Which is both good and bad, depending on how much you got stuck into the first one.

Let me backtrack though, I was prompted to write this post after seeing the majority of negative reviews all mention the size of the levels and increased amount of windows as a problem.

Now, I really haven't been 'sniped from across the map' or anything of the sort. Sure a guy will blast you from off-screen if you've not scouted ahead first and are rushing into an area, but I honestly think it always feels like your fault to get brought down this way.

Being that this is a sequel to one of the biggest cult franchises in years, I really think Dennaton just took the endpoint of the first game in terms of difficulty, and went from there. If you want something easier, play the first game, it's that simple. I'd say when taken together, there's a really great ramp-up in difficulty that spreads across both titles - HM2 is a sequel in the purest sense, it's only meant to be played when you've mastered the original.

Right now I'm on like Act 27 or something (the Russian club-rush with the samurai-sword guy) and I've not encountered anything where I've blamed the game over my own actions. The increase in windows just means you have to pick your spots better, use corners to goad people in and really choose your shots rather than going in guns blazing.

Oh, and the army levels? They're a nice change of pace, ammo scarcity is a good way of reversing your expectations and making every bullet count, and The Writer's non-lethal approach (that PC Gamer essentially claimed was indicative of the entire game - it's like 3 missions) is another nice change from the norm - still letting you get your blood-thirst on if you want.

The more you retry a level and get used to where groups of guys are going to be, the easier it is to speed up enacting whatever path you initially carved through it - I just don't think condemning this clearly intentional factor of map size as a negative fits when it's Hotline's mechanics we're talking about.

I agree, I got like ridiculously good at the first one to the point where I could complete the whole game in an afternoon, granted its been 9 months since I last played the game, I'm still getting stuck forever on certain levels in 2 just like I did in 1 which is a great feeling to have again.

I agree completely. I've never been sniped from across a map, and the few times I've been shot from off screen were my own fault for rushing. I'm not as far as you (scene 18, I think) but the difficulty seems fair for someone who loved the first game. Originally I was disappointed in how the enemies failed to respond to gunshots, but I've grown to enjoy how it forces you to mix up your play style (especially the soldier levels, which are my favorite). It's a lot of fun going between an HM1 style blitzkrieg and a more measured approach all on the same floor, which the windows and open spaces allow for. I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

I've been loving the game but man I just finished a level that took me about 1 and 1/2 hours, mostly retrying the last area. I eventually resorted to exploiting a glitch where right when the stage started I would move back and be able to walk around the outside of the playable area and draw guys to me with gunshots. It's the one where you play as the detective and go up a dock at the beginning, the background is all trippy waves.

I remember having way more trouble with the end boss fight in the first game than anything in this one.

Man, FUCK that level!

Haha good to know I'm not the only one.

I literally just finished that level. Took me about an hour too. When I finally finished it, I couldn't believe it.

Hum, I seriously don't like this game and I'm an "hardcore" fan. The first one did not pose any problem and I love hard games, I've finished the Souls games, I've finished Super Meant Boy 100% and I can finish Super Hexagon on a consistent basis.

I think it definetely does feel cheap. There's windows everywhere and a load of ennemies with guns. Thus, the number of paths and the number of strategies you can utilize is limited, since you have to avoid windows and use guns in most levels (not all of them, but still).

Add to that the fact that the AI is unreliable, and won't react always the same way. Randomness here kills pixel-perfect precision. I know you can complete most levels other ways, but the most effective strategy is just to kite ennemies in corner and kill them all there. AI was unreliable in the first one too, but smaller room meant that their randomness was more contained.

The game is slowed down to a crawl because you always have to shift-check everywhere. Even then, ennemies can shoot you from further than the shift key let you see, thus you need to learn ennemy placement.

I'm gonna finish it. I'm halfway through and I don't think it's that hard - I played games where I died way more and loved them - it's just no fun. It feels cheap, frustrating and random to me. I'm sure loads of people will find way to run through levels super fast using only melee but I think the game is super slow when you first play it. And those big dudes that don't die instantly are just no fun.

