Hard Reset is a fast-paced indie shooter with beautiful visuals and an interesting cyberpunk setting. Perhaps what was most impressive about the game was the fact that the presentation was so top-notch and attention to detail so good that it didn't even feel like an indie game. As many would admit, the visual aesthetics are really stunning (even on low graphics settings) and the environments are atmospheric.
The gameplay itself is quite straight-forward. You go round from area to area, fighting off groups of robots, and then upgrading to new weapons and facing a bigger challenge. Although this may seem repetitive, I personally have had a lot of fun, because there was a very decent variety between the different weapons. You have two types: the ballistics type (rifles, rocket launchers, etc) and the energy type (plasma guns, electric blasters, etc). Each type had 5 different weapons you could acquire through upgrading, so that's 10 weapons in total really, plus each weapon had two different firing modes, so in a way you have up to 20 different ways to kill the enemies. And it's not like all the weapons are similar. Each and every weapon could be useful in specific situations, for example electric blaster could make a short work of hoardes of smaller enemies, smartgun was great for small gunships which could move in the air quickly and dodge regular projectiles, whereas bigger enemies like bosses would require you to use charging plasma projectiles or maybe even the rocket launcher. I personally found myself using every single weapon at some point.
The combat in general was a little more engaging than what you might expect. There were a lot of destructible and explosive objects in the environment, so using environmental kills was highly encouraged throughout pretty much the entire game, which was a really nice touch, because many games of this style tend to suffer from the lack of this feature. There were some interesting boss fights which were pretty challenging. In fact the whole game was challenging, but it has 4 difficulty modes, and Easy difficulty is really suitable for someone who wishes a more casual approach to the game.
As for story, many would say it's nothing too special, but it did add some spice to the game, and the comic-book style cutscenes in between the missions were a really nice addition in my opinion. Admittedly the game isn't very long. It took me about 7 hours to complete the original game plus the Exile DLC, but this is pretty standard for single player FPS games, plus the game was fun enough and I am sure I will be back to it again in the future, especially that there are plenty of Steam achievements to get. And speaking of DLC, I thought it was really decent that the DLC was actually free and comes together with the original game at no extra charge. Now this shows that the developers are really passionate about delivering a good, satisfying game to the fans and not for dishing out extra cash.
My score: 9/10
Really good FPS. It has it's flaws but it's worth at least 8/10 score without any doubt. I just hope that Flying Wild Hog sold enough to create a sequel or something else.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree. I was kind of surprised that it didn't have that high of a Metascore. Perhaps it was based on the length of the game prior to the expansion's release. And yep, I too hope there'll be a sequel, because they left the story on a bit of a cliffhanger.
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