Nothing is overused in the story, short as it is, and if that were all the game contained, it'd be much tougher to recommend. SUPERHOT actually suits those scenarios, even if I don't find them as satisfying as the more free-form and chaotic fights, and they're not overused.
Of course, 'immediate' is relative because you decide when the next moment actually arrives, but when a level begins with several guns primed to fire and pointed at your face, you need to plan that moment with foresight that is actually the hindsight gained in the life you just lost. Like the Hotline Miami 2 levels that felt like punishing puzzles that required trial and error rather than creative play and speedy reflexes, some situations are designed to require an immediate and precise response. If I have one notable complaint about the story mode, beyond its brevity (which, given the quality of the other modes, might actually be a virtue it doesn't overstay its welcome), it is that some scenes are a little too scripted. Kill or be killed is the only rule but by providing both temporal and spatial controls, SUPER HOT encourages the kind of inventive action that more traditional FPS games rarely capture outside scripted sequences. There's only one major change, one addition to the control scheme beyond the time-tampering, but it's an extremely smart development, vastly increasing the possibility for slick play without overcomplicating the game's essential simplicity. It's brief, yes, but it's packed with ideas, both in the plotting which is alternately creepy and humorously self-aware, and in terms of level design and modifications to your toolset. I was thoroughly entertained during the couple of hours that the story lasted. There are chuckles about the disconnected nature of the levels and the apparent lack of a plot and, a few levels in, something sinister breaks into the conversation and the game within a game is revealed to be something far more mysterious than a turn-based FPS. The story, such as it is, mainly unfolds during instant messenger dialogues between the character you play and the friend who first drops a cracked version of SUPER HOT onto your hard drive. They're eerily convincing fragments of an alternate reality in which SUPERHOT is the hot new thing, a game that looks far ahead of whatever fictional time it exists in, given the crude nature of its neighbours. In fact, the game is drawn toward weird waters from the opening moments, when a framing device reminiscent of Pony Island introduces SUPERHOT as a game within a game – the latter game being a fake, glitchy operating system that acts as a menu screen.įrom there you can jump straight into the story or explore some submenus, which contain the other programs on this fake OS. It's not long before things start to drift toward the deep end of the pool, where strange things lurk beneath the surface. You're in an office building, killing angry people, and then you're in a bar, and then you're in a.cage? I'd also expected ultraviolence without any context and that's certainly how the game sets out its stall. It's ultraviolence without any of the splatter or screams. The sound effects match the visuals and even though I was tempted to write a strongly worded letter of disagreement to Nick Lowe by the time I'd heard my own body breaking for the hundredth time, I haven't grown tired of the splintering sounds of my targets. In SUPERHOT, enemies seem to be made of glass, their bodies shattering at the point of impact, leading to strangely beautiful moments as a limb explodes into fragments or the stained red structure of a silica skull collapses as a body crumples and disintegrates. There is substance to go with the style, but both game's stand out from the crowd thanks to their finely executed aesthetics.
And then there's the style of the game, which is drawn from a completely different palette to Hotline's grotesqueries, grime and gore, but is equally important. There are several similarities to Cactus' kill 'em up, including the necessity to throw spent firearms at enemies, the use of improvised melee weaponry and the fact that a single hit will stop you in your tracks. Can that central idea carry an entire game, however, or would it become stretched thin? Here's wot I think. The original prototype ranks among my favourite FPS games of recent years, its 'time only moves when you move' idea causing it to play out like a turn-based Hotline Miami, viewed from a fresh perspective. All I really wanted from the full, commercial release of SUPERHOT was more of the same.