It becomes immediately apparent when you first start playing Hotline Miami 2 that the production quality is much higher than the first game. There is much more animation, including environments with balls that can be kicked around and computers that break when hit by a bullet. All the art is much more refined and there is more to offer in the way of weapon options plus a beautiful menu and general haze over the display that apply similar imperfections that you would find on an old VHS tape, and its beautiful. So far I can’t say that these changes have proved their worth in the game; part of the beauty of the first game was the simplicity. Gun play does feel worse in this game, but that could just be due to me jumping straight in from the first game where guns are much more accurate and I just need to get used to things being slightly different.

So far I have just played the first act, and there is already much more in the way of story than we are ever presented with in the first game. The tutorial is very gory and ends in a gross **** scene, however it is quickly revealed that you are just on the set of an adult movie, and nobody was really hurt at all. The first act is presented as some sort of cop movie, however there are blurred lines between what is a movie and what could actually be the ‘director’ having some sort of psychotic eppisode. This is shown first when the character is in some sort of interview talking about the movie, but ends up killing the interviewer. This possible insanity is again shown when the character is being interviewed by the police and is asking the police if they are going to answer the phone ringing in front of them, which coincidentally is similar to the phones and voicemail systems that the Hotline Miami 1 characters use to receive their strange messages and conduct their mysterious calls. When the interviewee brings up the fact the phone is rining the police officer says that there is no phone and the game hints to the character being unstable. I am certainly intrigued at this point to say the least and look forward to playing more.