Review: Hard Reset (PC)

13 Sep, 2011

Title: Hard Reset
Platform: PC
Developer: Flying Wild Hog
Publisher: Flying Wild Hog
Tagline: Old school throwback shooter with beautiful effects and environmental kills
Family Friendly: While the game uses robots as its enemy, the game does lay out a lot of damage on your main character, and many characters are violently killed in cut scenes. Colorful language is also used throughout the title. Definitely for the 16 and up crowd as it earns its M Rating.

Hard Reset brings to mind classic shooters from days long past. I found myself reveling in the harder than normal difficulty, the idea that cover systems are for wimps, and the need to be constantly on the move in your environment to survive and to pick up health and weapons. Hard Reset does not hold your hand or pretend to be something it is not. It is a shooter to the core, and it ends far soon for you to appreciate what is happening all around you.

Hard Reset Review 1

Hard Reset takes place in the world of Bezoar City, a European location where many virtual conscripts are stored in something called The Sanctuary. You are one of the people tasked with protecting The Sanctuary from a robotic legion that for some reason wants to destroy it. Sounds like a flimsy premise? You are correct. I never could make heads or tails of the story, but to be honest, it does not really matter with Hard Reset, as the frantic gameplay more than makes up for the ruse that is called a story. This is not a negative on the game, as the game is more about the action and visual style of the locations rather than why you are doing what you are doing. Of course there are twists and turns, but none of it seems to matter. Run around, shoot a ton of robots, and continue on, until the credits roll. Yes, it is as simple as that.

Hard Reset Review 2

Hard Reset butters its bread with hardcore FPS gameplay through and through. Many times you walk into an area and you hear the sounds of mechanical enemies, but they don’t just attack one or two at a time. You will turn a corner, and are immediately overwhelmed by dozens of robots. And just when you think you have things under control, even bigger enemies will join the fray. You have to constantly be on the move, working the battlefield, collecting health scattered from the remains of enemies while making sure you are not killed in the process. You can go head first at a horde, but don’t expect to get far. Instead, Flying Wild Hog embraces the idea of using the environment to your advantage. You can use almost any electrical device in the environment to take down huge chunks of enemies. See a computer terminal on a wall? Lure the enemies in that direction; pop off a few rounds into the computer, and it turns into a Fourth of July fireworks show, overloading and destroying, mechanical nemeses.

I loved the idea of moving back to basics with Hard Reset. It eschews many of the new elements that you find in shooters of the current era. You never regenerate health, and cover does not mean anything. Sure you can maneuver around items and put yourself out of harm’s way with the environment, but most enemies will find a way to get to you. It is all about using your weapons, and environmental damage to control the scene and then picking up the pieces to replenish your ammunition and health. Hard Reset is a product of a bygone era, but it relishes in that fact and it will make you pay dearly for your mistakes.

Hard Reset Review 3

Sometimes lost in all of this is the visual flair of Hard Reset. Somebody in the art department at Flying Wild Hog spent an inordinate amount of time watching Blade Runner and reading William Gibson novels before this project, as everything is a flashback to those items. Walking around Bezoar City, the scenery oozes Los Angeles 2019 from the buildings that are awash in a neon glow, to the skyline above that has billboards on flying dirigibles. It screams of Ridley Scott’s visual masterpiece, and that is a good thing. It is so rare when a game captures that visual style and Flying Wild Hog has done a great job making me feel like I am part of that cyberpunk universe. It also brings in concepts from Johnny Mnemonic and Neuromancer with the idea of implants, neural relays and the storage of personas in a digital world. I would love to see this world expanded on with an action adventure title, because in Hard Reset, you rarely get a quiet moment to enjoy the surrounding landscape.

One design choice that I really liked was the weapons design that comes in Hard Reset. Gone are the multiple weapons that you would find in a title. Instead, technology replaces the hindrance of carrying a rocket launcher in your back pocket. You have two weapons that you carry, an energy weapon and a bullet fed gun. However, each of these can be upgraded at checkpoints around the world adding new functionality to both weapons. Your assault rifle can turn into a rocket launcher, shotgun and more by purchasing the upgrades. The same goes for your energy weapon. Once the upgrades are purchased, you just roll the mouse wheel and the gun reconfigures into the mode selected. An indicator on the left hand side of the screen tells you what mode you are in, so you are never confused as to what mode your weapon is in. Each mode can be upgraded with additional rounds of ammunition or firing modes. There is also a category to upgrade things like your stamina, shields and health. Upgrade points are earned by leveling up, and you level up by killing things. It is a simple, yet complex process that will allow you to build yourself around your weapon types. Do I want energy grenades, or the pure firepower of a rocket launcher? You decide what works best for you.

Hard Reset Review 4

Alas, the biggest problem surrounding Hard Reset is just as you start to truly appreciate the world you are in and figure out the best ways to manage the crowd, the game ending shows up out of nowhere. It is like, here are some interesting concepts, but we don’t have time for them right now. There is nothing like teasing you with something grander to come, and then whisking it away at a moment’s notice. It is always good to leave your audience wanting more, but you do not do that by ending something abruptly with no explanation as to why. It just seems like the development team was rushed with this shortened product cycle into getting the game done and had to throw out huge chunks to make its release date. I could be wrong, and that is just my perception, but I feel that there was a lot more of Hard Reset sitting on a developer’s hard drive somewhere, waiting for a later release date.

But even with the lack of a well-defined story, and a gaping hole in the plot at the end, I continue to want more from this game. I have played it several times now, and every time, I find myself enjoying it for the action and visual elements. Coming from a new developer and developed around the strengths of the PC, it is a must-have title for the fall. I do hope that Flying Wild Hog fixes elements in their pacing and story design, but when it comes to action, this title lives by it and flourishes with its old school design. Now excuse me, but I have some robots that need to be oppressed at the end of my gun.