Hotline 2 Game Review
Hotline 2 is a punch right in the nostalgia part of your brain, or if you’re a younger slot game player then it will at least give you some happy retro vibes because you’re going to Florida in the 80s in an adventure straight out of Miami Vice.
This game is a sequel to fellow pastel suit and perm adventure Hotline, also starring stylish crime-fighting duo Quinn and Riviera, and this time you’ll be foiling a daring jewellery heist perpetrated by a beautiful and stylish young woman by the name of Kitty. So is this slot a slick blast from the past or is it out of date? Let’s take a look at our Hotline 2 review.
Background
We love how much Hotline 2 gets into its story, and the incredible 1980s styling in this slot is more than just set dressing as the adventure unfolds all around you as you play. Fans of Miami Vice or other cheesy cop shows will love the attention to detail in everything from the amazing matte background showing the Miami seafront strip, full of nightclubs and bars, to the period detailing on the symbols. The low-value symbols are represented by various items of jewellery in danger of being stolen, while the higher value symbols are the characters involved in the caper, from policemen up to Quinn and Riviera themselves, as well as the villainous Kitty. It goes without saying that there is permed hair and outrageous 80s fashion galore, while cool little cutscenes move the story on with car chases, all to a squealing 80s glam rock soundtrack.
The Hotline 2 slot game also employs a mechanic that’s carried over from the first game, the ability to invest in Hotline reels. During your spins anything from one to three of the five reels you have to play with can be highlighted in gold in exchange for a higher bet, but the benefit is that you get access to much better bonuses the more hotline reels you have active. There are 243 ways to win in this game initially, so expect frequent but lower wins, with the highest paying symbol being Kitty who grants 80x your wager for five of her in a row. Your RTP is also variable, depending on how many hotline reels you have active, but tops out at 96.05% with the maximum possible bet.
Bonuses
The hotline zone really comes into its own in the bonus features, where it plays a big part in your wins. For starters, any wild that lands in the hotline zone automatically expands to become a stacked wild that takes over the whole reel, and sometimes that randomly applies to every symbol in the zone, turning the whole thing into a block of stacked wilds. It also comes into play during the free spins round, activated by landing three neon flamingos, which grants seven free spins. Landing wilds in the zone during free spins causes the reel to fill with a stacked wild and expand one square higher for each wild that lands up to a maximum of three, so if you land enough wilds you can have six rows in the hotline zone and a massive 1944 ways to win!
Casino77 Verdict
Hotline 2 is achingly, effortlessly cool to look at and has a lot of fun with its cheesy 80s cop show theme, taking every opportunity for a cool car chase or some other nostalgic element from the time to pop up. It doesn’t pay badly either, granting wins much higher than you’d think thanks to its expanding reels and the awesome multipliers they can land you.
