Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Plot synopsis:
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number takes place in a heavily anachronic order before and after the events of the original, focusing more on the latter between October and December 1991. During the events of Hotline Miami, the player's character, "Jacket," is unwittingly manipulated into killing off the leadership of the Russian Mob by 50 Blessings, a neo-nationalist terror cell that masquerades as a peaceful activist group. The persona of "Richard", a mysterious figure in a rooster mask that occasionally appeared to Jacket in the original game, appears at different points to the game's playable characters. The player controls these individuals in a series of intersecting plotlines exploring both the background and the aftermath of Jacket's rampage.
After his rampage, Jacket has been arrested and brought to trial. He has gained national notoriety as a result of his macabre and horrific mass murders, committed while wearing rubber animal masks; the game's tutorial level takes place in a slasher film adaptation depicting him as "The Pig Butcher", in which his rescue of a drug-addled sex slave during the first game is re-envisioned as a lurid rape and kidnapping scene. The film's star, Martin Brown, is a sociopathic sadist who relishes at being able to act out his violent fantasies during filming. Martin dies early in the game when accidentally shot with live ammunition on set during the shooting of the film's final scene. A journalist, Evan Wright, is writing a book about Jacket's spree and trying to learn more about the people behind it. Evan is given leads from Manny Pardo, a psychotic police detective who uses his position to go on killing sprees during stakeout operations, justifying them as self-defense.
The Fans, five thrill-seeking killers who are emulating Jacket's spree, carry out a string of murders against petty crooks and drug dealers, unaware of the larger context of Jacket's campaign of violence. Eventually they kill a former henchman of the Russian Mafia, now run by the original boss' son, and when the Son attempts to reconnect with said henchman the Fans follow his call to attack his new hideout. The Fans are all killed during this attack; their last survivor, Tony, is personally killed by Pardo after surrendering to the police, to deny him his "fifteen minutes of fame."
The story of The Soldier, the bearded convenience store owner from the previous game, shows him fighting a war against the Soviet Union in Hawaii alongside Jacket in 1985, prior to the first game's events. America appears to be losing this fictitious war, with cities and islands falling to the Soviet Red Army. The Soldier's elite Commando unit has been engaged in a campaign of deep penetration harassment against Russian fortifications and supply depots, however their increasingly detached and psychologically troubled Colonel appears to be losing his grip on reality as the war proceeds, volunteering them for increasingly desperate and dangerous missions while ruminating on their likely impending deaths and the loss of the war. Their last assignment involves besieging a heavily guarded Power Plant controlled by the Russians. As they make their way into the building, the Soviet commander in charge of it, having apparently gone insane, murders the plant's technicians and begins a meltdown on the main reactor before shooting himself in the head. The Soldier saves Jacket's life during their escape attempt, after a booby trap explodes and severely injures two members of their unit including Jacket, but later dies in 1986 during a nuclear strike on San Francisco which decisively terminates the war, revealing his appearances in the previous game to be Jacket's comatose hallucinations.
The game also follows two other 50 Blessings agents from the original game, Jake and Richter. Jake, a virulently nativist Southern patriot, realizes the officially-peaceful 50 Blessings organization is giving him his orders when he meets with one of their representatives, and praises them. If he avoids the fate depicted in the original game (being captured and murdered by the Russian Mafia during a mission), 50 Blessings takes him to a safehouse but kills him anyway to silence him. Richter, the agent who killed Jacket's girlfriend, is revealed to be reluctant to work with 50 Blessings until they threaten his ailing mother. Like Jacket, Richter is captured and imprisoned, but manages to escape during a prison riot orchestrated by 50 Blessings during which other incarcerated members were to kill him to keep him from corroborating Jacket's testimony.
In 1991, the escaped Richter tells his story to Evan in exchange for plane tickets for his mother to come to Hawaii. Evan's marriage and finances, however, are under pressure as he spends more time working on his book, and the player must choose whether he abandons the book or his family.
The final act of the game is centered on the Son, who is trying to reclaim his father's empire from Colombian gangsters who filled the power vacuum the old boss' death left. Pardo also appears, having a nightmare revealing himself to be the "Miami Mutilator", a serial killer he has supposedly been hunting. Fearful of his colleagues catching on to his crimes, Pardo boards himself up in his house. After the Son eliminates the Colombians, he invites his old henchman to visit their new hideout, inadvertently giving away his location to the Fans and triggering the attack depicted earlier. Under the hallucinatory influence of his own designer drugs he goes on a rampage, killing the superhuman monsters he sees the Fans as, then walking off the hideout's roof on a rainbow bridge to his apparent death.
