SUPERHOT

Superhot is an indie first person shooter running on the Unity engine. It has such a novel premise I'm surprised it hasn't been done before. In this game, time slows down to a near standstill when you stop moving. And progresses forwards when you move and when you fire. The development team implemented this very well. Bullets fly through the air and are very easy to spot among the white level textures. The game has this very Hotline Miami feel to it. You can throw your guns at enemies to stun them, you can throw objects to block bullets, and you can even shoot bullets in midair as they fly towards you. For a game that should feel slow and calculated, it feels very fast paced and rhythmic. Stylistically the game is very interesting. The UI resembles a DOS based operating system. Enemies resemble low poly characters from old video games. At the same time the environments look very crisp and everything stands out very well. If you're a fan of films like Tron you'll definitely like this game. However, all that being said the game is not perfect, and it's very hard for me to recommend. For the 25$ asking price there's very little content and you can mostly beat it in a handful of hours. The level design also maintains the same white sterile aesthetic and doesn't have that much variety to it. While the core gameplay is pretty solid it appeals to a certain kind of player. It appeals to the kind of player that wants to play a level over and over to try and achieve a perfect run. If you're that kind of player I do recommend this game a lot. But to everyone else I'd say wait a little for the dev to either create a level editor or lower the price.

SUPERHOT intruduces the mechanic that time only moves in "slow motion" while you don't move. If you turn yourself in a direction or walk somewhere time moves in real time. It is less a shooter more a tactical planning game to survive the endless waves of one-hit enemies that the game spawns in multiple spawn locations on the map around you. The "story" mode is done in 1 1/2, maybe even 2 hours, but I felt it was mainly there to intruduce all mechanics to the player. Those consist of: - dodging bullets as you move - throwing guns or random objects at enemies or punching them to disarm them - switching your body to one enemy (limited to a cooldown) - bunnyhopping over certain parts of the map to jump onto enemies - shooting enemies - multiple meele attacks The missions after the story mode seem plenty at first, but as I realized are really short (a few minutes each) and don't contain any new mechanics or suprises. I was wondering if there would be stealth elements in the game, but it doesn't look like it although enemies seem to have a vision radius. A.I. is really basic - they run at you once spotted and shoot everything in your direction - or, if they don't have a gun, either try to grab one or run at you with their fists. Animations are not as smooth as I hoped for (you can see it mostly in the real time playback at the end of every story mission or your death in one of the many maps) but still look great. The artstyle is clear and helps you to get an overview in every situation. I'm really looking forward to a sequel or expansion to this and I understand that indie developers have to survive somehow, but please, don't charge another 20 euros for it.

The mechanics are great, the gameplay too. When you cut a bullet with a katana, trow that katana to the shooter and then take his wepon to kill one of his allies, you feel right in the middle of a great action movie (even more when you watch the replay). But the game is very short (you finish it in an hour or so), and the price is to high for the game they are offering.

I read the reviews about the story being bad before buying, figuring it probably wasn't a big issue. Big mistake on my part. I don't mind a meh story on the side, but Superhot's story completely breaks the flow of the game by subjecting you to what comes off as a 14 year old's half hearted attempt at being deep. The gameplay itself is pretty good once you're getting into it, but it's soured by the aforementioned "story" trying to be clever between almost every sequence. Doesn't take much more than an hour to beat either, and then all you're left with is a meh endless mode and replaying the same levels again with some additional challenges. Unless the slowed time gimmick, and replaying the maps repeadedly REALLY appeals to you, I wouldn't recommend this. There's much better games out there if you're looking for clever story driven games with meta aspects or you just want plain good ol' shooting. Promising, but ultimately disappointing and overpriced considering how little content there is. I bought this on sale and I still feel cheated.