SUPERHOT.

What matters is what happens between these two words.

SUPERHOT.

It wants to peel back the layers of your skull.

SUPERHOT.

Feast on my flesh until nothing remains.

.

3 thoughts on SUPER[SUPER]HOT.

Mind - Katana reveals all; the swift executions and parry-play are at the essence of what works within this new framework of roguelike repetition because it prevents the action from jerking-off in bullet-time. The staccato begins to act in service of rhythmic motions where physicality is no longer a disembodied affair of firearms and trajectories locating the feedback loop in the anonymity of manikins instead putting our ever-fragile avatar at the center of the violence in ways that renders the thrills of deletion by putting emphasis on the cut. Distances and deflections. How to bridge the gap between the two. Invoking. Channeling. SUPERHOT.

Control - Hacks.exe; they elevate the core systems without rendering the whole ugly. It’s impossible to escape the allure of the metagame. “Killheal.hack” and “Lightreflex.hack” are kings. And kings do not matter in sequences whose escalating difficulty so clearly correlates with the aesthetics of kinesthesia - strategies are established in style before substance, a perfect action-run framed in replays, so challenge is (and must remain) a modular canvas here. Strong back-half. Exhausting waves met with zen. Repress the urge to shatter - obsidian is thy weapon. Sliced rubies and broken ores. A mist of forms. I wish the experience went further. I wish I didn’t have so many choices. I wish I could look somewhere else than myself by being tied to the grazing of bullets and the compression of space. At its purest SUPERHOT triggers like a reversion of time itself; me, knowing the momentum of damage and enemies so completely that I can speedrun the game. Play it, actually, at a regular pace. Ain’t that something. A slow game, but present.

Delete - Self-vore; masturbartory reflexivity bores me. But SUPERHOT was so close. Its gradual subtraction of every expansions made to the original concept pushes past the cringe by committing to a proper state of powerlessness. But at the end of each stage, when vision itself has been euthanized and verbs stripped away from the player, we’re given the option to give up. Press [E] to access the text. The game should have left us to rot in there. Let the player figure out new ways to still assert dominance over its environment in the absence of tools to do so. The game’s not inventive enough - in both mechanics and level-design - to do that. A shame. All that’s left, then, is a language only dispensed by the screen - our usual one-way mirrors. Ten minutes of me pressing [E] to get the syllables drooling out of my mouth. Sweet nothingness lost in Amygdalatropolis. Yelling that same sentence into the void.

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[Just a hollow sense of progression and power]

HOT.

This one is... weird.

Pretty much an expansion of everything Superhot was, including that cocky self-conscious plot, but it has some weird design decisions that break everything entertaining the original had.

Yeah, swinging your flying katana around the arena is really cool, but the nodes system isn't. It gets to the ridiculous point where you have to beat +20 fights in the same levels to complete 1 node. It ends up being annoying and boring as hell.

But... you still go on, because the powers are so awesome.

I don't know if this thing is really clever or a piece of trash.