An epilogue shows Richter, reunited with his mother, hearing on the news that the American and Soviet presidents were both assassinated in an attempted coup d'état, with the prime suspect being an American general. The Soviet Union declares this an act of war, and launches several atomic attacks against the United States which obliterate Miami and Hawaii. Each of the surviving characters are then shown in their last moments - Manny, Evan, the actress from Midnight Animal, and finally Jacket alone in a prison cell - before being obliterated by the bombs. Subsequently, starting a new game adds an extra introductory scene where Richard berates the playable characters for, once again, starting down a path that can only end in their deaths.

Tags: violence

Review:
An Excellent Continuation To A Master Piece. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is the last installment on the "Hotline Miami" franchise and is also the conclusion to the story from the first game. In this review I'll not reveal any spoiler. The main story revolves mainly on the acts after the events of the first game.On this game you can controls multiple characters,everyone with their one story or motivation,the first one is an actor of a "snob film",so every mission with that character is part of a movie based on the mass murder from the first game.Other group of characters are the "Fans",who are fanatics of the first game protagonist,they make the same kind of massacres to random gangs,using masks with the same style as the ones from the las installment. Other important characters are a detective and a writer,the detective is trying to solve the case from HLM1,but in the way he makes the same actions as the murderer.The writer,who is also a friend of the detective,is writing a book about the case,getting information all the way into the game. Other minor characters are: a guy from a national group who is against the Russian mafia,the Russian mafia leader,a Russian mafia member,a character from the first game who is also a "mask assassin" and a group of soldiers in Hawaii(1985). The gameplay on this game is practically the same from the first one,the campaign also consist on the same kind of levels with the same enemies. the difference between this game a the first one are mainly on the story,on this campaign you have a bunch of characters with different stories,not like the first one where you could play with only 2 on the whole game.Other thing is that the story is more clear and less cryptic than the first one,where you didn't had any clue about what was going on until 3/4 of the campaign and even there everything was blurry and ambiguous.Nonetheless,this story is equally involving and psychedelic,and even more brutal. This game is a perfect sequel to an extremely well done game,keeping the same "spirit" of the first one. If you are interested to read my thoughts on HLM!,please visit the IMDb page of the game. Thanks for reading! 10/10. Fast, Brutal, Fun, and Intelligent. I've beaten the original Hotline Miami 2 times, and loved it both times. When I heard there was going to be a sequel, boy, was I excited. When it released, I was unable to get it... but now, I've played it, and these are my thoughts.Hotline Miami 2 instantly gets points for having a longer story than it's predecessor, and also for having yet another rocking soundtrack that I listen to even when I'm not playing it. While this is cool and all, I do have to address one thing about the story (no spoilers, I promise): one of the reasons the original Hotline Miami was so great was that it was thought provoking in the ways it created mysteries out of minor events, and major events alike. Wrong Number, however, makes the mistake of TELLING you what most of what those mysteries were, and not keeping them mysterious. Regardless, I still found the story to be equally enjoyable, and intelligent in both it's presentation and content.Then there's the game-play. In sequel tradition, not much has really changed here, other than a few characters having some new abilities, but the U.I. (User Interface) has been worked on, and... looks allot better than last time. This said, though, the actual design (and not mechanics) has gone through an overhaul, making for much longer stages that take a while to beat (a later level actually took me an hour and a half to beat, if you want any confirmation). While this seems cool on paper, and for most of the time, a glaring issue (that cannot be fixed) about the first game only shines brighter: getting killed from an enemy you couldn't see. Does this make the game more tactical? Yes... BUT, it also makes it allot more slower-paced than it should be. In conclusion, Hotline Miami 2 offers better design, story, and music, but I can't help but find little nitpicks every time I play it. Is it as good as the first game? Yes, but don't come into it thinking it will surpass the original by any standards.. One of My Favs.. It's a brilliant follow up to the original Hotline Miami(2012), in which it concludes the story of the 50 blessings conspiracy and the ever-strange phone calls that the original character, Jacket, received from 50 blessings in the first game. It tells the story un- chronologically, from different views of the playable characters. There is the Fans, 5 vigilantes obsessed with the phone calls that Jacket received in the first game, Jake, a 50 blessings operator found dead in the first game, Manny Pardo, a Miami PD detective who bends the rules by slaughtering a bunch of people, Evan Wright, a man who is trying to write a book about the masked killings, and has a interesting "no killing policy" to his gameplay, the Henchman, a mobster who wants to get out of the game, Richter Berg, the 50 blessings operator who shot Jacket and his girlfriend in the first game, and finally the Son, the son of the mob boss that Jacket killed in the first game. Good game, great gameplay, I highly recommend playing it. -theringingguy.