Party Hard 2 Review: Knife Party

Each and every single time I see Hotline Miami on sale, I feel obligated to tell at least five friends about the sale and how very awesome the game is. At least one of these friends will give the same rebuttal – “Nah, this looks like nothing more than a murder sim.” On many levels they are right, but since everything and everyone aims to kill you, it never struck me as outright murder. Thanks to Party Hard 2, I can now show them what a real murder sim looks like.

This is the follow up to the original Party Hard, which I didn’t play much of outside of a timed trial on the Xbox Marketplace, so the story had me a bit confused from the start, but by the end I had a firm grasp on the plot. With this being said, I wouldn’t say it’s a prerequisite to play the original, but it helps for continuity if that’s your thing. You step into the slow-moving shoes of The Party Killer, a guy who just wants to get some sleep while the local party scene stops him from doing so. Due to this, he does what every level headed individual would do – sneak into the parties and kill everyone he can so he can so he can get some much needed shut-eye.

The game feels like a unique hybrid of Hotline Miami, thanks to the retro-inspired presentation with a fixation on death and destruction, with some Hitman style objectives thrown into the mix for variety. You can free-form each level as you see fit, sneaking around, picking up items to aid you in your killing spree, or simply knifing people and hiding the bodies. Or you can leave them out on display like some early Halloween decorations, it’s really a choose your own adventure situation, but you have to be mindful of the fact that evidence and witnesses will lead to cops arriving and shutting your little festival of carnage down. Each of the courses will provide an either-or goal, usually killing everyone on the level, or killing specific targets and either retrieving or destroying a secondary item. There are also challenges such as using a specific means of death or not alerting anyone to your presence. At the end of the day, it’s an epic sandbox for you to play out all of your murderous dreams. I was constantly surprised how far I could push the game and its unique systems to the limit, only impeded by my own imagination. I would leave trails of gas from one explosive area circling a group of people, daisy-chaining multiple trails between victims and vehicles that once the match was lit, a chain of figurative dominoes was set off, leaving a body count that would make the Zodiac Killer wince in its wake and left me giggling like a four-year-old whom just discovered farts are funny.

In most cases, the game runs impeccably with minor AI issues, such as a passerby that was previously sleeping just a moment prior waking up and seeing your illegal actions through walls, or the fact that the cops will always make a beeline to your location once you’ve been discovered, making evasion a tense ordeal that almost always ends in failure. A lot of the game really comes down to trial and error, because it is clear what you can interact with, but early in I struggled to figure out exactly what everything does; even now, having completed the story and revisited a number of the locations, I still don’t know what certain items do once you interact with them. These include the keg and bowl of liquid sitting out in a bar, both of which appear to do nothing but make the partygoers appear drunk. Even with these small missteps, I couldn’t help but try just one more time upon each failure due to a small mistake, akin to the experience I got from that other murder sim everyone is always talking about.

Each attempt will take you to the same massive levels, with randomized items and interactive bits making every new attempt its own run, preventing repetition from setting in. Coupled with the additional objectives, unlockable characters, and secondary missions, this is a game that is packed to the brim with content, yet disappoints me in the fact that the optional DLC appears to be locked behind the deluxe paywall and cannot be purchased separately, at least as of this writing; hopefully it is just a timed exclusive.

The one constant issue I had throughout my time with the game is just how obnoxiously slow The Party Killer is, which thematically makes sense due to him essentially being a slasher combination of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, but it makes evasion and getting from point A to point B a painstaking process if the level does not include any short cuts.

If Hotline Miami is too fast-paced for your murder sim needs, Party Hard 2 is the perfect blend of murder, mayhem, and pacing to form a complete package that not only pays tribute, but builds upon the experience to make something new and fresh that can be revisited as often as the urge strikes thanks to the wealth of replayability options.

9 out of 10

Pros

  • A Glorious Sandbox of Destruction
  • Great Retro Inspired Soundtrack and Presentation
  • Tons of Replayability
  • Wide Range of Tools of Death

Cons

  • DLC is Only Packaged With the Full Deluxe Game
  • Some Wonky AI Blips
  • You Walk Like a Turtle on Ambien

Party Hard 2 was developed by Pinokl Games, Kverta, and Hologryph and was published by tinyBuild. The game is available on NS, PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on NS, PS4, and X1. If you’d like to see more of Party Hard 2, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.