SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE Review | Slow motion puzzle FPS.

I know you wanted more SUPERHOT and the developers have now delivered it. After three years of early access development SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE is finally here. It has more of everything! More levels, more ways to play, more enemies, more powerups, more of all the things.

While the VR release was more but similar, MIND CONTROL DELETE is a huge expansion on the original's mechanics. They could have called this a sequel. I've been having a blast playing and I'm excited to tell you about it. Let's first take a quick moment for a mechanics refresher.

It's similar to the original, time moves when you do. SUPERHOT takes on an almost puzzle game feeling as you dodge bullets and devise the best way to take them all out. You must defeat the enemies with the available tools. Maybe you start with a pistol or maybe one is two feet away and you have to get through a few enemies to reach it.

There's no set solution for the puzzles, SUPERHOT is unlike many other puzzle games. Even choosing which order to attack enemies is important. In the original, it's one shot, one kill for both you and the enemies. It's the age-old saying, easy to learn difficult to master.

It's what makes SUPERHOT so enticing. Now MIND CONTROL DELETE uses everything from the original and builds on it. There are excellent additions. Like these enemies who have only one weak spot. Much more difficult to hit and adds a layer of precision that wasn't required before.

Another addition is when the shotgun is out of ammo and you try and use it. Instead of chucking it, your character will turn it into a swinging weapon. It's awesome. They still have the tongue in cheek humor poking fun at the consumer and corporate humor.

But this is one area they did not expand. To not spoil the opening I'm jumping straight into the game's meaty bits. There's an entirely new way to play. Instead of moving through levels in a linear way MIND CONTROL DELETE has a set of nodes to choose from.

There are a few different kinds of nodes. The first ones have a randomized list of levels you play through. The second kind unlocks more hacks. The third kind has bits of story, or what goes for a story in SUPERHOT. If you're not familiar they're vague.

To make it clear, here's the map with the nodes you can select from. There are branching paths but I'm working my way through all of them before moving to the next floor. Once you go into a node you see this screen where the game randomly chooses levels for you to play through.

With that information, let's continue. The nodes are a great way to allow for level repetition and still keep the game interesting. You get two hearts to complete the whole thing. So instead of one hit one kill, you get two to make it a little fairer.

Also, it allowed the developers to make the game much more difficult. Adding in those previously mentioned weak spot enemies. Much less room for error now. One thing to note is you do not have to kill all the enemies to proceed. So you can hide from the more difficult enemies in hopes you can defeat enough easier ones to continue.

Now, even though there are about thirty two levels they're large. The size means starting in different sections of them provides different results. As usual tons of weapons and items are scattered around to help. Between levels, you might be allowed to choose between two different hacks.

This is where the gameplay starts to diverge from the original. The hacks improve you, give you an item, or make items in the game stronger. For example, if you enabled explode.hack "Losing a heart blasts a hail of shurikens towards enemies." Another example is rndgun.hack which will start you with a random gun every level.

They only get better from there, trust me. It's a great way to force the player into a playstyle. If you pick up more gun focused hacks you will be more focused on shooting enemies. An item throwing hack might have you picking up items more instead. With this system, MIND CONTROL DELETE feels new every node.

You're never quite sure which upgrades you'll get and might play completely differently. After completing a node the hacks are wiped away, each node is a mini roguelike adventure. Death is forgiving in MIND CONTROL DELETE. The game takes you back to the node's beginning to replay it.

But you'll come across different levels and hacks. It could be abused until you get the right start. If you lose a heart on the first level there's nothing stopping you from throwing the run away. Or if you don't get your favorite hack it could mean a restart.

However, there are not enough levels in the early nodes to deserve a restart. Five or so levels can go by quickly and even if you pick up an unwanted hack they're not required for completing it. You can still get past levels relying on pure skill. Anyway, another large deviation from the original is the cores.

When you start a node you can choose which core you want. The first one gives you an extra heart, always helpful. But instead, you can choose to have a special power. For example, the next one is a charge which allows the player to charge an enemy and punch them.

Closing the distance much faster than if you ran to them. It's risky to lose the heart but the powers are more than worth it. There are more core powers to collect and I'll leave them for you to find. You will have to fight through a node to collect the power.

It does act as a tutorial and can get frustrating if it's not a core you want to use. Before finishing this video up you should know there is an endless node. You can choose between the thirty two levels and waves of enemies keep coming. To accommodate the new hacks they let you choose a random one between waves.

It works perfectly and I expect to spend a lot of time here. Overall, SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE is fantastic, and exactly what I wanted. An expansion of everything we've seen in the SUPERHOT world. This game has more content than the last and ups the difficultly.