Blowing up Robots rarely felt so Good
My very first gaming experience was Doom at the tender age of 5. I remember watching my brother play it before taking a seat myself and becoming utterly enthralled. It's because of Doom and that formative experience that I have a soft spot for retro shooters where circle-strafing is a valuable skill, enemies just bum rush and battles tend to devolve in knocking out enemies in a set pattern to better manage it. Hard Reset is exactly that layered with great cyperpunk trappings, a great looking world, enemies that explode wondrously and a superb shotgun.
The story is nonsense. Something about last human city and robots. It's not the reason to play the game. You have two guns each with five fire options that can be upgraded with NANO (of course) found in the world or hidden away or earned by destroying robots. Starting with the default machine gun or plasma rifle isn't too flashy, but soon you're launching grenades of the explosive and electrical kind. Shocking enemies with a Tesla coil like shotgun, sniping through walls with a rail rife and each weapon has a secondary fire option that can drastically change the flow of the battle. Each battle is its own brutal dance lighted with explosions and the sound of grating metal. Throw in environment kills from exploding cars or carefully placed traps and, well, it's a fun game.
Exhausting as well. I couldn't play more than one level at a time before becoming fatigued from the constant need to run and gun.
For such a dark world there is so much color in it. Neon signs light up every street and alley, vending machines spring to life as you walk by promising a 20% discount, propaganda posters warning against STDs and infiltration through bad augment implants are plastered against walls in the dozens, and the many blue hued objects just asking to be shot and unleash electricity on your enemies are never in short supply. Even the guns are wonderfully animated and a delight to look at. The fully upgraded plasma rifle is an intricate thing to behold. Flying Wild Hog clearly has an eye for detail and it shows. The world is just gorgeous overall and the cyberpunk aesthetic reminds me of the late 90's in a way that only Vampire the Masquerade rule books can approach.
Sitting at just under 10 hours with the so-so DLC played on hard, Hard Reset is a roller coaster that shoots up with such force that it may shatter your neck. This is a game that does what it set out to do and does it extremely well. If you're down for a shooter that feels like it came out of a world that never moved passed the late 90's except for graphics and a few other details than Hard Reset is a great time.