REVIEW: 'Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number'

At last! With all the controversy Hotline Miami 2's demo created, and with the game being pseudo-banned in Australia, you'd think this would be a retro-review by now. I actually had to go back and discuss the first instalment just so I didn't drop dead from boredom waiting for its sequel. Yet here it is: my most anticipated game of 2015. No pressure guys....

I don't really know what I was expecting. For some reason I was really, really hyped for this game – but, of course, it's the same game stuffed with more content. There are some minor graphical improvements, but the majority of enemies have been copy and pasted from the first game, as have most of the weapons, masks, textures, and even a couple of level-layouts. The trailer makes it look like there’s been a visual upgrade, but little has been done. Well, what amazing experience demands a sequel?

I was looking forward to this game because whilst the gameplay was ultimately flawed, Hotline Miami presented its uninspired story in a revolutionary way. I was reminded of killer7 in how the game so creatively demonstrated how absolutely bonkers Jacket was. I was looking forward to a polished sequel that removed the annoying parts of the gameplay whilst refining it’s narrative chops to further push video games as the most interesting storytelling medium currently out there.

How nice of the developers, then, to listen to my comments and do the exact opposite to that.

Hello darkness, my old friend...

Remember how the biggest problem with Hotline Miami was enemies you couldn't possibly see killing you and some levels being too large? Remember how that issue wasn't present until the later chapters? Well, I had this problem right from the second level. Less than five mins into the game and I'm already bashing my keyboard because of unfair deaths. And this habit of throwing you into an enormous level filled with a ridiculously large number of enemies all armed to the teeth who possess impossibly fast reflexes happens constantly from the second level onwards.

The game is ridiculously difficult. The first instalment slowly begun to enlarge the environment and incrementally increase the number of enemies in each level. Here, the second chapter places you in a large area filled with shotgun-wielding maniacs. The third level already has glass - an annoyance that's guaranteed double the amount of times you'll die. The fourth chapter actually re-cycles the layout from a level towards the end of the first game and has a boss in it.

The absolute nadhir comes at a series of extended flashbacks to a guy who was plowing through the Russian mafia at the same time Jacket from the first game was. These levels are completely pointless since they establish what could've been limited to one line: "I was sent to clear the mafia outta a couple of joints." They're also by far the hardest as you're not given any masks or starting advantages and the levels are absolutely crammed with enemies. In two of these levels, you can get shot right after stepping through the door unless you're 'skilled' (read: lucky). 

Look how many enemies I have to handle! And there's MORE off-screen!

The game has a terrible habit of suddenly completely changing your gamestyle. The first four missions play exactly like the first game, and it's pretty fun if you can get past the sudden difficulty spike. Then out of nowhere you're forced to play it stealthy. Then you're not allowed to use guns. Then you start off with a gun and can't get rid of the gun. Then you're in a warzone in Hawaii. I'm not even joking. The game suddenly becomes a war film. And in these levels you can't pickup new weapons, so if you run out of bullets then you have to ingore all the guns lying around and try and find a crate with ammo in it. Whilst I welcomed the change in tone and scenery, these sections are also completely pointless and only serve to suck the enjoyment out of the game. 

There is no longer any room for improvisation in the combat. About 70% of the time you're forced to play exactly how the game wants you to rather than forge your own path. I have no idea how you're supposed to get a highscore in this game considering you're rated by how creative and mobile you are - and all creativity has been taken away from the combat. This combined with the frankly awful level design completely removes all replayability. Whenever I finally cleared the stage after hours staring at the same level and listening to the same music (which is good, but not as catchy) I always made a vow that I never wanted to see that stage ever again in my life. I would then swear loudly as the game had the gall to give me a low score after all the effort I went through to get through the stage. 

It doesn’t help that bullets no longer seem to go through multiple enemies, and the shotgun is as overpowered as before. There’s a pistol which takes two shots to kill you, meaning that you actually have hitpoints in this game. But don’t be fooled. The pistol is a rapid-fire weapon, so it makes no difference. Also, it’s almost certain you’ll lose track of how many hitpoints you have. It’s not like Ghosts & Goblins where you lose your armour. And for some reason, the pistol and AK-47 kill you in a few hits, but the SMG, Uzi, and silent pistol only takes one. Some consistency, please.

Also, the mouse controls are downright broken. You can only aim straight if you stay perfectly still for several seconds before firing – which, given this games fast-pace, will always result in death. There are also several bugs. Enemies keep getting caught on scenery – which makes them impossible to kill. There are also some basic problems such as some enemies being deaf and some enemies being able to shoot through walls, in addition to enemies somehow absorbing bullets and ignoring your melee attacks. These, however, are bugs; and bugs can be patched. 

I like how the new menu says ‘eject’ instead of ‘quit,’ because it means whenever I ragequit after spending three hours trying to get through the same level, I can imagine popping a cartridge out of a games console and throwing it across the room.

I will say, the new menu is a really nice touch.

And now, we must address the T-Rex in the room: The rape scene.  It’s almost funny how before the game starts you’re warned that the game contains strong sexual content and you can turn it off if you like. But they might as well have said: “do you want to skip the opening cutscene” because that’s the games only incident of sexual content.

Don’t worry: there is no rape in Hotline Miami 2. The rape never actually takes place and the whole thing is revealed to be a film set – which in itself may just be a hallucination from a very sick man. And the graphics are so pixelated you hardly see anything anyway. It’s like getting mad at Custer’s Revenge.

But the rape scene sums up how the story is handled. It’s a collection of jarring vignettes that have only been vaguely thought out. The plot is just as schizophrenic as the gameplay as we bounce from character-to-character. There’s one who shows up for one mission at the start, completely vanishes, and then turns up just before the final act. I would’ve been sorry to see him go, but I had no idea who he was. The game also commits one of the many narrative sins of forcing you to stay alive throughout a level before immediately killing you in a cutscene afterwards. Worse, there’s a level where you can get killed in a cutscene if you do the wrong thing (which you will do) and if you get killed then you have to start the whole level again.

"...like the reviewer trying to finish this game in time"

The tragedy here is that the story could’ve redeemed the, I must be honest, bad gameplay if it just had focus. If we just followed one character – maybe two at a stretch – then the experience would’ve been improved so much. The first game worked so well because we kept close to Jacket throughout, and thus were able to observe his character-arc. We felt disturbed by him, but also empathy. That’s why I kept hitting the ‘restart’ button every time he got sniped by a person he couldn’t see. I cared. I cared enough that I looked past the flaws and kept playing.

Hotline Miami 2 wishes it's narrative was that good. It throws characters at the player with gay abandon, hoping we'll latch onto them. There's a fat man we meet in the third level who dissapears for half of the game only to show up one more time before his story ends. There's the film star who shows up for the prologue and one more level before his story is abruptly ended too, making the rape scene feel utterly pointless. It's not a character arc so much as a character dot. 

In fact; the soldier, the rogue cop, the henchman, and the fat guy could've been cut out of the game without hampering the plot in any way - because these four add nothing. They're only connected to the story because they just happen to be intwined in the events of the other character. Thematically, they have no link. They're not losing their minds like Jacket was, and they don't contribute anything to the overall tone. The last few levels give us a new character and expect us to care when we've already gone through enough protagonists to populate a Christopher Nolan film. Go home, Hotline Miami 2!

Whilst I can’t wait for the level-editor, you’re honestly better off just playing the first game again. It has a better story, better gameplay, better level-design, and a better soundtrack. I’ve never liked the phrase “Less Is More,” but clearly we still haven’t learnt this lesson.