Superhot review for PC

Platform: PC
Publisher: SUPERHOT Team
Developer: SUPERHOT Team
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: Yes
ESRB: T

Superhot. Superhot. Superhot. This is what you hear repeatedly upon completing a level in? Well, Superhot! This had to be one of the most unique and innovative surprises for me in 2016 so far. I only first heard of Superhot from an article a couple of months ago and from the first trailer, I knew this was worth taking a look into. It reminded me of “Rez” visually, with “The Matrix” bullet time elements for the movement, and an upcoming movie “Hardcore Henry” for the combat components.

I will try to reduce the repeated use of the games name since once you play it, you will never want to hear or read it again. What really makes this game interesting is the approach of keeping everything simple. The character models are basic red pixel models with minimal detail, most of the level design is a bright white canvas with simple architectures that bring everything to life in its own way. The most detailed portion of the game is the weapons or objects you could use as a weapon. Items from guns and swords, to pool balls and tiny statues, the creative ways to use them give them more detail than the design needs.

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The premise of Superhot is simple. People are trying to kill you because a friend of yours gave you hacked privileges to play this game via a remote server. When you begin, you learn the basics like controls and how everything in the game moves only when you do. This means if someone shoots a bullet at you and you stop moving, everything else will and you can assess the situation to avoid the bullet and defend yourself.

Believe me it?s easier than it sounds. You will die, and that?s ok. It can be frustrating, but for once, that?s part of the fun and you will feel a sense of accomplishment when completing a level. There isn?t much more to the gameplay, yet each level feels fresh and my interest lasts through each session. One neat feature t added, was the ability to upload your favorite kills. You upload them to what Team Superhot dubbed as: https://killstagram.com/

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Here, you can watch some really creative kills other players in the community have made. The best part about this is despite the game flowing slower as you carefully plan your executions, the upload you submit will be in real-time so it mimics action sequences you may see in movies. Sometimes, I felt I was taking so long to decide how to get through a level, yet once you complete it, along with the voice repeating SUPERHOT, the reply will be what you can submit to Killstagram.

The last thing I wanted to briefly talk about it the Menu setup. This is when you first boot up the game. You are greeted with a Command Prompt layout and heavily reminiscing of an older windows OS. You end up booting into the game within this UI and I think it?s clever and really ties into the story that is in place. I don?t want to spoil details but this elevated my enjoyment greatly.

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Overall, there wasn?t much to dislike other than the overuse of the name being repeated, but maybe it?s just me. I had zero performance issues running Superhot on my Windows 10/i7 920 @2.67GHz/8GB of ram/Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 rig. The graphics aren?t demanding and it?s also difficult to access slowdown when you are playing the game seconds at a time.

I look forward to the eventual release on Xbox One so even more people can get on the Superhot action. I highly recommend checking this out.

Grade: A