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I’m seeing a very nice trend in today’s shooters, it’s becoming less like the “modern”, slower paced FPSs of today,where you regenerate health if you stay away from the line of fire for long enough in long, straight corridors littered with knee high walls. more and more faster paced shooters where your only line of cover is to keep dodging enemy attacks and have less realistic weapons in your arsenal. Hard Reset is the latter, and much to my amusement, I really wish more shooters follow suit.
I didn’t pay much attention to the story as it wasn’t the main focus of the game, and they were easily skippable once the game stopped loading. The game has something to do with machines taking over and humanity on the verge of extinction of some sort. Even when I tried paying attention, the story was all too confusing.
Hard Reset’s real strength is what it is actually, a fast-paced throwback to all those old first person shooters many of us grew up on and adored. Any Call of Duty FPS Hero would find themselves a little disoriented that there is no reload, you are given a number of rounds and you use them until you reach zero, once that happens, ammo slowly regenerates since there’s no melee attacks (don’t worry, the world is littered with ammo clips besides the ones dropped by the enemies that you destroy).
The weapons need a little bit of explanation, initially you switch between energy and physical based wepons through two separate buttons on the keyboard. From there, you use the mouse wheel to morph the 2 guns into different weapons, giving you a centerpoint where you can switch between weapons quickly without the need of going through a menu of any sort or carrying only 2-4 weapons at a time. There is a good variety of weapons too, you’re not stuck to 35 different variations of assault rifles that shoot and feel the same, with the occasional sniper rifle to change the monotony. Sure, you do have the “rifle”, the “shotgun” and an “RPG”, but each weapons are upgradeable with passive abilities and secondary attacks that work differently in each weapon and give you an advantage throughout the game.
Enemies attack in hordes and swarms, being infected robots, they feel no pain and don’t exactly give much of a blood spatter, they don’t seem to have any sort of “artificial intelligence” either. While they’re not exactly the brightest tools in the shed, they do give some sort of challenge with their variety, a few of them shoot from a distance while a few others attack from a close range. In case you haven’t noticed the “close range”, let me clarify by saying you will not be hiding behind cover shooting from any possible crack to protect yourself from enemy fire. You will be running around the fighting area avoiding any possible attacks, and from the amount of enemies the game throws at you, you better be nimble.
Health does not regenerate, you will need to pick up health items to replenish it, your shields on the other hand do regenerate. while this might be a hassle to some, it does increase the amount of challenge in the game and does promote exploration to find health packs besides ammo to help you in the battles to come. While the levels are somewhat linear compared to older games, they are much more expansive than your usual military shooter’s levels, in fact there’s something you don’t see in a lot of shooters anymore, secrets! For those too young to remember, secrets are hidden, little rooms or areas in the level that need a careful eye to find, finding them rewards you with weapons that you won’t access until later in the game. In Hard Reset’s case, you obtain credits to unlock more weapons and upgrades. It’s a refreshing and nostalgic change to see this in a new game rather than stride through long, winding, boring and linear corridors
While Hard Reset does seem to play a lot of things right, there are a few gripes here and there that keep it from being the godsent gem that I make it sound like. While the action is fast paced and frantic, you are stuck in fighting the all the enemies in the area in order to progress, in older games they were just obstacles in the way that can be avoided, and you were able to finish the level without shooting one bullet. Clearly this isn’t the game for speed runs, so Quake speed run fans might be a little dissapointed.
Speaking of Quake, this game does look and feel a lot like Quake 2, except I find it graphically quite pretty to today’s standards. Sure it does look like very campy, indie PC-Ass PC game (which it is) with bump maps, bloom, reflections and all that good stuff dialed up to 11, but there’s a certain elegance to it. Yes, it’s bleak with black and blue tinges, but the neon lights make this game as colorful as a REZ-esque game.
While the game is short, there is an EX Mode (New Game+) where you can start over and have all your upgrades readily available from the get go, you won’t be able to get all the upgrades from one playthrough. Hard Reset is a short, ambitious, little game that is up to its teeth with fun, if you’re fed up with modern shooters and want to play something close to those bygone years, this is worth a pick up.
What We Think: Hard Reset is awesome – In almost every way, this is how shooters should be like. It isn’t perfect, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. It’s hard to come by games that were specifically made for PC and mouse and keyboard controls, and this works on both respectively. The demo is worth checking out and the game is cheaper than your usual triple A title (full prices is $29.99 on steam).
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