In super hexagon we become part of a larger body, where the central hexagon's beats become the heart of all.
Everything in the game revolves around this hexagon, even the player, it marks the rhythm of life, with every mutation the whole universe changes.
When did a game strip away the player of the arrogance they're so comfortable in?
There is only one circle in super hexagon, everything is made of angles, this circle is drawn by the player's movements, that incessantly dances around the circle, as a planet in orbit.
Yes, it is an entrancing experience, in a way, and that comes with dangers, but it is one that goes against the zeitgeist of empowering the player, of making them come over and over again.
Super hexagon has no time for lies, no time for you, it is an entity that lives on its own and you can try to be part of it for a brief time, and when it works, when you are in tune to this larger than life being, even if it's a second, you successfully are inhabiting a place, becoming something else.
"To become something else" is such a well-known idea in videogames by now, it seems: become spider man, become Link, become this or the other; but no game explores the idea like super hexagon, and no game shows that becoming something else, while still being yourself, is not exactly something that you can achieve with the pulse of a button, but only temporarily and, shit, almost painfully.
The hard-edged critic, December 2019