Endless Potential
There's a moment during Superhot's (stylized as SUPERHOT) end game credits in which someone types to you "the most innovative shooter of all time." It's meant to be a self-aware jab in a game that already basks in its own meta-ness, but the Polish team behind one of the most inventive gameplay hooks in years probably believes it.
An ASCII-based interface is your first view into the stark and minimalist world of SUPERHOT. An anonymous user name suggests to you a hot new title that has cool game mechanics, and almost immediately I'm reminded of the subversive nightmare that is Pony Island. But then the proper game begins, and that comparison is immediately forgotten. A faceless entity in red stands before me, motionless. He is armed. As I move, his pistol slowly inches closer to my face, until I am prompted to knock it out of his hand, snatch it out of the air, and shoot him instead. His likeness shatters beautifully and slowly to the sound of broken glass. A deeply synthesized voice repeats "Super. Hot. Super. Hot" as a replay of the action occurs all in normal time. What follows for the next three hours is a frenetic yet calculating take on the first person shooter, requiring not precision but rather careful pacing.
Though equal parts puzzle and action, SUPERHOT never becomes a burden of its clever level design. Some levels are more difficult, sure, but with the exception of the last handful of areas, SUPERHOT's goal is straightforward. More often than not your primary goal is to eliminate a small number of red enemies before they shoot you down. One bullet is all it takes on either end, but the ability to stop time completely becomes your ultimate advantage. One of the best (and simplest) examples is the third level, which situates you and two firemen at the opposite end of a long corridor. You're unarmed, but slowly meandering forward an inch at a time allows you ample time to evade oncoming fire.
Call it a variation on "bullet time," but SUPERHOT's core gameplay mechanic is unique enough to almost make me forget the lack of any engaging story. Sure, there's the whole meta-narrative (already becoming a tired trope this year) of you operating archaic DOS menus and talking to some guy who will surely fuck you over in due time, but we're presented with this awesome world inside and no real pay off to any of it. Disappointingly, the aesthetic of SUPERHOT makes the game feel like a beta, a vague idea that isn't expanded upon in any way other than, "hey, play this cool new game, it's really innovative, because we're really self-aware, I promise." And perhaps that's the whole point, since the game literally looks like a simulation with things missing.
Had SUPERHOT benefitted from the budget of a AAA game, then we'd be potentially discussing one of the best and original games to come out this decade. Let's just hope enough people play this so that somewhere in the not too distant future a publisher with deep pockets will be able to finance what SUPERHOT could be. Until then, we're left with a pipe dream. An exceptionally well playing pipe dream.
