Hotline Miami 2 review – a hypnotic yet messy and aimless sequel

All the hallucinogenic visuals and thumping techno atmosphere of the first title with little of its gruesome sandbox brilliance

Hotline Miami 2 is a game about killing people as stylishly, efficiently, and brutally as possible. There's no attempt to rationalise or apologise for its extreme violence. In fact, the game revels in it. Drenched in gaudy neon and soundtracked by a playlist of aggressive, pounding techno, it's an intoxicating assault on the senses. Playing with a good set of headphones, beating Russian gangsters with baseball bats to the throbbing beat, you can't help but be hypnotised by its decadent, exhilarating cocktail of masochistic, rapid-fire action.

Of course, the same could be said for the first game. Released in 2012 by two-man team Dennaton Games, Hotline Miami turned the thin narrative of a hallucinating hitman carrying out assassination missions for a weird coterie of gang bosses, into an aggressively trippy indie classic. Hotline Miami 2 is a sequel that, largely (and ironically considering its subject matter), plays it safe. It is, as before, a puzzle game disguised as a breathlessly fast top-down shooter. You clear a level by killing everyone in it, but the journey there is hard-earned. You'll die constantly as you learn the layout of the level and the positions of its enemies. Hitting the R key to restart is a fundamental part of the game's savage, staccato rhythm.

But then you nail it, and it feels amazing. You burst through a door, knocking a goon on his back, then finish him off with a volley of punches. You grab the knife he dropped and throw it at his friend who's just rushed into the room with a shotgun, killing him instantly. Then you grab the gun, pirouette around a corner, and take out another two guys with one shot. This all happens in a wild, bloody flash of brutality. You might have carefully planned it this way, or it could have just been dumb luck. More often than not, it's the latter.