I wouldn't say it's for the hardcore crowd, but it definitely does not reset the difficulty curve. I haven't seen many sequels do this, continuing where the difficulty level of the original left off, rather than slowly ramp things again. It's a ballsy choice to make.

People who keep getting sniped across the screen by the same enemies aren't learning from what the game throws at them. When a dude shoot you from off screen, find a way to prevent that from happening and eventually its no longer a problem. And people want hotline Miami to be some random violent romp through levels? When was that ever the case? It seems like most people play it like any other puzzle action game. You feel your way through a routine that will lead to a solution. You die a lot in the first one if you just run in without a plan, and that hasn't changed.

Damn, but thanks for the warning. I love the atmosphere of Hotline Miami but I tried it on my iMac where it's probably meant to be played (I mean KB/M as opposed to controller) but given the only PC game I've been heavily into since the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault campaign (owing largely to being a Mac owner from 1992-1998 and 2003-present day) is Civ IV and V my hands just could not adjust to moving with the keyboard and aiming with the mouse. I got to level 3 on Mac and level 5 on PS3 but I just couldn't be patient enough with it to truly master it.

Hopefully this game gets a deep, deep discount at some point so I can give it a shot, but for now I'll just be thankful for another masterfully crafted soundtrack.

I played the first game a lot. Almost got top ranking on every level on vita.

The thing that's making me nervous about 2 is the story. I just hope they don't put too much weight on it. It somehow worked in the first game even though it was pretty awful--right down to the awkwardly-worded sentences.

I loved the first Hotline Miami, and I enjoy hard games. However, this just isn't doing it for me. My problem isn't with difficulty, it's with the design. The way the levels are designed makes the game feel a lot slower and gives you less room to experiment and find your own way. One of my favorite things about the first game was the variety of moves you could pull off. I could smash down a door knocking one guy over, hit a 2nd guy with my pipe and toss it at the third guy, then pick up a knife and finish them off. Hotline Miami 2 is just shooting and shooting. I don't enjoy the gun play very much and it just seems the mission design is limiting.

I definitely did not master the first game but I loved it. I'm on scene 11 in 2 right now and I'm really loving it, I'm pleasantly surprised at how different game is from the original. I also think the soundtrack is far better than the first.

I like it even more than the first game. I think about how I'm gonna approach each room way more, and I like it. Although I see how that can feel "cheap" to some people, because the first game let you do crazy shit without thinking about it too much, but if you try to do it in this game... Well... "That's your ass!"

This game is to the first Hotline Miami what Prime 2: Echoes was to the first Metroid Prime.

I also completed the level not long ago, and it took me about an hour. It was rough. Though I did manage to nab the "Combo God" trophy in the process.

@sunbrozak: wow, well done. I just finished that level tonight, it took me an hour and six minutes. However the level straight after took me an hour and 37 minutes. The game is brutal and I can't stop playing.

Holy fuck got to the level with the pills this is batshit

When you play the journalist dude and he goes all non-lethal, it's amazing, he just grabs guns to unload them and toss them aside, so badass. And you can totally kill people if you want to, thats been my highlight so far actually.

This game is really difficult but I find it super satisfying. There are some things that are really frustrating though. I ran into a situation on the third Soldier mission (Hawaii, the Power Plant, 3rd screen) where I had no ammo with a character that can't pick up new weapons and the level was pretty much impossible to complete without a gun. There are some frustrating things about this game, but similar to something like Meatboy or Trials the satisfaction of completing a mission perfectly is really awesome. Especially as The Writer, since he's basically non-lethal. Really easy to get high combos as him since unloading a fallen enemy's gun counts as a combo.

So how many of you duders have messed around with hard mode? I'm about half way through it now, after much frustration in the past couple of missions. It really does become more of a puzzle game in hard mode. The fact that there's more big guys, significantly less ammo, and no lock-on really forces you to be careful with your shots. I can't imagine how you're supposed to rack up high combos for the A+ (or S?) ranking. I do love that they flip the map upside down, just to through off your muscle memory. A really nasty trick.