O maior problema desse jogo vem de sua estrutura, por ser um rogue like ele acaba perdendo MUITO no quanto ele te diverte, a variedade de mapas do jogo é extremamente baixa, ao ponto em que você já passou por todos mais de 5 vezes em menos de 2 horas de jogo, é muito chato. Mas outro problema da estrutura de rogue like desse jogo é que a relação entre desafio e recompensa aqui é quase nula, seu desafio é passar da fase, o problema é que a jornada pra isso é altamente punitiva e enjoativa, você pode acabar morrendo bastante, e o fato de que cada run não vai mudar NADA da anterior torna o jogo muito enjoativo, diferente de por exemplo, Hades, onde você sente que a morte muda o jogo como um todo, tanto na sua habilidade quanto nas possibilidades que você tem, aqui a morte só significa repetição, cada level é igual SEMPRE, possibilidades de alteração altamente limitadas tornam a prévia que você pode ter inútil e facilmente alcançável, os power ups variam entre "Atirar mais rápido, ter uma bala a mais, 1 a mais de HP" e alguns poucos em si mudam suas possibilidades no jogo, e quando mudam ainda é muito pouco pra valer a pena tudo isso. Mas acima disso o que não ajuda em nada é o tamanho do mapa, ele é grande demais, são 4 layers de mapa com diversas e diversas fases e dentro dessas você tem os seus desafios (Geralmente variam de 6-12 por fase), é coisa demais, e por conta da pouca quantidade de mapas e da limitadíssima variedade de gameplay, torna a jornada longa que é esse jogo algo absurdamente chato, enjoativo, e exaustivo. Mas o jogo ainda tem algumas qualidades, eu gosto da base da história do jogo, é uma trama interessante, e a gameplay base do jogo é MUITO BOA, a ideia de mexer com o tempo abre muitas possibilidades e é extremamente divertido mexer com isso, o único problema disso é que ela acaba se tornando chata depois de 1 hora e meia por conta dos problemas que eu citei anteriormente. Sinto muito potencial desperdiçado aqui, meio triste

you can tell the dev was mad that people didnt like his dumb story in the first one, and only wanted more gameplay. this games whole shtick is "more superhot". unfortunately what "more" means is around a half dozen levels that you kill infinitely spawning enemies in and then repeat the exact same levels in a different order and spawning somewhere else a million times.
hacks are cool, and i like the idea behind cores but im not gonna choose a cool but ultimately pointless ability over more lives, are you insane? i didnt get far enough to meet the dreaded dogs ive heard so much about, but judging from what ive heard, all they do is make the game more annoying and not fun or really challenging.
new weapon types are really neat, sniper is a blast and i love knives/shuriken.
ultimately the vr game i played at a friends house was the best one, because it actually made me move around and there wasnt any story (from what i played). according to my friend i "got way too into it" which is code for "you did a somersault and punched my brother in the shin"

To be clear, I'm a big fan of the original game, but this one has
-repetitive gameplay
-a weaker story
-random enemy spawns
so essentially take superhot and remove all of the strong points. The roguelike structure is interesting at first but 2 or so hours in you've experienced what the next 10+ have to offer

"More. More. MORE. YOU WANTED MORE? I'LL GIVE YOU MORE. MORE THAN YOU CAN STOMACH."

Yes Superhot, I did want more of the game. I also wanted good levels, and you sort of carried. Too bad they're too few and you keep cycling through them in order to make the same point as before, yet somehow even more toothlessly.

Come back when you're a little, mmmh, more varied!

Edit: after spoiling the ending, I can say: well played. My point still stands though, too boring to even get to the end

I covered this game as part of my coverage of the Humble Choice for June 2022

The better version of Superhot.

I enjoyed the original Superhot, but when the developer released Superhot: Mind Control Delete, I finally found the version of Superhot I always wanted to play. Normally I would say a rogue-lite could never beat a well-scripted narrative but Superhot: Mind Control Delete is the only exception I have for that rule.

The original Superhot was a simple idea, time moves when the player moves. Superhot: Mind Control Delete uses the same format but pushes players to beat escalating levels of challenges, battling against enemies in a procedural format and even giving players bonuses to assist in tackling the waves and rooms of enemies. Though after only a couple of mistakes, players will be reset and have to tackle a new randomized set of levels. It’s the same gameplay that made the original Superhot popular but done in a way that will make every run of a level as intense as the first time.

Pick this up if you enjoyed the original Superhot. Technically this was given away to people who owned Superhot before it came out, but if you somehow don’t have it and enjoyed the original or at least the concept of it, I recommend checking this title out. I put in over twelve hours into this title and was extremely happy with the experience.

If you want to see the video this was taken of, or more from me on the Humble Choice or Game Pass, check out: https://youtu.be/NPxN2M0c65w

I've decided "You are a bad person for continuing to play this video game, that you bought, which you are still progressing in" is my least favorite kind of video game narrative.

