Every single character in the series when someone tells them to just not pick up the phone
It’s hard to say what I was expecting out of Wong Number as a sequel. More of the same? A direct follow up? A resolution? It’s what came to mind, but I wasn’t sure if it is what I wanted. Hotline Miami was cryptic in its presentation yet direct in its message, it was more of a statement in the ways we engage with violence in videogames and media in general, more of a meta-narrative than a narrative in it of itself. There’s a story in there, but it’s more in the background, and the epilogue almost seems to suggest that trying to find a meaning for it is falling into its clutches, not being in the sick joke.
The idea that we are willing to commit unspeakable acts if there’s enough distance withing us and the game world, all permeated in colorful joints and psychedelic songs, façades in a world that’s not even real. And yet, against all logic, Wrong Number is dictated by those questions, but what’s even weirder… is that it really, REALLY works for me.
If Hotline Miami was all about the relationship of violence and us as players, then Wrong Number seems to be about the crude connection between violence and us as people.
Jacket was never a real character, every time a masked hallucination asked him a question, they were asking it to us. The only tangible sense of humanity he had was the implication of past and present relationships, but beyond that, Jacket serves more of a purpose as a representation of the limits of violence we are willing to commit than its own person.
Wrong Number is all about its people, as well as its monsters. It even gives background to two characters I didn’t even imagine they could benefit from that, but that’s beside the point. There are still a myriad of meta elements and references, but now they take the backseat and give the steering wheel to the actual story. It still isn’t exactly a ‘’clear’’ one, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a spiral and living hell of drug cartels, mafias, senseless violence and even curiosity. Each character pursues them all, even if it’s only within their mind, but at that point it's hard to tell. Only a few manage to get some semblance of meaning out of it, a point, a sense of control. Some run away, and yet their actions remain. Once this series laughed at the idea of us being able to give meaning to violence, and now it laughs that we can even escape it. There’s good people in Hotline Maimi, and even for them, violence and brutality it’s on their history. Not even they can run away from what comes at the end.
It's a trip that somehow feels more and less pessimistic than the game that precedes it. Not all is a farse or we are gullible enough to commit heinous actions at the first opportunity, but it also doesn’t have the stomach to say there are some holes that can be escaped. Especially if some people dig themselves up too far.
But as much as it changes its discourse, this still Hotline Miami. It cannot escape that. I’m not even sure if it’s really trying too, despite it all.
It took me 3 whole years to convince myself to play this. The original Hotline Miami’s later chapters are such an intense massacre fest that reaches adrenaline levels so high at times I though I was gonna have a heart attack out of sheer stress and anger; I definitely enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something I was craving to play more right after beating it. A good call, ‘cause Wrong Call sure does retain those exact same feelings and difficulty spikes, I could only imagine how high would someone’s blood pressure get playing both after one another.
2’s intensity picks up from last time and it doesn’t stop going up; every single henchman and policeman has trained their hold fucking life to shoot you across the level at the worst time possible, and there’s ample opportunities to do so with how enormous the areas are. Long gone are the days of singular phase chapters, memories that look like child’s play in comparison, and whereas in Hotline Miami crammed spaces and rooms were the norm, now be prepared to hold that shift button and hold the camera around if you don’t want to be sniped because an enemy was hidden outside the screen.
Depending on who you ask, that might be a positive or a negative, rage do be a driving force and all that, and credit where credit is due, I really like this game’s courage to kind of do whatever the fuck it wants. You flip flop between different sets of characters, and with it some choices are taken away while new are given, and I respect that. You now aren’t always presented with the initial mask selection, because you aren’t Jacket, and the masks are now the ‘’Fans’’. These are really cool changes that can only take place in this kind of story, and as cool as it is, I also wish levels weren’t so gigantic and went on for so long, and I wish they would have given more thought to some stuff.
The Hawaii levels are ASS to play, I couldn’t find them fun as much as I tried. Being limited to a single weapon is a neat idea, but ammo being handled like it is and levels themselves being everything but fun does not make a good case for it. Strategizing in those levels feels more like taken advantage of exploits than ever before, which is to say… y’know that feeling of sheer relief, almost like air being liberated, when you finally get through an act? You don’t get that on those levels. You just feel tired.
Even some of my favorite parts, like the Son’s levels went on for too long, and for a game that likes to take decision making from you which, again, I’m all up for it, it doesn’t do ANYTHING to fill that void. There’s no better example of this game’s gameplay faults than the swam brothers; it’s a cool, incredible idea that in practice only complicates and adds steps to something that already flowed nicely.
Wrong Number is haunted by a phantom of which it cannot decide if it wants to escape from it or not. Ironically, and that indecision it’s both its doom and gloom.
At least it ends with a bang…