I'm digging the game so far, though I haven't hit the hard-sounding levels referenced above. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:

• I love the more open, dynamic levels. There are a few spots where there are smaller clusters of windowless rooms containing static enemies, like the majority of the first game. And they are boring. If you completed the first game, you're effectively invincible at close range. Killing those enemies feels like a chore to be done before taking on the more interesting ones.
• The characters without guns (or without any ranged attacks) completely change the way you approach a level. Mixing them in from early on teaches you to improve your positioning and attack timing against ranged enemies.
• The (optionally) non-lethal character is hilarious.
• The bullet-dodging ability is super cool, if a little tough to understand.
• The noise alert range for guns has been drastically reduced. I'm not sure if it varies by weapon type, but I can generally pop off a few shots with regular pistols without alerting anyone halfway across the screen.
• I like the weird story. I haven't come to either game expecting plot resolution or answers. Just cool mood pieces with some David-Lynch-style spiraling into discomfort.

Cons:

• The (optionally) non-lethal character automatically straddles and prepares to pummel any enemy that he punches. This would be useful, except two of his friends are standing next to him and all I can do is punch him until he's knocked out or dead. I guess it taught me to prioritize door slams and thrown weapons over punches, but I just find it annoying.
• The chainsaw + gun duo makes my brain hurt. I don't know if they are required at any point (they've been optional so far), but I just can't get a handle on how I should use them.

And I haven't spent an inordinate amount of time waiting around for enemies, either. When I first approach a level, I die a whole lot investigating solutions to individual rooms and hallways. But up to this point, my successful run on each level has been relatively quick and confident. One out of maybe 5 restarts will randomize something that is normally consistent (like a dog getting stuck in a room versus leaving), but if that happens I just let a baddie kill me and start over immediately.

I'm looking forward to jumping back in right now :)

I dunno. I loved the first one, and HM2 is making me feel like exploiting the AI is always the go to. Get it a room, shoot, and blast away enemies as the funnel into the room you're in. Feels cheap.

The first game (From what I remember) had much more room for improvising when your plan went to shit. HM2 feels like I'm restricted to a certain plan and if the AI decides to act differently I'm kinda boned. Also, the Ducks are bad. The gun toting duck is way too unreliable, I just end up standing at a door way, firing a shot and hacking away with the chainsaw.

That being said, I'm still having fun. Just did the level where you play as all the other characters going up the floors, and using the dual machine gun guy, spreading my arms and rushing down that hallway blasting hot lead through the windows was awesome.

I'm just at the beginning and I'm constantly failing, goddamn this game is hard. Gonna take me a while to finish this one, but I still like it a lot :)

I never got to play the first one so I decided to play it first aaaand its not THAT hard.....I see myself as pretty bad at videogames and I completed it in 1 afternoon :/. Only thing that was difficult were the 2 boss battles imo

Now I am enjoying the fuck out of the 2nd one. I'm actually better at pulling off strategies I make in my head in the second game so far but maybe it'll get harder further on. So far though, difficulty seems spot on for me. And I love how the characters varied abilities.

And speaking of hardcore miami hotline fans, I used to be a huge cactus fan. Anyone here check out hot throttle? To elaborate, cactus is one of the hotline miami guys and hes been making small games since the early 2000's, you can even see some "miami hotline-ness" in his older games like in seizure dome(which is also a GREAT little game). But hot throttle has to be the trippiest shit hes made :) I'd recommend anyone who enjoyed hotline miami to check out the dudes site, his blogpost can be prety interesting and most of his games are pretty tight mechanically, trippy as shit, awesome to look at, super short and free to download. http://cactusquid.com/games.htm (am I allowed to post links? I can remove it if needed) and as for Hot throttle, its a car-racing game with people....in the most literal way, Its kinda like rc pro am with weapons and If you like what you see and like a small challenge just stop the video and go play for yourself. (though this game is sadly one of his few that isn't downloadable)

