Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fall into a black hole? If so, Hyper Demon is a game for you. Playing it is like dancing on reality’s edge. Perspective, time and space all break down as you push past the limits of conventional shoot ‘em ups, leaving their corridors, cover and combat in the dust. It’s fundamentally about chasing high scores and slaying monsters, something games have done since their inception, but like best-in-class high score chasers Thumper and Tetris Effect, its execution transforms this template into something dreamlike. Edge magazine might never have bothered to ask “if only you could talk to these creatures” had the violence in 1994’s shooters felt as transcendent as it does in Hyper Demon.
