SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE Review (PS4, XBox One, PC, Nintendo Switch).
Time only moves when you do. Superhot is a first-person shooter unlike any other that perfectly encapsulates the adrenaline of a slow bullet motion action scenes. The rules of the original Super Hot are the same here only with a twist of roguelike sprinkled on top.
Super Hot Mind Control Delete offers more of that action-packed gameplay that many gamers fell in love with. Super Hot Mind Control Delete continues the series' bread and butter of taking out all the enemies in a room and surviving. Not everything is exactly the same though, this new sequel adds in a variety of roguelike features that helped keep on my toes in my early hours of the bullet-hell fun.
Where the original Super Hot had a linear approach with a narrative backing it up, Mind Control Delete leans more towards its gameplay with the vague story taking a step back. There are snippets of lore here and there that play with the self-aware writing the series is known for.
However, what really shines out of this sequel is the new touches to its staple gameplay. Levels are still presented in the first-person shooter perspective. Rooms are covered in white with all the red objects indicating enemies and anything black colored item is an object you can interact with.
What's new now is the fact that rooms are predetermined but the layouts of enemies, the types of enemies, and objects around you are all random following a roguelike structure. The randomized nature of the classic gameplay formula added a sense of thrill and tenseness to it that I found so stimulating.
The newfound challenge in these scenes was exactly what I wanted after completing the original Super Hot, I wanted more Super Hot, and more I got. I think it's a play on the meme of wanting more super hot because even the developers hint at more in their game design, once again adding to the self-aware writing.
Along with that challenge are gameplay modifiers in the forms of hacks and cores. Hacks are temporary buffs that can give you some interesting scenarios like starting every level with a random gun or moving faster. These modifiers helped keep levels feeling fresh longer, something truly needed as you'll be seeing a lot of these rooms over and over again just with different hazards.
Back to cores, these are new abilities like the power to charge at mid-range enemies, adding on to the action of the gameplay. These are completely new mechanics that blended smoothly into the already established gameplay. Being able to immediately rush toward an enemy with a weapon, always felt invigorating.
Perhaps the bolder actions in my part also came from having more chances to live. You see a health bar is introduced with this sequel that gives you more chances at individual levels but fails enough times and you'll have to repeat the group of levels all over again.
It's forgiving yet challenging but the biggest take away is how repetitive some of these levels can be when you're reliving them over and over again but with different enemy setups. And sure the new variations of enemies can help remedy it and it did, though not completely.
Going after these enemies that could only be hurt on specific body parts mixed in with other variations of enemies was amazing. I felt a rush of excitement as I looked around every corner for an enemy I was missing, only to be shocked right behind me.
That was the pattern for me with this sequel, excitement from the new mechanics and enemies but somewhat tarnished by the repeating rooms. While the new features outshine that repetitive pattern, it lingers on throughout my time playing. Continuing on the visual art style of the original game, Super Hot Mind Control Delete features and minimalistic designed with a mostly two-tone color palette.
White colors represent nonhazardous while the red hues are hazards. Despite the small number of colors, the style choices to make the red colors glow helped add some flash to the simplistic look. Apart from the look of the game, the visual art style goes hand in hand with the gameplay, helping players easily react to interactable objects.
It's a visual style adopted by many games with the same minimal style from Portal to Mirror's Edge, it works there and it works here too. There isn't much to critique in terms of audio and music because this game is pretty quiet in terms of dialogue and music.
Just about all the sound comes from the hand to hand combat and the time manipulated gunfire. To its credit, it sounds fantastic along with the oddly satisfying sound of glass shattering as the enemies do. Super Hot Mind Control Delete is truly what I wanted, more Super Hot.
And more Super Hot it is but now changed to some degree. The roguelike additions make playing through the campaign a surprise at every corner, except for the reuse of maps that got repetitive after a while. Luckily the new gameplay modifiers added a layer of newfound strategy that frankly, I hope continues on with this series.