PS: I love how everyone in the Hot throttle universe looks like they've consumed a giant pile of amphetamines

@fear_the_booboo said:

This is what I'm feeling at the moment. You could get in a good flow in Hotline Miami 1 where you could just combo the whole floor as long as you stayed alert and swapped weapons accordingly. Now, doing that EVER requires that you memorize a floor because about 50% of the area is in view of a bunch of windows and you'll get shot by 4 guys at once if you go there. 400% more windows just slows the pacing of the game to a crawl. Alex Navarro seemed to think this game was considerably longer than the first, and while there are obviously more missions compared to the 20 or so in the first game, I think HM2 ends up being longer because every damn mission is padded out to double the length by forcing you to plod forward since there are windows everywhere.

I mean, Dennaton obviously learned some things from the first game, like how fucking nobody used throwing weapons (brick, throwing star, scissors, etc.) so how the first game ever shipped with those in the first place is absolutely beyond me. At least they took them out. Also kind of interesting that there aren't just random weapon spawns on the ground in missions anymore, so your character either starts with a weapon or has to get one off of an enemy.

But I don't know where they got the impression that everybody wanted guns to be mandatory like 80% of the time to deal with all of the enemies safely hidden behind a bunch of windows.

Also, the controls feel sluggish compared to the first one. The weapon pickup speed has this weird delay to it where if you pick up a weapon you can't immediately throw it away to pick up another one. Also the executions on downed enemies seem impossible to initiate if you're in the middle of any kind of animation which seems overly picky and I don't remember the first game being that much of a dick about it. Also the collision on walls and doorways seem awful sometimes and my characters are semi-regularly getting stuck on surfaces I feel like I should be able to brush past. Also doors and enemies in doorways are somehow janky as fuck, even jankier than the first game.

@lestephan:

I was into obscure indie games back in 2007-2009 when my PC couldn't run the latest big time games anymore, so I visited the TIGSource blog created by Derek Yu very often. Cactus was naturally one of the young devs posting there and I was always fascinated by the trippy and surreal atmosphere which he created with his, let's say, minimalistic art style. Mondo Medicals is probably the most brooding game experience I've had and it's 'just a simple' first person walking simulator. I regret not networking back then to do some audio and soundtrack stuff.

I think those are valid criticisms for the game, especially if the player would like the game to be more uptempo and perhaps more free-flowing from room to room more along the lines of the first one. I've felt many a time that my shotgun blast gets 'stuck in the door' even if the door seems to be quite open. Weapon switching within the jungle with the sales clerk also never seemed to be as instant as I'd liked. Wondering has also occurred towards the design of those rabid jail guys that brush off any gunshots.

Despite all of those things I've been enjoying the game a great deal. Maybe I'm immune to the level of frustration Hotline Miami 2 brings after a full season of 48 minute games in NBA 2K15's MyCareer with sometimes sluggish player animation that result in the opposition scoring easily, dimwitted friendly AI, janky passes to the wrong player that turn into turnovers and the game just deciding 'no, you can't score anymore' - though eventually winning the championship second year. Hotline Miami 2 is like the most well-put-together game after over 150 hours of that almost realistic basketball that drives you crazy. Oh, and NBA 2K15 is an awesome game despite its own flaws for any basketball aficionado.

Now, I probably won't be able to fly through a second playthrough of HM2 in three hours just like I did with the first one, but I think the change of pace that the different styles given (or forced) to(/on) the player are a breath of fresh air that will do nicely to compliment the almost impeccable one-style approach of the first one so I, along others, will have two different types of gaming meals to chew on depending on time constraints etc.

In response to the OP I have to strongly disagree.

I played the original game but found it way too difficult and stopped playing maybe 2/3 of the way through just out of frustration.

I finished Hotline Miami 2 last night and it was one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a while. It's a hard game for sure, but with the improved lock on mechanics you really have so much more control over how you manage the map and deal with enemies.

