I remember how cool I thought SUPERHOT was when it first came out on macOS and PC. The idea of first person shooter meets puzzler isn’t new as there have been other great games before it like Portal, but none of them were in VR. The idea of the SUPERHOT series is simple: time only moves when you do. The game has a story, but it’s weird and light with the campaign consisting of rapid fire mini sequences.
Each level is a quick battle where a single enemy punch, bullet, knife, or throwing star will instantly kill you—and there are a lot of enemies. In fact, there are so many enemies charging at you in each battle that if this were a regular FPS you’d be dead in seconds. But this isn’t a regular FPS, this is SUPERHOT, and time is on your side should you choose to use it wisely.
Every enemy encounter is different and while the enemies are the same, their positions, numbers, and starting proximity from you are different. In the PSVR version they’ll come at you from the left, right, and front since Sony’s headset loses track of you if you turn around. I found it best to start every encounter by scanning 180 degrees to see if anything is flanking me from the sides because I died numerous times from not checking. You’ll get various weapons to deal damage like throwing stars, bottles, a bat, and various types of guns. It’s quite a rewarding feeling to punch someone in the face, grab their gun in mid-air, and shoot the another guy charging at you. It’s an even more badass feeling to slice a bullet in half with a sword as it sales mere inches from your head.
There are many killer moments where I feel like I’m straight out of the Matrix and there are other moments where I’m yanked back into reality and reminded that I’m playing a game on a VR headset with mediocre tracking capabilities. This game requires precise movements and, well, movement in general makes the game push forward. You can imagine then, how frustrating it can be when the camera loses track of your hand(s) and does it’s best to guess where they are which registers as a move. The biggest gripe I have with SUPERHOT VR is it’s save system. Each level is broken down into five or so segments and if you die during any one of these, you have to repeat them all over from the beginning. It’s pretty easy to die as the game is one hit kill and while replaying segments isn’t a deal breaker, it is highly annoying.
Even with the minor technical issue and irritating save structure aside, SUPERHOT VR is everything I hoped it would be—giving me the chance to be immersed in the original SUPERHOT but as great as it is, it’s not PlayStation VR’s killer app. Even still, there are plenty of great titles for it like Resident Evil VII, Job Simulator, and more. I can confidently say SUPERHOT VR is now among them.
