Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review

Roaring onto the late indie scene of 2012 in a shower of ultra-violence, gore and neon, the original Hotline Miami made incredible waves in many gaming circles.  There was a lot to love in this top-down package. most obvious being a super-cohesive aesthetic described as  reminiscent of the most garish parts of the 80's mixed with a healthy dose of Refn's Drive. Mixing this with an incredible soundtrack pulsing in time with twitch action, and your left with a game capable of leaving you with a sense of synesthesia, all while your heart rate rises.  At a modest length, it's understandable that fans would want more, especially with no other games out there quite able to replicate what it does so perfectly.

That is, of course, until we got the sequel.

Even the chapter screens are dripping with style.

Story-wise, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number manages to both simultaneously be more straight-forward and cryptic than it's predecessor.  Taking place before, during and after the events of the original, players will find a story told out of order, notified by dates and time and the beginning of each section of the game.  This leaves players to piece together as a sort of mini-mystery as to why various characters enjoy hurting others so very much.  Sequences and realities don't always give way to the truth on first inspection, and it may take another character's point of view to piece together the whole picture, but only if you pay close attention.  Fans of the original will have some of their questions answered, but there are still individual details left vague enough for juicy speculation.

Pixel art that isn't for the light of heart.

The roster of characters has been greatly expanded from the original player character of the first, and mark the most significant change to the game itself.  The cast varies greatly, from copy-cat psychopaths, a soldier, individuals in the Russian mafia, even a journalist.  Instead of unlocking a host of masks for one character, you'll instead unlock a smaller host of options for some characters, such as different weapons, or even which character to use in the case of the fans.  While this does cut down on choice and customization in the grand scheme of things, it does make for more distinct play styles for each given level, with abilities dictating approach.  Do you risk the classic Tony mask for more powerful punches at the cost of no weapons?  Or do you want to mix it up with Mark and wield two machine guns akimbo style?

Or how about a flamethrower?  I hear those hurt quite a bit.

Gameplay is still king for the series, as the hypnotic cycle of run, kill, killed, R to respawn, stays intact.  Every person is fragile in this game, a single bullet or swing of a baseball bat is all it takes to kill a foe or yourself.  For those who haven't played the original, this makes sessions feel almost like high-octane puzzle solving as you learn enemy patrol routes, corners to use as lures, and pray for a tiny does of RNG that you can make a perfect run on any given floor to make it to the next.  Sometimes this can result in frustration as execution of strategy can be upended by the game deciding to shuffle enemies a bit, but when the game is on, if feels eerily graceful to flow from one faceless mobster to another as you bash subsequent faces in.  This is only enforced by liberal amounts of pixilated blood flowing and a neon score counter telling you your current combo.  Absolutely macabre and tantalizing at the same time.

The average floor, when it's all said and done.

This isn't to say the game is perfect.  While stability is has been vastly improved, along with a better lock-on system, there are still a few bugs that will rear their head from time to time.  Most noticeably, enemies may get caught in circular pathing loops, or worse case scenario they end up glitching out on a corner, making it anyone's guess if it's safe to land a kill.  This can be very frustrating at the end of a level, but once again, quick restarts really make these issues more of a sidenote and afterthought than a major concern.

This is Evan.  He's a bit of a pacifist.  How will he fare?

It's worth noting that sequel also manages to ramp of the difficulty to a noticeable degree.  While you'll get an intro and small tutorial, the game feels much like a continuation of the first in terms of challenge, with ending parts being borderline madding (but so satisfying when you do manage to pull it off).  This goes to reinforce the notion that if you haven't played the first, you absolutely should, both for the sake of narrative, as well as to train yourself in for the greater challenge ahead.  Elements such as more enemy types, larger levels, and a greater prevalence of windows that can be shot through allows for great amounts of strategy, coupled with a great number of ways of getting yourself killed.  And that's all before dipping into the game's unlockable hard mode.

Sometimes baiting around corners is the most effective tactic

The style from the first is absolutely preserved to a T.  The incredible pixel art and hideous talking heads from the first return in full force, injecting a surprising amount of life and detail into environments.  Everything screams 80's from the color palette to the digital clock presented at the beginning of each level.  Wrong Number's soundtrack takes special note for not only being pitch perfect for the material presented alongside, but being as fantastic, if not better than the original.

Even the pause screen is drenched in style

To say "worthy sequel" would be doing Hotline 2 a disservice:  It's a continuation in the grandest form, taking all the elements of the first and expanding and expounding on them.  More gameplay, more narrative, more pulsing techno, more violence, more combos, just more more more from an era of decadence.  Absolutely worth playing.