Managing the chaos was something I couldn't do too well in the first game and the tools didn't seem that great, and while this game has issues (enemies getting stuck on doors glitching etc) your ability to control who does what seems greatly increased.

I actually really liked the fact the maps were more open and larger, the game is hard, really hard by todays standard, but I still think that's fine and good and not a problem with it being more open.

While I am enjoying most of my time with it, there are more than a few instances where the game is really fucking cheap and infuriating. I seem to be one of the few people who enjoyed using guns in the original, but I'm annoyed that nearly every level requires heavy gun use. I'm not opposed to bigger, more open levels, but some of them are really poorly designed. The AI is unpredictable and inconsistent like in the first, but those random elements are made all the worse by larger levels, putting the outcome of many scenarios completely out of your control.

That said, I think I'm getting more than fun than frustration out of it still. I enjoy the challenge. As long as there's nothing as terrible as the last boss from the first, at least. I'm currently on Scene 17. My favorite levels so far have been the writer's levels.

@bisonhero: I finished it and still feel the same way. It's highly disappointing because it's obvious to me that Dennaton tried to create something different but lost part of what made the first one great in the first place. I root for them, but I can't recommend the game to anyone. It's not even that hard compared to other "hard" games (I'm sure hard mode really is though), just not fun to play because it forces you to take thing slowly until you know the levels by heart.

I'm watching A+ playthrough on the internet and even then the players use a lot of baiting. Sometimes, it really is the only solution. I feel like this game plays more like a stealth-game with Hotline Miami controls. I personnaly don't want that.

And there's stuff that is straight-up bullshit like ennemies with a better vision than you, ennemies that won't die instantly when you shoot them and other that cannot be killed with bullets. Stupid boss fights too, a bunch of them.

I want Hotline Miami to have a certain amount of forward momentum, it's got this pulsing beat and most high-score potential is wrapped around moving fast, killing guys before they can even notice you; I don't want to play it by pulling (or exploiting) the AI to kill zones like it was WoW, or creeping around when death is so quick. It's too much of a twitch-reflexes game for it to hew so closely to full-on puzzle gameplay.

In my mind, Hotline Miami 1 is full of scenarios where you bust into a room, knock a guy out with the door, cut an armed dude's throat, throw your knife across the room to kill a guy who just got off a couch, and then step on the first dude's head. Despite having the pixel art and the limited mechanics, it was exciting and it really gave the sense of shooting up a crack den while on psychotropic drugs. Wrong Number is like ... I don't know, a Metal Gear scenario where everything's about creeping and plotting and then dudes run full fuck at you in lines.

The main thing is that the enemies have longer vision cones than you do. I hate that. Since there's one of me and 25 of them and this is allegedly a puzzle game, maybe I should have longer vision than the dudes.

I honestly can't understand people's complaints about the game, every moment was an absolute blast for me and I think it's a pretty much perfect sequel in every way.

I'm conflicted about Wrong Number. On the one hand, it's got that same stick to the ribs satisfaction of the original, but on the other the larger levels and the off screen deaths are really cumbersome. I don't like the new firearms focus. I liked Hotline Miami more when it was fast paced, frenetic, and the levels were smaller. It allowed you to plan ahead and keep working on your route until you were pulling off John Woo meets David Cronenberg levels of balletic violence and gore. That said, I can understand them wanting to expand the scope a lot more, but I think something was lost in the interim. I can't quite place what it was. I also dislike the focus on the maskless characters. Whenever those scenes come around (barring some cool ones like the Writer), I have to suck it up to get through it in hopes of something cooler. I don't know. I guess I wanted less pathos and more murder in my murder simulator.

And yet the story--once I wrapped my head around it--was wonderful. Incredibly depressing, but wonderful. I don't know if it was Dennaton's intention to make me wish they never make another Hotline Miami, but if that was the intention then kudos. I have absolutely no desire for a third installment in this series. That probably sounds negative, but I'm not sure. In the end I came away from Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number feeling both satisfied and underwhelmed. It's really fucking bizarre.

