The original Hotline Miami was one of my favorite games of 2012 thanks to a great combination of gameplay, aesthetics and one of the best soundtracks around. Dennation Games quickly got to work on an expansion but the amount of content became big enough to turn it into a full blown sequel. Hotline Miami 2 steps everything up from the original with more gameplay, music and hardcore violence but this may be a case of too much of a good thing
Fan(atic):
Hotline Miami 2’s story is more involved than the previous, taking place both before and after the events of the original. Unlike the first game where you stayed in the role of Jacket, this time you have nine different characters to play as. The cast of characters is varied including the fans: Five insane vigilantes who take up the Russian Mafia killing after Jacket was arrested.
Each character has something special about how they play during a stage, whether it’s Tony’s ability to one hit kill with punches but not pick up weapons, to a chainsaw/ gun duo that you control at the same time. Just like before, everyone dies to one attack from a weapon making combat decisive, bloody and quick. Advanced play once again revolves around how quickly you can kill enemies in a row and the game’s unpredictable AI continues to make each run interesting.
Of course the music continues to be amazing with another great soundtrack that gets you pumped for each level while the story take some very dark turns. At the start of the game, you get a prompt warning you about explicit sexual violence which gives you the option of seeing it or just skipping (note: There is only one scene and it occurs during the tutorial and nowhere else in the game) and the game’s trademark brutal killing is just as hardcore as it was before. The story takes multiple interesting turns and is sure to be talked about besides the ultra violence.
The amazing aesthetics from the original are even better this time around
While Hotline Miami 2 grows from the original with more gameplay and a great story, it still retains some of the problems with the original and a few new ones as well.
Brutal:
In my recent spotlight video on the first Hotline Miami, I talked about some of the issues the game had with the big one being the AI. Hotline Miami is all about the player making a plan of attack and then quickly performing it to take on the overwhelming odds. The problem is that the AI doesn’t adhere to basic rules that the player can take advantage of.
For instance, you can perform the same exact action five times and get five completely different results out of it. While that level of unpredictability is good, without having a set of ground rules just makes things frustrating. Another example, I’ve shot enemies with a gun to have the entire floor get alerted, and then do the same thing and no one moves.
Tactical gameplay is all about knowing how your actions will be taken by the AI and then trying to outwit it, but Hotline Miami 2 pushes things to the line of frustrating instead of challenging as you can’t really learn from your mistakes when the AI is unpredictable.
Another issue is that the level designs are a lot bigger than the first game with many one way paths leading to large rooms of gun wielding enemies. I found that the only way to reliably get through them was to lure enemies one at a time around a corner to take them out. However it feels wrong to have to slow down so much in a Hotline Miami game and I wish that there were more options for faster play.
But the biggest problem that I have that is unique to Hotline Miami 2 is that the developers have betrayed one of the core elements that made the original so good.
Flawed Plans:
Level design in an action based game like Hotline Miami is paramount to having a great experience. There needs to be enough variety to challenge the player while providing multiple avenues of planning and attack. What made the original work was that the levels and their individual sections were small enough so that each stage was like a run, challenging you to get through it as fast and as efficiently as possible.
One thing that you can’t say about the story is that it’s simple
The problem with Hotline Miami 2 is that the developers have gone for bigger levels and more enemies without any of the depth of the original.
One floor of some of these levels is bigger than a few of the stages in the original combined. Far too often it’s easy to misplace an enemy to only have them attack you off camera and forcing you to repeat the entire section over again.
Speaking of off camera, too much of the game relies on you having to use the panning feature of the camera as many levels are all about long straight-aways with enemies set up to gun you down before you even see them. Throw in a lot more windows and getting through a stage is less about having a perfect run and more about dumb luck.
I also have to call out the enemy designs that have gotten even more annoying than before. The large enemies make their return that are immune to melee attacks, but now you have enemies immune to guns and yes, both will charge you at the same time. Aiming continues to be a problem with some times my gun was not aiming at the crosshairs on screen and other times seemed to not want to move. There are also reported and confirmed bugs of enemies ignoring melee attacks, getting stuck in doors and the AI spazzing out of control.
Tripping:
All in all, Hotline Miami 2 is disappointing to me. The amazing soundtrack and interesting story work, but the “enhancements” to the gameplay cause more harm than good and is a classic example that bigger isn’t always better. Where in the first game, I felt like a badass for getting through it, here every level ended with a sigh and feeling great that it was finally over with and any action game that you feel better about not playing is a red flag.
If you loved the original despite its faults, then Hotline Miami 2 is going to be great for you. However for those that got fed up with the first game and quit, Hotline Miami 2 is a bigger and even more neon filled world of frustration.
