Hard Reset – Demo Impressions
Much to my pleasure when i checked Steam a few days ago i saw the demo for Hard Reset sitting there in the demo section. Throughout the past couple of months iv’e been keeping my eye of this sci-fi first person shooter developed and published by Flying Wild Hog exclsuively for the PC.
To be blunt the demo really didn’t sell me on Hard Reset. But like i said it is a demo and not the entire game so take it this article with a grain of salt. The reason it didn’t sell me on it is mostly due to Hard Reset not having a soul within its gameplay.
There are a few difficulty gameplay options you can choose from in the demo like Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane. I choose normal and continued to set all of my graphical settings to max. There is also a Profile menu that keeps tracks of all of your playthrough stats like time played, deaths, achievements, enemies killed, eniviromental kills, damage done, objects destroyed and total points. There is also a area to test your PC’s benchmark, its in the Options area.
The protagonist of Hard Reset is a Corporate soldier with the name Fletcher. Fletcher’s unit’s job is to protect the Sanctuary and Corporation from maniacal robots. The guy (Fletcher) also doesn’t like to drink alone and uses a bunch of foul language. The opening cutscenes are told through voiced dialog and comicbook style pages. It is a cyber punk themed world. Its dark, dangerous and has a bunch of rough language. Hard Reset isn’t for kids<—–sarcasm. I actually did like the atmosphere and presentation of Hard Reset. The graphics are pretty good and the city’s cyber punk style definitively has a BladeRunner vibe to it.
The guns seem big (on screen) in this first person shooter. There are all types of guns but only a few are usable in the demo. There are two types of guns the N.A.G. and CLN Firearms. N.A.G. guns are outrageous guns like the Plasma Rifle, Shock Buster, Rail Gun, Electric Mortor. I personally used the Plasma Gun which fired out a rapid stream of plasma balls. It worked pretty good. The CLN Firearms are normal types of guns like the Combat Shotgun, RPG and the Grenade Launcher. I used the Assault Rifle and Grenade Launcher. All of the guns are different in attack, range and strength. You can buy specific upgrades for each gun as well. There is also Combat Gear upgrades like the Tactical Scanner, Trauma Pack and Medical Module. You can upgrade and purchase weapons at HX-10 upgrade machines.
The Retical when using the Assault rifle dictates which guns you are using. In the demo the CLN gun looked the same whether its a assault rifle or grenade launcher. The difference is how the retical displays telling you which is equipt. Hard Reset reminds me of Unreal Tournament the way the guns feel. The enemies in the demo ranged from small robots to bigger robots, thats it. Depending on which part of the demo your fighting high numbers of enemies blowing up everything around you including the robots.
N.A.N.O. is the currency of Hard Reset. You get N.A.N.O. from killing enemies and blowing up walls in the environment exposing “Secrets”. There are plenty of exploding barrels in Hard Reset often exposing secret rooms. You also use the environments to kill the robots like shooting electrical boxes near them. Its pretty simple gameplay stuff. The mission in the demo was basically just a short tutorial. Gameplay was linear with the “go here shut down this barrier” stuff. The city is pretty linear mostly small cramped alleys and walkways. Near the end of the demo you have an open area to face swarms of attacking robots but Hard Reset is a linear game in nature when its all said and done.
The demo lasts 15 minutes if that. Its a short demo that shows simple gameplay. I do like Hard Reset’s cyber punk world but the gameplay has no soul imo. I can’t pin point what this game is missing but its missing “it”. I think this is a game i would have to actually buy and play all the way through to see what its really about. So overall its a nice little sci-fi fps but alittle pedantic in some gameplay areas. Thanks for reading.