And yet I can't stop thinking about this game.

I wont go into too much detail here becsuse im hoping to write something more in depth about Hotline Miami 2. But I will say that as a fan of both I think the second is head and shoulders above the original.

Also,there are very few instances of 100% HAVING to use guns. You just have to think outside of the box of how you tackle your approach. I hope to write more about this very soon.

@brodehouse: Enemies are also 100000000 times dumber than you. Its not like them have bigger vision cones makes it an unfair fight. And I dunno, if you just want more of the first one in terms of level design then the level editor will make you happy (when it's released). To me, the devs wanted to do more with characters/story in this one, and giving each character a distinctive play style helps to individualize them. I think they succeeded on that front. To be honest, the only levels where I felt forced into exploiting the dumb enemy ai was the 1 russian henchman character, because his levels were gun heavy. Im trying to get the trophy where you have to get A+ on every level, and I will tell you right now that it is entirely possible to accomplish what you're talking about. In fact, that's really the only way to get a good score.

So yeah, I dunno. Nothing I can say is going to make anyone who is disappointed in it not disappointed. All I can say is I'm really digging it, especially the story stuff.

@demoskinos: Definitely interested to read some thoughts on what you're hinting at. I really want to write up a review myself, but still working my way through the game. I can already see how the design in Wrong Number is going to demand some problem solving to earn the A+ on all levels.

Yep. THAT was bad/frustrating design. This one seems like they actually made some things a lot easier. Not everything, but for example the regular goons are a lot less deadly and the shooters don't react quite as quickly.

Is this like how you shouldn't play Doom 2 unless you've already played Ultimate Doom?

@rongalaxy said:

OK, let me give you a hypothetical situation. A really good Hotline Miami player starts messing around with new level/user created levels. In theory, with really good reflexes and knowledge of how to use weapons and how to break line of sight at appropriate moments and when to make his move, he should be able to excel at new levels he encounters without practicing them extensively.

There are enemies in HM2, that if you're at the end of a hallway, even if you use your extended shift-look, you will not be able to see coming, and they will just shoot you the first time you enter their sight radius. HM1 has far fewer of these scenarios, and their increased frequency in HM2 seems like a deliberate design choice, and it's a poor one. It's fake difficulty at it's finest. It's not much better then the levels in I Wanna Be The Guy where spikes attached to the floor suddenly move towards you, or there is one spike that doesn't kill you and you can actually just magically walk right through it unharmed.

It's poor level design that doesn't give the player the information necessary to apply their skills, until you trial and error your way through each level learning the spots where you just have to blindly fire at off-screen enemies to kill them. Or blindly bob in and out around a corner, hoping you aggro this distant enemy with your brief appearances. It gives the game awful pacing when you're playing through it for the first time, because instead of just formulating a loose action plan to deal with the enemies you can see, you have to restart your plan every three seconds because some also shot you from 150 yards away off-screen.

This is where I'm at. In fact, I went back and played the first after I completed the second and found it way more frustrating. There's lots of little things they did in the second to make it play better and they did a lot of rebalancing of weapons. The knife was way too good in the first game. In the second they noticeably slowed down the attack speed. The shotguns also feel a lot better in the second. I noticed in the first game they were quite clunky. Just in general, the first game feels way clunkier after playing the second and the levels feel way too simple.

I do seriously think a good chunk the negativity I've seen about the game is people bandwagoning or complaining that they actually have to plan out how they are going to clear out an area. A lot of the criticism I've seen doesn't really hold up. The game forces you to be a lot more strategic with how you do things than the first, and this is a good thing. In the first, you can pretty much beat the first 7-8 acts purely by rushing everyone with a knife and only using a gun or other weapon when the game forces you to (like when you have to shotgun the big dude before you save the hooker). Like literally, no strategy at all, just rush with a knife or throw a knife and pick it back up. In the second, rushing doesn't work nearly as well, which I think is a good thing. I almost never ran into the situation people complain about with dying to guns off screen. Simply put, if you are out wide in the open you kinda deserve to die. The game is all about CQC.

