Superhot plus
Type: Singleplayer
Genre: FPS
Developer: SUPERHOT Team
Publisher: SUPERHOT Team
Release Date: 16 Jul, 2020
Overview
Superhot: Mind Control Delete is a first-person shooter where, like in its predecessor, times only moves when you do. This means that standing still in the middle of a firefight, with shiny projectiles piercing the air towards you is not only a viable strategy, but also the one you need to use. Superhot: Mind Control Delete takes the original’s Superhot gameplay and expands a little, just a little though, onto that: this means that if you loved the original Superhot, you’ll love this one, if you hated it… you can stop reading right now.
MIND
The idea behind the original Superhot was an interesting one and, while not completely original, it allowed for very cinematic moments and great combos during its fights: slashing through enemies while dodging bullets and throwing bottles was incredibly fun in the first title, but the game was also rather short and became repetitive after a short while. Mind Control Delete makes some additions to the base game and greatly improved its length by abandoning the finite levels system of the first instalment and using a sort of map with procedurally generated levels. This map makes use of different nodes, which can be a group of combat encounters or places where you can find new abilities.
While this effectively fixes the original game’s length problem, the procedural nature of the levels tends to accentuate the replayability ones, with subsequent stages feeling too similar and thus repetitive in the long run. In addition to that, the arenas you fight in aren’t procedurally generated (only the position of the weapons and enemies is), so the repetition starts kicking even sooner, considering that there isn’t an incredibly huge number of them and all are pretty small.
CONTROL
Gameplay-wise, Mind Control Delete keeps everything intact from the previous game, polishing everything the original Superhot had to offer. Both movement and interaction with the objects and enemies are much more fluid, allowing more precise control and way more enjoyable combat experiences. This is hands-down the best set of improvements over the original game, which now feels just right, whereas the original Superhot was rather clunky.
The addition of new enemies and weapons makes the gameplay loop a little more diversified and interesting: the additions in this regard aren’t mind-blowing, but surely appreciated. NPCs like the Mushroom Red, a special kind of enemy which explodes in a hail of bullets upon death, make the player feels less secure about its control over the battlefield, forcing him to play smart around possible covers, something that wasn’t quite present in the first game.
A number of minor additions also bring some additional quality of life improvements to Mind Control Delete. One frustrating problem of the first game was enemies hitting you in the back and instantly one-shooting you: players have now 3 or more lives that are shared between combats in a node. This lessens the frustration of getting instantly killed by sneaky enemies or unseen bullets, but also makes the game more forgiving: something that the most hardcore players may not appreciate.
DELETE
Overall Mind Control Delete is a more-of-the-same game based on the Endless Mode of its predecessor. While longer than the original Superhot, it still suffers from the same repetitiveness problems, here even more prominent due to the reuse of the same arenas over and over. If you appreciated the first game it’s difficult you won’t like this one, but due to the reuse of most of the gameplay loop and the already mentioned problems, I can only advise getting Mind Control Delete on a discount.
