Game Guide - Hints Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Stay calm. Playing Hotline Miami is based on replaying certain missions, learning from own mistakes and dying a lot. It may happen that you will be replaying a given mission twenty times and more, although your approach will be different each time. In such a case, stay calm and do not vent your frustrations onto the replay button. This only adds to your annoyance and makes completing the game more difficult.
Be prepared for any possibility. Each plan to complete a stage, prepared by you, may end up in a failure. After you learn that, it is going to be easier to live each failure down and try again.
Remember about the option to look around. The range of vision of the character is short, and additionally it is limited by the direction in which it is facing. Therefore, often are the situations, in which you will be killed with a shot in the back, you are jumped by the dog out of the neighboring room, or you will be surrounded by enemies that there was no way for you to see. By looking around. You will know where to expect the attack from.
Pay attention to where you stop. Some of the objects on the map ensure you with cover. Some do not. You can walk over some of them, where as some other will block you. During the initial attempts to complete each of the stages, pay attention to which objects ensure you with protection and which ones can be shot through. Thanks to this, you will fare off better, in the situation of danger, and you will not lose your ammo on the opponents that are behind covers.
Remember about the range of vision, of each opponent. There is a predetermined range, to which each of the opponents can see. This means that in small rooms, you will be noticed, virtually, immediately, but not in long corridors. Thanks to this, you can eliminate opponents over long ranges, with pistols and shotguns, or sneak past them.
Make noise. Apart from the suppressed pistol, each weapon makes noise. Noise can attract opponents from the neighboring rooms, even if they will have to cross the entire map to reach you. Thanks to noise, you can decrease difficulty level of many stages. It is enough that you stand near door, fire and after a while, start killing everyone that tries to cross the door. On many maps, this technique allows you to kill, as many as, a dozen opponents, with minimum effort. The only problem here may be ammo, which you run out of, in the case of many enemies. In such a situation, as long as there are no big enemies around, you can also use melee weapons.
Attracting attention requires time. The majority of opponents do not pay attention to you, if you simply run in front of opened door. You need to stop, at least, for a moment, for the opponent looking in that direction to notice you. This is important in the case of the gunmen that are about to start shooting, if you stand in the passageway for too long.
Pay attention to windows. It is possible to shoot across every window. It can be done both perpendicularly to the window, and at an angle., as long as the bullet goes across a fragment of the window, at least. This is important because you get spotted mainly in situations, in which you are standing right in front of them, at the other side of a window. By standing at an angle, it is possible to shoot them, before they spot you. This technique also allows you to kill opponents at the other end of a long room, who are standing too far for an perpendicular shot to reach them. This is also true for opened doors and entrances without doors. For as long as there is no wall, between you and the opponent, you can shoot them at any distance.
Open the doors using your weapon. Every door can be opened and closed using bullets. Throwing a weapon or hitting with a melee attack doesn't work this way. A door opened with a shot stun, but don't kill - the door will absorb all the bullets. This way, you can shoot at the door stunning the enemy that stands right behind it and then eliminate his ally on the other side of the room. Not every gun works the same on doors. They will behave differently, depending on whether you use a shotgun or a machine gun, whereas a silenced pistol, nail gun or Irvina won't move them at all. Not every enemy - for example some bigger guys (called big guys in this game guide, because of their large size) and dogs - can be stunned this way. You should check which way a door opens and whether it is not already maximally opened.
Watch out for the door to the mission zone. After you enter a building, you may not be able to leave, until you kill all of the opponents inside. This is important, because in some of the missions, you encounter opponents right behind the door, sometimes right after you enter a map. Therefore, be prepared for having to kill someone immediately, without the option to retreat.
Do not worry about silent takedowns. Opponents do not pay attention to the corpses of the killed, even if they are treading over them. This is one of the reason to approach the game as a sneaking game and try to act from shadows. It pays off to keep quiet, only in situations, in which you do not want to fight against a bid group, or you are short on ammo. Otherwise, it is better to be loud.
Use covers. No opponent can see you across a wall, or closed door. This also goes for the opened door, as long as you and the opponent are standing at both sides of it. This allows you to remain unspotted for longer and to fight only some of the opponents in the room. Thanks to this, you can also lurk for the opponents and eliminate them quickly. Opening the closed door also allows toy to stun the opponent at the other side, but finishing him off makes you defenseless against enemy attacks. By hiding behind the door, you can attack the opponent with melee weapon and kill him at the spot, without worrying that that you will be attacked by someone else, while finishing him off.
Find out which rooms are soundproof and which enemies are "deaf". It may happen that, by shooting by a wall, you attract the attention of only some of the opponents. Also, it may happen that all of them will attack you. This is important because it allows you to plan on your actions better and eliminates the risk of being attacked from behind. Knowing that one of the opponents will always remain where he is, you can leave him for the end and even ignore him completely, until you clear the rest of the map.
Pay attention to the direction, in which opponents are faced. An opponent with his back turned at the door, will most probably not spot you. Similarly, the opponent that keeps looking in one direction, unlike opponents that keep looking around. This is important, because it allows you to kill them without worrying that they will turn towards you, at any moment, and attack you. Also, this also allows you to determine which part of the map can be left for later, after you clear the rest of it, without the risk of being attacked from behind.
Learn the routes of patrolmen. Most usually, they go along walls and allow you to stun opponents with doors. Spend some time learning those routes to make things easier for yourself.
Be careful who you want to stun. Dogs and big guys are resistant to hitting with doors. You can stun only normal enemies that can be killed with one hit. Every enemy stronger than that will be only pushed back and thus alarmed about your presence.