If nothing else, playing sci-fi shooter Hard Reset
taught me this: We're all totally screwed. When our toasters someday
gain sentience and machines rise up to crush their human oppressors,
we'll get carved up like soft, squishy pot roasts. Pairing the cool
cyberpunk vibe of Blade Runner with the classic run-and-gun action of
Doom, this crazy first-person shooter illustrates two things with
horrifying precision: 1) robots are not your friends, and 2) given the
opportunity, they'll rip your limbs off and stomp your entrails into a
fine bloody paste.
In the year 2436, the futuristic Bezoar City relies on soldiers from The Corporation to keep the peace. As a grizzled vet trying to enjoy a drink at the local bar after a long shift, your day gets a lot hairier when a rogue A.I. breaks its limiter and sends a throng of pissed-off automatons rampaging through the streets to shred civilians. You get called in to make things go boom. I find Hard Reset's "less plot, more ridiculous explosions and killer robots" approach refreshingly old-school; the sci-fi setup is slick but straightforward, and it does the trick just fine.
In the year 2436, the futuristic Bezoar City relies on soldiers from The Corporation to keep the peace. As a grizzled vet trying to enjoy a drink at the local bar after a long shift, your day gets a lot hairier when a rogue A.I. breaks its limiter and sends a throng of pissed-off automatons rampaging through the streets to shred civilians. You get called in to make things go boom. I find Hard Reset's "less plot, more ridiculous explosions and killer robots" approach refreshingly old-school; the sci-fi setup is slick but straightforward, and it does the trick just fine.
Hard Reset's dark, oppressive cityscape teems with psychotic droids to massacre, and the buggers aren't shy about popping up out of nowhere to try to eat your face off. Developer Flying Wild Hog nails the pacing here: With little downtime between tense encounters that send you backpedaling to stay alive, the frenetic shooter action is a nonstop adrenaline rush of flying debris, face-melting explosions, and wayward bullet fire. Much of Hard Reset sends you blasting a semi-linear, forward-plodding path through tight alleys, subterranean passageways, factory buildings, and garbage-strewn streets. The cold city environments bristle with the neon glow of future-tech, and the impressive game engine showcases just how far the PC has outstripped aging current-gen consoles in the visual department. But, as beautiful as the well-designed locations are, the real fun comes from blowing them to smithereens.
You can't blink in this game without something exploding and flinging burning shrapnel in all directions. Cars, machinery, barrels, boxes, you name it: Almost all of it can be ignited with great ease. I love the way the stage designs encourage you to use the volatile nature of each environment to wipe out large numbers of foes (and yourself on occasion) in one fell swoop. Both of your dual primary weapons -- a standard bullet-firing assault rifle and a sci-fi energy blaster -- can be enhanced using credits, to beef up their robot-thrashing potential. While some upgrades are less flashy (I'm looking at you, crappy grenade launcher), freezing enemies in place or frying them to bits with a close-range spray of arc lightning feels very satisfying.
Though they fly apart in little pieces as you whittle away at them, the robotic foes aren't pushovers. They attack from all sides and with such staggering ferocity that the ultra-violence of their assault is jarring, and some keep coming even after you blow their legs off. Even with a high-powered arsenal at my disposal, I still struggled through the normal difficulty mode, clinging to life by a shred. For me, it made the experience all-the-more thrilling and intense; getting mobbed by a throng of ankle-biters with whirling blades attached to their head is heart-pounding stuff, but the real fear sets in with the more aggressive adversaries. The sight of heavily armored droids charging at me like crazed quarterbacks sent me spewing curses and running for cover more often than I'd care to admit. Dozens of times, I watched helplessly as they cornered me and pummeled my corpse until the screen splattered crimson from my mangled innards. I was dead. They kept pounding away regardless. These bastards want to rip you apart in the most painful way imaginable; it's a little unsettling.
I have no problem with the straightforward simplicity of Hard Reset's hyperkinetic robotic slaughterfest. Running around sending demon-machines to the scrap heap yields a gorgeous and destructive romp that's a prime example of old school PC gaming ideologies, alive and well in modern times. But while the game's raw, visceral action burns hot and bright, it fizzles far too soon. It takes four or five hours at best to blast through Hard Reset from start to finish, and the story fumbles just as things get interesting. That's not a dealbreaker. though; the gameplay is tight and punchy, and the overall experience is so well-crafted that it's worth soaking up every last insane moment.
