journalist attempting to write a book about them, or the platoon of soldiers fighting a guerrilla war in Hawaii in a series of flashbacks set two years before the events of Wrong Number. In fact, Hotline Miami 2 doesn't appear to be about anything at all.

If you are thinking this is all it is. A recreation of Hotline Miami. This isn't the case. Hotline Miami 2 has a plot! Although sadly it s mothered by the narrative style which fells choppy. The endless flashbacks and flash forwards, and the use of twelve characters makes game seem disorienting. It is like a Tarantino movie reel through a crosscut shredder and glued back together.

The problem it seems comes forom the attempt to invert the structure of the narrative from the original. The first game became in the glitzy yet grotty reality of the criminal games in Miami being taken down by a blood hunger vigilante, and then led you to question that reality as the game went on. It left the plater feeling on the edge and understanding that events it presented, but always oulled the solution away at the very last minute. Hotline Miami 2 it seems to do a 180. It starts off in fregments and uncertainly, and then brings "tries to bring them together", only it never achieves this. It never establishes a rhythm or reason. Indeed it seems to delight in upsetting any rhythm that begins to emerge. Around the halfway point I was getting a tad bit confused and I wasn't sure if I was really suppose to know what the heck is going on.

If the creators of Hotline Miami 2 wanted to broaden the storytelling, then it was a failure. Although when playing individual levels then it seems to be a far more traditional sequel which after that bad story telling seems actually refreshing. Of course the mask make a return. Although there are fewer but sadly only a few levels seem to only let you choose your mask. Some characters you play as don't use mask at all. While you are playing the copycat gang levels you select one of four characters instead of picking  mask. These include Tony who wears a tiger mask and has lethal punches, but can't use any type of weapon. You have the duo of Alex and Ash, whoa re equipped with a pistol and chainsaw and are both controlled the same way.
 

 With a longer and bigger game of course there is a expanded narrative. Which in fact is over twice as much. Sadly, the game isn;t anywhere near varied enough to sustain itself over the coarse of the game, especially considering we seen most of this one trick pony before. Worse is the minor details added which sometimes work but otherwise than that just seems the same. The levels are fine with the exception of the Hawaii flashbacks. As they limit you from just using one weapon and knight, forcing you to pickup ammo crates for a tiny bit of ammo at certain points where it lets you. Such things fly right in the way of what made the first game so great. It also completely arbitrary. A street-thug can think to pick up weapons and use them at will where a soldier who has seem battle just wants to stick with just one weapon. Seems kind of off.

Let me just say that this sequel is not a bad game. Considering each and every one of the story threads has potential and I wish the game followed the tale of the copycats more closely, instead of chopping and changing the formula we are use too. Of course the best stages are the last few which involve the copycats, which you can switch between them at different points. Also the soundtrack is once again excellent!

As a sequel, however, Wrong Number is disappointing. It's even a little looser mechanically. Thugs tend to get stuck in doors, while there's a recurring bug which sees guard dogs spin around in a circle, as if they're endlessly chasing their tails. Another issue is that the size of some of the later levels makes it pretty easy to dispatch opponents from a distance without alerting other guards to your presence.
 

This latter point encapsulates Wrong Number's greatest flaw, which is that it stretches its concept to the point of collapse. There were certainly moments when I was as breathlessly excited as the original so often made me, such as after punching out half a building's worth of gangsters as Tony, or in the midst of barrelling through a police station, evading the gunfire of a small army of cops. But there were equally as many times when I felt hopelessly lost in its baffling stew of a story, and frankly I finished it more out of stubbornness than enjoyment. In the end, Wrong Number proves to be more apt a subtitle than I hoped.