I have just finished SUPERHOT, and it feels like my brain has been destroyed. This isn’t a bad thing, however, as SUPERHOT was kind enough to rebuild it into a computer. Reality isn’t real. There is only SUPERHOT.
On the surface, SUPERHOT is a stylish and minimal shooter with a cool gimmick. Time only advances forward when your character is in motion. This means that even when you are in the middle of a hectic firefight, standing still will stop bullets in mid-air like you just pressed a pause button.
This results in a surprisingly strategic game. Instead of ducking and covering to avoid shots from an assault rifle, it’s much simpler to weave yourself in and out of the shots as they are coming in. If you fire a gun, you’ll have to keep moving if you want your character to reload and fire again.
Other mechanics join in the fight besides shooting guns. Players can also punch enemies, grab and throw objects, or find melee weapons. It’s even possible to get in close on an enemy and grab the gun right out of their hands. You find yourself constantly making awesome moves Neo from The Matrix would be impressed with.
Each level results in a slow dance of destruction. A cool feature provides a replay of your run once you complete each level, allowing you to see your crazy exploits in real-time. These replays can be saved and shared as well, if that’s your thing.
SUPERHOT is way more than just a shooter with a cool hook, however. It also tells a positively insane story. You see, you’re just an average gamer, trying to illegally crack into a new game that’s still in development. The further you dive into the game, the more your mind gets sucked in as well.
This results in the game messing with you in real life. There’s even a point where you’ve “gone too far” and SUPERHOT actually forces you to quit the program and go back to your desktop. It’s all super strange stuff, and mostly told through chat conversations your character has with friends. I don’t want to go too into the story so as not to spoil it, but then again, it’s almost impossible to describe.
Graphically, SUPERHOT looks clean but won’t blow anyone away. Each level is very minimal, with everything that isn’t important made to be white. Enemies are basic red polygon shapes, and objects you can interact with are black. That’s it. While it may be odd seeing a game look so low-res, it makes sense in the story of this being a game that’s still in development.
The one glaring problem with SUPERHOT is that it is such a short main campaign. I suppose you could argue that this short play time allows SUPERHOT to remain feeling fresh, but it only took me about two hours to complete the entire story. That’s pretty darn short.
Thankfully, if you are looking to pad your play time, SUPERHOT features additional game modes and challenges. One game mode is an endless mode, allowing you to keep on killing until you die. There are also challenge modes forcing you to play a certain style.
For example, one challenge mode makes you play through the entire game without being able to fire a gun. Another only gives you one bullet per gun you pick up. It’s fun forcing yourself to play through in different ways than you did before, even if you’re doing it all on the same 25 levels.
If you start digging into the other content found in SUPERHOT, you walk away more confused than when you start. There are dozens of “files” included in the game that you can examine, but they are all bizarre. One is a carpet texture generator, for example. There’s probably story elements people will be mining from these files somehow, and I can’t wait to see what gamers discover.
Coming in at $24.99, SUPERHOT seems a little light on the content. Completing the campaign only takes about two hours on your first playthrough. The challenge modes do offer some replayability, and digging through all the bizarre extra content can probably suck you in for another hour or so. If you're not sure if you want to pick this up at full price, wait for the inevitable flood of gifs that will be hitting the Internet this weekend. There's always a Steam sale around the corner, too.
SUPERHOT is available today on PC. A version for Xbox One will be releasing in March.
So what do you think? Are you interested in exploring the madness of SUPERHOT? Do you wish the campaign was longer, or are you OK with short games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
