Our 50 best games of the year countdown isn’t in any order, we’re just going through fifty of the finest the year has given us. Find out more here.
If there’s any genre in gaming that was crying out for some innovation, it was the FPS.
For too long, we’ve stumbled our way through corridor after corridor of wave after wave of enemies, shunted from one loud explosion to the next. It had fallen into a nasty habit of oneupmanship; who can provide the loudest noises and most testosterone.
Superhot was seen as the antidote to that after a consistent level of buzz surrounded it from the moment it was unveiled at 2013’s 7 Day FPS Challenge. To the relief of many, Superhot came out and proved that it, without doubt, deserved all of its hype.
Despite the tagline centering about the game only moving when you do, Superhot’s many, many red foes creep their way around arenas very slowly, which makes for an even better proposition. Instead of staring at a static screen and plotting your next move with a warm cup of cocoa in your hand, you always have to be on the move, planning as you attack.
Adolescent fantasies of being Neo come beautifully true as you duck and weave between fire, the screen quickly filling up with red bullet trails as you work out the right strategy to take on something that seems impossible. Superhot’s greatest achievement is offering a challenge that never seems unfair or enough to turn you away for good – there’s an “equation” for every predicament.
There’s a story here, too, albeit one that is light on the ground and rather quick to conclude. Think of Superhot’s narrative as a pretext to explain how you’re able to do what you do and strap in for a wild ride of strange visuals and bizarre scenarios. The game probably could have stood on its own without it, in truth, which is evidenced by how much fun Endless mode and the challenges presented to you after you wrap up the “campaign” are.
Endless is where I’ve spent most of my time with Superhot, sinking at least half a dozen hours into beating a neverending parade of red guys for the pure thrill of it. With the ability to transfer into a different body, the gameplay takes on a new complexion – throwing a gun in the direction of your new host, making the transfer, and then snatching the weapon out of the air to continue the carnage is the stuff 80’s action films were made of. Likewise, picking up a katana and the satisfaction that comes with chopping down a screen filled with enemies never gets old. I’ve played more than my fair share of Superhot and I still feel like it has many more hours of entertainment to enthral me with.
Superhot is one of the most innovative shooters in years and is a good dog tha–SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT.SUPER. HOT.SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT.
SUPER. HOT.
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