I enjoyed the first Superhot but couldn't shake the feeling there was something fundamentally unsatisfying about it. I think I figured it out, because it's just as bad here if not worse. The implication of "Time only moves when you do" and the marketing around it is that this lets the player do freaky, split-second, John-Wick-esque maneuvers to exterminate a room. But in practice the gameplay comes down to (1) figuring out how to remove enemies before they have a chance to act and (2) constantly checking your back because spawn points surround the whole area and enemies don't make noise until the damage is done. The most optimal way to play is to find a corner and wiggle your eyes until a red leg comes into view. Part of the issue is the devs are married to this wave-based survival-arena style of level design. I would love to see them try to merge these mechanics with a more traditional FPS setup.

Usually I hold off on rating/reviewing a game until I've beaten it but I just can't find the motivation to finish this now and I wanted to get my thoughts down. On a related note: did you know if you use the hotswap power on an enemy who hasn't completely emerged from their spawn point yet, you instantly die and have to start the whole stage over? Even if you were on the second to last room? It's true!

I'm writing this as the unskippable 2.5 hours after-credits wait is still going, and I must start this review stating that this is the most horrendous way of finishing a game. That being said, the overall experience of SuperHot: Mind Control Delete was pretty great, I'd even say it's superior than the first entry (and it sure is better than VR by a mile). At a first glance it's pretty similar to the first SuperHot, and while some elements are brought back, the weapons, abilities and enemies, each one of these elements are massively expanded and improved upon.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the difference between Mind Control Delete and the original SuperHot. The first SuperHot was a self-contained and linear game whose gameplay revolved around memorization, much like Hotline Miami. You'll be dropped onto a level and then do your best or die trying, and if you die you'll restart the same level and replay it until you eventually eliminate every enemy successfully, so it was more about trial and error, especially towards the final levels. Mind Control Delete is a game about improvisation. Sure, the levels repeat over and over, and some are brought back from the first game, and you'll eventually get used to their layout, but that's about it, everything else is randomized, even the player's spawnpoint. The levels are gathered in a randomized collection, so if you die on one level, the collection changes and it starts all over again. I know this sounds boring and frustrating as hell, but since everything is random it turns out different each time you play.

But it doesn't end there. In every collection of levels, after completing a certain amount that can vary, there will be an also randomized hack to choose from. Hacks are special abilities that the player can obtain by completing certain level collections. These hacks are then unlocked to be selectable during any set of levels. This adds a lot of replayability since if you die you'll start empty handed so the hacks you get to choose from are different for each collection of levels, and as you go on, there'll be more to select from. And whenever you get to select them, two random different hacks show up for you to select one of them. There will never be one that's clearly better than the other so you discard one of them entirely, your selection depends on your context. For example, if you're low on hearts (yeah, you can take a few hits before dying, which is a great addition), choosing a health regaining hack might be a better option than bullet ricochet, or maybe you're doing great and want to try otherwise. The options are almost limitless, it's about choosing wisely which ones to use, because some can be pretty helpful while others can be relatively useless. It turns out to be more strategic than the first game.

Another thing Mind Control Delete expands upon is the enemy variety. There are still your common red guys that work the same, but now there are these red guys with spikes that blow up releasing a lot of bullets into the air that can hit you, so maybe it's better to keep a distance with them. Another new type of enemy is the one that's entirely white except for one limb which remains red and this is the only weak spot they have, so for the rest of the body they're practically unkillable. Tho the biggest and most important enemy addition are the immortal enemies. There are a total of three of these and they appear at random in random levels so you never know when one's gonna show up, and this always keeps the player on edge if they do eventually show up, because they have a similar special ability the player also has (I forgot to mention it, but when you start a collection of levels there are four different permanent abilities to choose from that stay activated until the collection is finished, even if you die), so as everything is randomized, there's a pressure to kill all the enemies the level requires to be finished that gets even more tense when one of these three enemies do show up. This game works with tension better than any of the previous two entries, because this game is about mastering its mechanics instead of repeating a level until you find an optimal way of clearing the level, and it's a blast when you pull it off correctly. All of this game's elements work together masterfully turning the first SuperHot, what was essentially a gameplay experiment and barely anything more, into a more tenseful experience with more strategy and decision making.

