if you guys dont buy hard reset
should just stick to consoles with your blood
vags
Duke Nukem: Forever disappointed a lot of people earlier this year. I wanted it to give me a taste of the so-called "good ol' days" of first-person shooters. To take me back to a time of super-fast action, absurdly powerful weapons, and near-endless ammo counts. Well, Duke may not have succeeded, but Hard Reset, an FPS from High Flying Hog scheduled to launch in less than two weeks, just might.
Hard Reset was only announced in July, so it hasn't had a drawn out media blitz. Instead this new team composed of ex-employees of notable studios like PeopleCanFly (Bulletstorm) and CD Projekt Red (The Witcher) is going to let their work speak for itself. And speak it does. This is a fast-paced shooter, where your character runs at the speed most games call "sprint," and shoots projectiles in bursts that make conventional automatic weapons look pathetic. A story of some sort ties it all together, but Hard Reset is all about making shooting as fun as possible.
To this end Hard Reset does its damndest to give you a lot to shoot. Just like games from decades past, it's not uncommon to walk into a large arena, have swarms of robotic enemies thrown at you, and then furiously fire your weapon in an attempt to survive. Backpedaling is a common tactic in Hard Reset, and the enemies in the demo mix up melee and ranged attacks so that you're always on the move – never comfortable. They're also aggressive and work in conjunction with one another; melee enemies charge straight at you, distracting you from the bomb robots plodding your way.
The weapons are also fun to use, both because they look great and because they offer you a variety of tactical options. You only ever have two guns, but as you find currency (called N.A.N.O.), you get upgrade points that allow you to buy modifications to your armor and weapons. Thus having two guns never means only having two types of projectiles to fire. For instance one mod might transform your normal gun into a shotgun, enabling you to quickly switch between it and a machinegun mid-fight. Yes, it's just like having a character with two separate guns, except that you'll only ever collect two types of ammo. The more powerful gun mods just use more of each ammo type, so you have to ration carefully, and know when to switch between using your energy and projectile weapons. And if you'll allow me a moment of shallowness, it looks damn cool when your gun transforms right before your eyes, too.
If the atmosphere of a game really matters to you, Hard Reset has you covered. Set in a cyber-punk world, everywhere you look you see flashing billboards, robots and other futuristic tech reminiscent of Blade Runner. The demo levels never felt particularly alive (though I suppose the fact that rampaging killer robots are stalking around explains that to a degree), but later stages could slow down the pace a bit and let you see more of what it's like to live in a world where robots and lasers are commonplace.
The story, though, comes across a bit generic so far. You play as a special sort of cop, whose job it is to kick the crap out of robots when they appear in order to protect humanity. The simple set up works to give your character motivation, but hasn't managed to engross me so far. Perhaps it develops into something crazy and awe-inspiring throughout the course of the campaign? I'm not holding my breath.
If the narrative ultimately falls flat in Hard Reset I think it'll still be ok. I wasn't smiling and tearing through levels because I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen to my character, I just wanted to get to the next sequences to blast apart some robots. The fast-paced action, fun weapons and intriguing atmosphere are enough to make me want more of what Hard Reset has to offer.