Nothing in the game feels better than pulling off badass stuff in the soldier levels. Those were my favorites by far. They get even more brutal once you unlock the last soldier weapon unlock.

I was a pretty big fan of the original but the difficulty in this one is just putting me off way too much. There are some levels where it feels less like I'm being presented a challenge and more like I'm being punished into trial and error gameplay of figuring out what exactly will work and what won't, and often those plans can be undone depending on which enemies do or don't hear gunfire. And then there's the whole issue of the levels being too long, and enemies that are far, far off screen killing me, and...

I dunno. I don't think I can finish this one because I just don't have the patience for what it's trying to do.

I don't really side with those who are complaining about the changes to level design in Hotline Miami 2, not because it doesn't add artificial difficulty, but because that is to me what Hotline Miami already was. Speed-runners have remarked how Hotline Miami is a bad game to speed-run because so many of the mechanics are affected by RNG. The spread of a weapon's bullets, the time it takes for an enemy to notice you, where an enemy will drop his weapon, the weapons that are placed in a given level. They're all random, and there's no definitive way of ensuring you won't be killed by it every now and then. That was present in both games, and I can see why some would dislike that, but I equate it to The Binding of Isaac, in that the randomness can screw you over, but your skill at the game can subvert that punishment.

In my eyes, it's a game about dying. Dying over and over, so that the few times you succeed feel so damn rewarding. It's brutal, punishing, and demands constant focus. So that when the stars align and you manage to succeed, the music halts and you can breath again, only left to look over the countless dead bodies around you. Sure, it would be impressive if your skills and twitch reactions allowed for you to beat the levels in one go, but I see being killed to be as important as killing the enemies.

I like the inclusion of more windows and enemies who are out of your sight, because the former means there are more situations where the enemies knows your location and is coming straight towards you, forcing you to think on your feet, and the latter means that there you're almost always in danger of being killed even when you yourself can't see anything. It's unfair, but it's meant to be.

I would argue that firing off a shot to lure like 6 guards all to the same corner/doorway so you can melee them all (aka "the action plan in HM2") is also, literally, no strategy at all. At least rushing everyone with a knife and switching to guns when big dudes approached you in HM1 was actually fun. So many HM2 levels are just tedious and plodding.

The game isn't very strategic at all since half the guards are on random movement, and the action moves so fast that you don't have time to analyze sight lines when multiple things are happening at once (once your "stealth is blown", so to speak). You just need good reflexes once things start going. That's why it's so off-putting that enemies have sight lines to everywhere in this game. Sometimes you have a decent encounter and dealt with everyone in your vicinity, and then right at the end some random patrol path guard with a gun wanders by at the edge of your vision and just shoots you because there aren't solid walls anywhere in this magical glass house that 90% of HM2 takes place in.

I think the fundamental appeal of Hotline Miami is the fast action, not the puzzley/scouting bits where you have to plan the few safe places in a level where you can avoid gunfire and safely jump people. The level design in HM2 completely focuses on and enforces the wrong aspect of the game.

Gotta admit, the level design can be pretty shit at times.

@tru3_blu3: There it is! The meanest hallway in video games I've ever seen. Haha.

I understand they want you to think extremely quickly to get the gun so you can kill the fat guy and murder the other dudes... but man that's hard to pull off in practice.

See, that captures what I actually like about Hotline Miami's gameplay. The odds are so stacked against you from the very beginning, that you'd be lucky to get past that part maybe once out of every ten times. And I love that.

I really havent gotten too stuck on any of the levels so far. Just did Seizure (strip club) level so good ways in. I dont think any of them have taken much more then 30 mins.

The end of the game had several levels where you very clearly had to knock one guy out and quickly pickup his weapon to kill the next set of guys. They did this with the fat guys and dogs, starting you out with no weapons. In a way it was a neat "puzzle" to solve.