Superhot VR is accessible to almost anyone with a VR headset! It’s available for HTC Vive, Oculus, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality, and PSVR headsets (including the Oculus Quest). Not only that, but Superhot VR is safe for almost anyone susceptible to motion sickness or those who become disoriented when movement is simulated in VR games, as the game does not include any simulated movement. The only movement is your physical movement!
For those of you who don’t know what Superhot is, it’s a game where time only moves when you move. It’s heavily combat based, and could technically be considered a first-person shooter. Despite this, in the original Superhot game, it’s possible to complete it without even touching a gun. This can be done if you can dodge enemy bullets well enough and get close enough to your enemies in order to attack them with melee weapons.
A single bullet or a single hit from an enemy is enough to kill you. With that said, enemies are weak and can also be killed by a single hit from a weapon, a single bullet from a gun or even a punch. For that reason, you’re always outnumbered and outgunned, as otherwise, you’d have an advantage that would make the game far too easy. Superhot was the game that made you feel like Neo Anderson dodging bullets in The Matrix. Superhot VR is that but in Virtual Reality.
You can do some rather amazing things in Superhot VR. You don’t only dodge bullets, but you can also block them with nearby items or slice them mid-air with a blade. Out of bullets? You can throw that gun right at the enemy for an instant kill. Mid-way through the game, you even unlock a beam power. Use this to cause an enemy to explode after a few seconds.
The power to cause people to explode sounds pretty cool, right? You have to be careful when using it though, because while you’re using it, time will continue moving, meaning that enemies will try to shoot you. This ability has a cooldown time, indicated by your hands, which will start to look unstable and glitchy. Once they look normal again, you’ll be able to use this special ability again.
Superhot VR is a lot shorter than the original Superhot, being approximately one hour in length, but it’s arguably more fun because it’s in virtual reality. The game also includes multiple challenge modes that you can play once you’ve finished the main campaign:
- Speedrun Real Time: Basically just standard time trial mode.
- Speedrun Game Time: Another time trial mode, but in this one, the clock only moves when time moves in-game, meaning it only moves when you move.
- No Death: A challenge mode that ends and brings you back into the main lobby if you die even once.
- Headshots Only: You can only kill enemies by shooting them in the head (or punching them in the head, or hitting them in the head with a melee weapon. You get the point).
Endless Mode: Choose from one of 5 different maps that were not included in the campaign and fight an endless wave of enemies. You get teleported to different parts of the map after defeating a certain amount of enemies. - Hardcore Mode: Time moves twice as fast when you’re moving, so try not to move too much. Give yourself some time to think, and plan out how you’re going to beat the levels, otherwise, it’ll be over before you can even blink.
Something else to note is that the graphics of the game aren’t super impressive. The main lobby looks realistic, but the game itself uses low-poly humanoid models with blank red textures. In the original game, it’s stated that “graphics aren’t important”, or something like that, implying that the developers don’t care about graphics, as long as their game is fun, and can tell its story well enough, and to be fair, it worked pretty well. Still, I felt that the game definitely isn’t very immersive due to the low quality of its graphics.
Considering the length of Superhot VR, my rating of this game is;
SUPERHOT VR – WAIT FOR SALE
I’d recommend waiting until it’s on sale before buying it, or, at the very least, buying one of the two bundles that it’s included in, so that you’ll get it, along with the original Superhot (and possibly the sequel, depending on which bundle you choose) at a discounted price. Despite my rating, I do highly recommend this game to anyone who has VR. It has one of the coolest mechanics in any game ever made, and it’s really fun to feel like a bullet dodging badass in VR. It’s just that the price is offputting for the amount of content. If you’ve got a headset, and you haven’t played this game, you’re seriously missing out on one hell of an experience.
Superhot VR can be bought on Humble Bundle or Steam for PC.
Enjoy Virtual Reality games with combat you have to think about? How about taking a look at Shadow Uprising? It’s a stealth virtual reality game where you play as a cyborg ninja.
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Shattered Sans is not a picky gamer – he particularly enjoys RPGs, puzzles and open world games but is open to games of all genres. He used to write reviews for the fun of it, but stopped due to other commitments. No longer a member of the NookGaming team.