This review assumes you have played Superhot and contains spoilers about the game's plot .
I don't think you have to be someone very attached to the industry to know that, slowly but steadily, the big productions are settling more and more in bringing us titles without imagination, with nothing new to propose and even in some cases unfinished in its entirety, studios that are known only for some IPs are ironically digging their grave by releasing year after year the same game and slightly changing some mechanics or some graphic style with respect to its predecessor, today it is the task of the Indie studios to take risks, because of their relative lack of budget and short life, they are more likely to innovate and develop new mechanics to be noticed in a video game industry that is increasingly demanding and more and more studios are created and bankrupt in a matter of months, in this threatening environment was born the idea of Superhot.
But first let's talk about the first person shooter, when I say that name surely immediately think of sagas like Call Of Duty or Battlefield, games that have defined this genre with a simple and concise objective as it progresses in each of its deliveries: To seek realism in each of its facets either in its gameplay or in its graphics and offer a dizzying and very catching multiplayer, dedicated to provide entertainment for the enjoyment of its players. Something that today may seem simple but although it is a great merit seems that the formula is increasingly wearing and players are diversifying in search of other experiences, the Indie, which in its cover say they are First person shooters but open a range of possibilities abysmal with the game mechanics that develop, I speak of games like Portal (next review), Project Warlock, Black Mesa and of course the game that today I want to analyze, Superhot.
Superhot was born from one of those GameJams where you need to make a game (or at least a tech demo) in a period of time of one week, its developers had a focus already set in the genre of military shooters but wanted to apply a new mechanic, a Slow-Mo in the style of Matrix or Max Paine every time the player stays still in one place, but in which time would pass normally if we move as we usually do in shooters, in this way we see from the beginning that every action must be measured because we will be besieged by multiple enemies in an area where we need precision and timing to get through each of the levels.
When I started playing it I was overwhelmed from the first moment with the mechanics they were trying to implement, I still had on the mentality that shooters like Battlefield or Destiny had taught me, so I had to learn again first to see the game more as a combination of puzzles and FPS and second to be able to accurately calculate each of the movements, although when we are standing still we can block most of the opposing attacks we must not at any time be confident because both bullets and enemy punches can still kill us and if we touch some attacks we are dead and have to start all over again, something that the Indies has accustomed me as they tend to be fleeting experiences but full of adrenaline (Hotline Miami, or this game).
From the beginning Superhot throws everything it has, it explains us very briefly what its mechanics consist of and how we can use them to then get into the action, its level design while it is nothing new if it has its merit to test to exhaustion its main mechanics, we have objects that we can throw to stun enemies and gain some time to finish them with our gun, at first glance everything seems easy but the game throws a horde of enemies directly in our face and gives us the feeling that we are facing a gigantic puzzles, unko in which we have several elements such as the aforementioned guns, the shotgun that can help us to sweep with multiple enemies or a machine gun that has more rate of fire in exchange for sacrificing our power to slow down time each time a round is fired, these and other elements make from the beginning Superhot is a title that does not hurt to replay each of its levels looking for a better score and a better replay.
The game I think I should categorize it more as a novel mix between first person shooters and Puzzles because each level in which we play is similar to a maze or a dynamic puzzle that we have to solve in the most elegant way possible, anyway there is no single solution and the interesting thing is how we combine the elements that we have and those that gives us the scenario to get the best picture of each level, Perhaps this is what I liked most about the game, which has in its essence a puzzle rather than a shooter but with its aesthetics perhaps reminds me much more to virtual reality training rooms because throughout the game we are in almost entirely white rooms and polygonal enemies, I do not know if it was a creative decision or a lack of a designer but I think it gives an aesthetic that we are in a simulation.
So far we have Superhot is a small but innovative title, in my opinion a little short considering it has spent over 2 years in development but I'm willing to overlook that thanks to how it makes its mechanics look and gives me a new compass in the shooter genre, I've always complained in my group of friends about how generic military shooters can be and I think the story mode that most of them implement is a problem that Superhot solves perfectly, If you have ever played a Battlefield you will know that very few deliveries have a story that is not similar to any episode of a crime series, it lacks that hook that makes us remember the story and feel more attached to it, Superhot turns this issue around proposing a new story but at the same time simple, loaded with a lot of symbolism and that chooses to be told in a minimalist way with us behind a computer receiving emails from a friend of us with some news and files, one of them is this simulator called Superhot. A video game that is a response to the current lack of imagination of the big productions when it comes to propose video games to a market increasingly saturated with repetitive franchises and incomplete games, Superhot is the title I want to see go far in the industry.
Thanks for stopping by my review, if you have any comments I would appreciate if you put them below and if you like content like this I invite you to follow me, I have been absent this last week but I will start doing post more often!