[SOME SPOILERS HERE, JUMP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THE ENDING]

Now for the narrative aspect, it's a certain improvement. Like, the first game had a story, kinda, it was some creepypasta-esque cryptic bs that ended up nowhere and was more of a hindering than anything else. Mind Control Delete is a meta-game on not having a story so it's less bs and, while cryptic, the story isn't much of an obstacle this time. I tried my best to understand it and all I ended up with was that it talks about isolation for damaged individuals (whether physically or mentally) on virtual violence and how it can absorb them entirely. Basically, a story about addiction to/escapism via virtual violence. Remember those immortal enemies? After what is basically a boss battle with each one of them you eliminate both their and your special ability resulting in what I assume is their physical termination, and this is done in segments where you'll see them static looking at you until you get rid of their own ability. It isn't explicitly said, but I think that, as with the original game, you're controlling someone irl killing them. For example, the dog one appears in a hospital room sitting on a wheelchair. Also, while on the menu you can read notes related to these characters which give away hints about how they really are. After this, the game concludes with what I think is game-ending yourself by uninstalling everything (?). I know all of this may sound overanalitical and nonsensical, and that's because it is. And that final 2.5 hours loading screen just to play the game again screams pretentiousness. If not this, all I can think of is that the game criticizes the player for enjoying mindless violence, which I hope isn't what they were going for. Either way there are some aspects of the story that I couldn't understand at all so that was the best I could've come up with. I think it's better to play the game's meta-game of not having a true meaning and just enjoy the experience.

[SPOILERS CONCLUDED]

Overall, this is a major improvement on the first SuperHot. After finishing the VR one I didn't want to play another SuperHot because of the bad impression it gave me, and boy did I miss something great. This game is the definitive SuperHot experience and I don't know why here it has a lower average rating than the previous games. Anyways, if you liked the original SuperHot or the VR one, this is better in every single way, so I ought you to check this one out. Sure the game's core differs a bit from the previous games, but it somehow works surprisingly great and rarely gets tiring with its randomized gameplay.

4 years after the introduction of the franchise's unique time freeze premise, Mind Control Delete strives to deliver on the fanbase's general request for more Superhot content, to the point of making that request its ultimate statement. Considering the lack of levels presented in Superhot and the redundancy of its challenge mode, it's fitting that MCD decides to iterate on the endless mode of that game instead.

Turning Superhot into a roguelike, MCD shrugs off right from the start any complaints about the story campaign being too short. Now with an onslaught of randomly selected levels to complete and an infinite number of enemies to finish off before watching the credits roll, we have more than enough to chew on without feeling our investment wasn't compensated enough.

Playing into the genre's strengths, MCD answers the fans pleas for more of everything, providing enough enemy variety and a new selection of power-ups that immensely expand the versatility of the player's arsenal and the opportunity for unique and challenging engagement with his foes. Being able to do stuff like summon back your thrown sword, achieve invulnerability while engaging in melee combat, or ricocheting bullets from one headshot into another enemy, adds a new layer of creativity and expression that wasn't present in the original game.

Unfortunately, this impressive set of new features doesn't seem to be enough to takes us all the way through the end of the game. Like its predecessor, MCD carries itself with the same cynical meta tone, this time calling out the player's penchant for demanding more for their buck. And not unlike Superhot, MCD doesn't really do much with that premise besides calling attention to it. Its a game that is self aware about its shortcomings and diminishing returns, and as you start to notice how redundant the game gets towards the end, with a disappointing number of new weapons, useful power ups to play with, or interesting enemies and levels to deal with, you might feel inclined to oblige to the game's incenssant and obnoxious condescension and shut off the game for good.