SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE

Positive things about MCD: - it's still very fun to throw knives, katanas, skulls at enemies - hacks are a new fun addition considering you have to play for a minimum of 5 levels in a row on one life to complete a "node" - still the core gameplay loop is fun until....... Cons - .......boss enemies come up, they are bascially Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 with one magical ability like dashing to your position through walls (now you can say you didn't see that death coming). They should just make them tougher versions of regular enemies. After few encounters you will get accustomed to their bulls**t factor but for me they break the flow of the game. Instead on focusing on solving the current killing puzzle you just have to run away from them basically - level randomness was at first glance fun but after 50 or so levels all of the flaws were apparent. The starting position can get you killed or force you to loose a heart. You are bascially playing the same few stages with additional hazards thrown in at later stages and couple of different enemies. The idea behind it was good but the execution is just bland and lazy - few bugs here and there - that one stage where it morphs your vision. It was physically painful to play - the story is more pretentous than in the last game. It searves a purpose of hindering your enjoyment. Story highlighst are: - taking away control from you for several minutes - forcing you to walk painfully slow through the same "corridor" for like the 10th time for the sake of the "story". Story is shallow btw - at some point the game is forcing you to choose a "mode" upgrade to play with (sucks if you wanted to play another mode) - takes away your hacks for the sake of proving a point to play an endurance round. So the game gives you fun toys to play and it takes them away.......FUN - THE ENDING - just pure [profanity filter]

As a fan of the first Superhot, I really tried to like MCD but man... it's not great. IMO, the procedural bits (the main new thing) destroyed what made Superhot awesome. The structure of the game consists in advancing in a path (imagine something like a Mario overworld map). You play the levels in "blocks", where the scenarios/enemy spawn positions/items are randomized, resetting every time you die without beating every level of the block. There aren't a lot of scenarios and, because of the procedural nature, levels never feel planned like they felt in the original game. When you progress, the blocks increase in length and complexity and you are constantly encouraged to play safe, because of the random enemy spawns and punishment for losing. There are some cool new things: The hacks introduce cool modifiers to the gameplay and the katana recovery skill is awesome, but they aren't able to keep the game from getting repetitive and overcomplicated in the later levels. The story keeps telling you "HERE, MORE SUPERHOT!!! ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU WANT YOU PIECE OF ****?" but after 5 hours of doing basically the same thing over and over, without any of the great levels/setpieces of the first game, I've had enough.

I think the devs ambitions for a bigger sequel were well-placed. More levels, more weapons, more interactable objects, more enemy types, longer game time, you get the picture. All of which are welcome and appreciated if only in a limited capacity. I say that because the level design has changed from clearing rooms of all enemies with set paths to randomly generated levels with enemies spawning from anywhere on the map. The latter are presented gauntlet style for each "node" or set of levels with 5-15 levels each. Death anywhere in the node is a restart from the beginning until you reach the end. I didn't mind this change for the majority of my time with the game. To me, it made encounters more dynamic and unpredictable. The new enemy types adds to the unpredictablity, for better or worse. It only started to wear thin towards the end with longer stretches of levels forcing restarts more often than not. The new gimmick of hacks - random upgrades given within a node - are helpful in one breath and useless in another. You'll have a large pool of abilities unlocked halfway through the game, but you may not see them utilized more than a handful of times between nodes. Some like health pickups (which you have 2-3 HP now in each node) become essential in the randomness of the levels. Others - like being able to stomp on enemies by jumping - are cool but too niche to be helpful in levels. Story is much the same thematically as the first game. I won't bother too much with analyzing its meaning or implications. Still very meta, self-referential, and not necessary to enjoy what is on offer here. If you don't mind the more mindless (no pun intended) gameplay here with increased goodies and mini-areas to play with then this can kill some time for you. I did receive this for free so that does factor into my review. Still more or less satisfied with my time.

It's Superhot roguelike edition. I guess the core gameplay is still good but the unlocks are few and far in-between. I've seen about 5 level types and 2 different enemey designs for the 5-6 hours I played. It got boring real fast.