Characters Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
In this part of the guide, we omit the following characters: Pig Butcher, Detective Manny Pardo, Richter and The Henchman. It is because you play each one of these characters the same way. Pig Butcher is slightly different, but only because of the animation of the finishing move. The other five characters are different either because of some elements of the gameplay mechanics or the masks and weapons selected before a mission. You can unlock more masks and other equipment as you make progress in the game.
The Fans
The group consists of four members. Corey in the zebra mask has the roll dodge skill. After you press the space bar, the character performs a roll that allows you to dodge melee weapons and bullets. You cannot stun anyone with the roll and you cannot carry any weapon, while performing it. There needs to be some interval between two consecutive rolls, which means that you cannot dash into a room full of gunmen and expect that you can dodge all of the bullets. This is a very useful skill, if you are attacked by several opponents at a time, or you want to shorten the distance safely, between you and the gunman. For example, you can open the door, dash towards the enemy, roll dodge from his bullet and kill him right after you get up. It is a good character for everyone, especially for beginners.
Tony in the tiger mask cannot use weapons, but each of his attacks kills on the spot. The only exception are beefcakes, who get stunned from these attacks. For this reason, he cannot get too many points for the diversity of attacks but, to make up for that, he has a considerable bonus to the special value. Tony is defenseless against gunmen, whom he needs to kill in melee. On the other hand, the character is very fast, does not need to worry about ammo and worry that the stunned opponents get back on their feet, behind his back. Additionally, if Tony stuns an opponent, he eliminates him automatically, without you having to take any additional action. In general, this character is very useful, but on condition that you do not want to use firearms and you are prepared to do lots of running, dodging from enemy bullets and hiding from gunmen. Therefore, it requires some level of familiarity with the game.
Alex & Ash are two swans. One of them carries a chainsaw, at all times, whereas the other one carries firearms. You control both of them at a time. You attack in melee with the left mouse button and shoot with the right one. After you have used up the entire clop[, the other character picks up the first firearm that you happen to find so, you do not need to swap weapons manually. What is even more, the chainsaw kills at the spot. Also beefcakes, although in their case, you will have to see a short animation. Both of the attacks can be performed simultaneously. This means that you can, at the same time, cut up the beefcake and shoot at the rest of the opponents. Therefore, this character requires some practice and learning the controls, because it is very easy to mix things up, while controlling it. Additionally, two characters mean twice as many opportunities to die (as soon as one dies, the other one gives up) and makes you move around carefully. It is possible for the other character to get stuck against a wall, or in the neighboring room, unable to cross the door, until the first one comes back. This twosome is good for the more experienced players, because it combines Corey and Tony, without the roll dodges of the former, and downsides of the latter.
Mark wears the bear mask and he starts off wielding two machine guns, and spare clips. After you press the left button, you fire and after pressing the right button, the character shoots to the sides, which allows you to kill opponents approaching from two different directions. In the case of stunning, the animation of finishing off, with bare hands, is a bit slower than in the case of the rest of the characters, but not as slow as in the case of Jake. After you use up ammo, the character plays like Corey, just without the option to do dodges. Mark is slightly better off, at the beginning, than the others, but the lack of additional skills makes him moderately useful, later into each of the missions. The character is good for everyone.
Evan
Has no mask, nor weapons to choose from. Also, he cannot pick up firearms up until he gets annoyed. After he picks up a weapon, he destroys it immediately and you receive 1000 points. Then, the current state of the multiplier goes up by one. Also, the character cannot use sharp melee weapons, such as knives. He needs to fight with blunt weapons, such as sticks and bars. Apart from that, while fighting, he does not kill, but he wounds everyone.
You cannot use firearms with this character, which makes the gameplay quite difficult. It requires you to hide behind covers, draw the attention of the enemies to you and disarming guns quickly. You can make the game easier by enraging the character. It is done by stunning two enemies and then killing them. Evan, after stunning, hits using the left mouse button and with the right button, you can interrupt the stun. To finish an enemy, you have to hit twice. It applies to fighting using your fists or melee weapons, however, in both cases, the opponent won't be killed yet. To make it happen, Evan has to continue hitting until the enemy stops moving. After killing two opponents this way, Evan will be able to use a special melee weapon and gun until the end of the mission. Moreover, the animation of finishing an enemy with bare hands gets longer. You can either try to finish every mission without using lethal weapons, or kill two enemies in the way described above and make the task much easier. Doing so will influence the ranking at the end of the mission, lowering the special statistic by 4000 points.
The Son
He has three items to choose from. Bodyguard provides roll dodge and a sword. The functioning of this skill is the same as in the case of Corey, whereas the sword is a specific melee weapon. It is slower than the rest of them and it takes some time to draw and sheathe the sword, which makes you defenseless for that time. On the other hand, the range of the sword is longer than of the rest of melee weapons. Therefore, with a bit of perseverance, you can complete quite a fragment of each mission, using the sword. In spite of that, it is better to swap it for a firearm, as quickly as possible. Mainly because it is useless against beefcakes.
As for the rest of the items, dirty hands is identical as in the case of Tony's, whereas bloodline as in the case of Mark's.
The Soldier
The Soldier has two weapons. He cannot swap them, nor throw them away and switches between them with the right mouse button. If you run out of ammo for firearms, you need to replenish it in the crates all around the map. First, you have lots of ammo, but with each replenishment, you get less and less. In other words, it pays off to save up on ammo, or you will have to fight with a limited amount of ammo. On the other hand, the melee weapon, the knife, functions in the same way as its counterpart that you loot from enemies.
From among the five available firearms, machine gun and shotgun are no different than the ones that you have been using, while playing as the other characters. The Big machine gun has a larger firepower and spread than the smaller machine gun, but it also uses up ammo faster and is louder. The Sniper rifle has fast and accurate bullets, but it reloads slowly. Apart from that, it is loud. It is an ideal weapon for precise elimination of distant targets. The flamethrower has a long range and it kill everything, including beefcakes. Additionally, it can burn up several opponents at a time, as long as they have been close to each other (not in a straight line, or the flame stops on the first one). However, it is quite loud and covers up the screen, which makes it difficult to control the situation. Apart from that, flames are stopped by windows and the weapon uses up ammo fast. Each of the Soldier's weapons is good, in its own respect. If you prefer a standard weapon, pick the machine gun or the shotgun. If not, try the flamethrower or the sniper rifle.
Jake
He has three masks. Jake makes each item that he throws, stun instead of killing. It is effective against everything, except for beefcakes. It is useful, especially if you run out of ammo for firearms. Also, this allows you to eliminate opponents silently, because the thrown object does not make noise. Irvin has a nail gun. This weapon goes as a suppressed pistol and it holds 20 bullets. Dallas, on the other hand, has the inner warrior skill. It functions like Tony's mask, but the difference is that the right mouse button activates nunchuks. After you press it, the character produces the weapon and swings it around for a moment. After a while, he starts running and killing everything within range, and stunning beefcakes. After several moments, the character stops and hides the weapon. While drawing and holstering the weapon, the character is vulnerable to enemy attacks. Also, he may be killed without problems. Apart from that, he is a killing machine.
Regardless of the mask, the character has a very slow animation of finishing off with bare hands - the slowest of all the characters in the game, save Pig Butcher. Take this into consideration, while trying to finish off the opponents close to the rest opponents that are still standing.