SUPERHOOK

Although it’s difficult to innovate in a genre like FPS, there are still new ideas flooding the industry on a regular basis, even if most are just trying to copy more popular titles. Hence, SUPERHOT managed to change things around quite a bit, which is why it attracted so many players in spite of being a relatively low-budget game with a small development team behind it.

SUPERHOOK borrows many of its ideas from SUPERHOT, given the fact that slow motion is still the centerpiece of the game. However, there are some gameplay differences as well, such as the fact that you can use a hook to fly around the levels with ease. Unfortunately, the mechanics are not as polished this time around, so you should be prepared to deal with some frustration.

To begin with, your guns only hold one or two bullets, which is pretty strange, but then again this is designed to test your skills. Hence, you have to hook weapons away from enemies as well, after which you only get one or two shots to take them down while also avoiding their bullets. In case it’s too late to dodge, the main character is actually able to punch bullets back and score a few kills this way as well.

As mentioned before, the mechanics are not very polished, so most of the time you are assaulted from every direction, and the hook does not always work as intended. Thus, it’s a bit too slow and unpredictable, which is not what you want when everything depends on your reflexes. Even so, you can learn to cope with these shortcomings if you really want to give the game a go.

There are plenty of levels to keep you busy, and most of them require a lot of practice in order to be completed. The graphics are nothing out of the ordinary either, but the low-poly style suits the game perfectly, and it doesn’t really have an impact on the atmosphere as a whole. The sound effects could use more work, on the other hand, because some of them do not belong at all.

In the end, the hook is what makes SUPERHOOK different from SUPERHOOK, but since it doesn’t work that well most of the time, this feature is not exactly groundbreaking. Even so, there’s plenty of fun to be had here if you are a patient gamer.