Review: Hard Reset
By Kyle Mann | September 9, 2011 | Reviews | 2 comments | Share
A Game of Great Pedigree
It’s easy to get excited looking at the list of games Flying Wild Hog’s team members have worked on before debut title Hard Reset: Painkiller, that Doom-meets-Serious Sam cult classic from a few years back. The Witcher series, a huge catalyst for the revival of the cRPG genre and a great set of games in their own right. And of course Bulletstorm, the arcade shooter that hit earlier this year. The evidence of many of these games’ influence runs through the DNA of Hard Reset, and the game easily satisfies with its frenetic firefights. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make a few missteps along the way though.
Retro Rampage
Hard Reset follows a paper-thin plot surrounding a war between humans and machines, which really is just an excuse to throw the player in a cyberpunk setting to blow up some robots. Honestly, I’m okay with that. Gamers get to select between a plasma rifle and a traditional projectile gun, each with five different configurations (and most of those with two modes each). Allowing players to pick up XP for defeating enemies and discovering secreat areas, the game then provides a wide range of upgrades and weapons to purchase at periodic terminals. The setting, while by no means original, is well done and provides an ideal backdrop for making things go boom.
And will things ever go boom: environmental damage and destruction are keys to surviving the mad rushes of enemies. Thankfully, the developers have liberally sprinkled explosive barrels, volatile cars, and destructible machinery across the game’s city streets. It’s really quite the spectacle to fend of a couple dozen madly rushing robots as the scenery crumbles around you, exploding in brilliant balls of fire and deadly fingers of electricity.
While shooters have been pushing for a more cinematic experience in recent years, Hard Reset flies in the face of all that with level design and mission structure that would feel at home in Quake II moreso than in Modern Warfare. Secret areas, limited backtracking, scripted enemy waves, and fetch-the-red-key style quests pack out the game’s content from the opening comic book sequence to the ending credits. These are not complaints: the throwbacks to shooters of yore are warmly welcomed as refreshment in a desert of tired Call of Duty clones.
While I mentioned Doom as an influence, it’s less of the creepy crawly survival experience of that classic game, and more of the backpedal-shoot-rinse-repeat formula of the Serious Sam franchise. Flying Wild Hog is more than happy to sadistically throw a half dozen waves of enemies at the player at a time. A good rule of thumb is to remember that when you think it’s over, you have one or two groups of murder machines left to destroy.
A Glitch in the System
Unfortunately, the game deserves a fair bit of criticism for the implementation and execution of its ideas. While I wish I could sing its praises all day, some mechanical problems gunk up the otherwise joyful experience: the dual-weapon system hampers player reaction time, since switching from, say, the grenade launcher to the railgun takes two button presses instead of one. Furthermore, the game prevents the player from switching weapons during a one or two second cooldown time after firing a gun. This can lead to some frustration and a quick death as the player frantically flips through the inventory, looking for the right firearm for the job.
These deaths wouldn’t be such a big deal if the game allowed saving at any point, but alas, no quicksave feature was implemented. Instead, we’re treated to a horribly conceived checkpoint system that records progress at erratic intervals. It’s so bizarre that a game clearly designed with PC gamers in mind wasn’t given such an option. While not every game needs or benefits from quicksave, the sometimes long and arduous gap between checkpoints would have been alleviated with a simple save-anywhere function. I’m not sure if this sort of thing can be patched into a game, but if it can, this should be the first thing on the developer’s to-patch list.
Picturesque Cybperpunk City
Flying Wild Hog whipped up a brand new graphics engine, Road Hog, for the game. It’s no Unreal 3 or even Source, but it does a serviceable job of bringing the cyberpunkage to life. Plenty of graphical options abound, the control settings are plentiful, and it scales fairly well to older hardware. You won’t be mistaking the visuals for The Witcher 2 any time soon, but the bright, crisp visuals deliver an unobtrusive gaming experience to the player. Enemies, powerups, ammo, and health are clearly marked and highlighted by the highly saturated visuals.
The engine has an odd habit of serving up just a touch of mouse lag, a problem I encountered on both PCs I tried the game on. With some tweaking, the issue’s effects can be mostly neutralized, but it was still an annoyance for a PC-only game. Still, I’m really excited to see what Flying Wild Hog will be able to do with this engine after Hard Reset: it’s gorgeous, it’s built and well optimized for the PC, and it’s got tons of potential for their future games.
A Short, Lonely Trek
Some games scream, “Multiplayer!” but the request goes unanswered. Hard Reset is one such game: the Doom-style play will have you itching for co-op or tight deathmatch maps, but the game is singleplayer only for the time being. It’s really a missed opportunity, so let’s hope Flying Wild Hog wises up and delivers some time in the future. Anyone who’s romped through Serious Sam‘s bloody arenas knows that backpedaling away from countless waves of enemies is made all the better with a pal at your side. And deathmatch would have been served by the game’s plentiful weapons and combat options nicely.
The campaign clocks in about six hours, depending on the difficulty (which can only be ratcheted down, not up) but features a nice progression of difficulty and varied enemy design. It’s sad that it’s over so fast, and I’d recommend waiting for a price drop if you’re not wild for this type of game. $15-$20 would probably be right for the content on offer, but it’s hard to drop a full $30 for a shorter game with little replay value.
Conclusion
Despite a few problems–a clunky weapons system, backwards checkpointing, and a short campaign with no multiplayer–the developers’ talent and experience shine through in the final product. Hard Reset is a fun diversion and a niche, unique experience. It’s a definite recommendation for fans of the genre, specifically those who loved Painkiller and games of its type. Still, with a little extra time in development, it could have been so much more.
Hard Reset hits Steam on September 13.
Score: 7/10 | Read our Scoring Policy |
realy good review! I think that I would give it 7.5/10 or even 8/10
@AramilSiandol - Thanks. I could definitely see 7.5 or 8, depending on taste.