| LoathsomePete |
03-13-2015 10:04 PM |
http://imagery.playerattack.com/Hotl...i2-Glasses.jpg
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
Huh... well I wasn't expecting this to be my first big disappointment of the year. While the gameplay is virtually unchanged, the game suffers from a bloated story, poor level design, broken AI, more emphasis on guns, and arbitrary gameplay restrictions. There are so many characters you play as and the story jumps around in time that it's an in-cohesive mess. Half of the characters you play as once and then never see again, or at least that's the case where I'm at in the story, so it makes following their developments impossible. The level design went from smaller rooms with tight groups of enemies to these large sprawling rooms that aren't as densely populated, and as such make chaining attacks much more difficult, not to mention you'll get sniped by some enemy through a window you couldn't even see. While the AI was never great in the original I never once ran into an enemy just spinning around in a circle, but every single level I find at least one. There's also far less melee weapons and a greater emphasis on guns, which can be frustrating as guns attract more enemies and seem to have a slower fire rate than before. There was one level on a boat where there was at least 20 enemies in a room and more than half had guns. The next level up was largely the same and there was so many windows I just sat outside and sniped enemies, which completely ruins the frantic crazy slice and dice I liked from the original. As for the game restrictions, well when you're given a choice of a masked character, there are only a few to choose from and there aren't really any strong reasons to choose any of them. You play as one character who can roll, two who have a chainsaw and gun, one who can duel wield machine guns, or one who can kill with punches but can't pick up any weapons. I couldn't find any of their special abilities helpful and really they only ended up making the game more frustrating than it needed to be. Oh and the difficulty has been ramped up quite a bit, but with the awful level design it feels completely unfair.
On the plus side, the soundtrack is significantly better than the first games and the pixelated artwork is just as gruesome as even, now with more gore. There's a level editor that I haven't checked out but that's kind of a neat feature that could extend the longevity of the game. That said though, that's really all I can think of for positive things to say. It seems like the developer fell for the old "more = better" approach to sequel design and lost sight of what made the first game so good, which was it's stripped down, barebones, but densely packed gameplay, cohesive albeit surreal story, and an appropriate length.
Honestly I don't know if I can recommend this game if you liked the first one, because while it's very much like the original, it has so many missteps and bizarre design choices that it just leaves me feeling confused, and that's before we get into the story. If you find it on sale and you're curious, then maybe, but honestly I'd recommend replaying the 1st over this any time.
|
