Hard Reset: Extended Edition Review

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It’s great to find a game that doesn’t mess around. Hard Reset takes no shit and drops you straight in the action. This Cyberpunk-style First Person Shooter is an action-packed, single player shooter with some mindless over-the-top destruction: and it’s a hell of a ride.

Hard Reset has been developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Kalypso Media. You take on the role of Major Fletcher, a soldier with some mercenary group or another, who has the task of protecting the last human city on the planet. Fletcher has to fight off tons of machines as they try and take over Bezoar where billions of digitized human minds are kept on “The Sanctuary” network. If you have ever played titles like ‘Serious Sam’ and ‘Duke Nukem’ you will have a good idea of what to expect. This game is quite simple. You get a huge gun and told where to go while shooting down hordes of nasty enemies along the way.

This game is solely a single player experience. There is no multiplayer here, so all the effort has been pumped into a decent story mode. As you begin the single player campaign, you are faced with a comic-style cut scene that explains the basic plot and storyline. The storyline is there, but most of the emphasis is aimed at having fun. So much so, I often had to remind myself what exactly I was doing here. You immediately notice the fantastic graphics. They are real sexy and certainly made my jaw drop. Ok, so I have a really expensive PC and yes that helps, but I am sure they will look just as good on your average system. They are crisp and full of detail. The enemies are all nicely drawn and animated. The explosions look amazing and are vibrant and full of colour. This matched with the fantastic sound effects makes for a fantastic experience.

I have played so many games recently where the graphics have been sub-standard so it is nice to find some good stuff after so long. Hard Reset has loads of explosions and I mean loads. There are barrels of explosives littered all over the place. You often find yourself luring the enemies towards a stack of barrels, before you let loose and watch them all explode and destroy about ten enemies at once. The sound effects roar and your sub-woofer shakes the whole room. The only minor issue I have with this game is that because there is so much going on graphically when you are shooting the bad guys, you sometimes can’t see if you are actually shooting at an enemy or if you are shooting at a wall. It’s quite hard to explain fully what I mean here. You will need to play the game to find out. However, this doesn’t ruin the game in any way.

The gameplay and controls focus on strafing and quick reflexes rather than cover and tactics. Enemies fly at you with reckless abandon. It’s almost like a game of chicken. You very rarely find yourself needing to hide behind cover. You quite simply charge at anything that moved and hope for the best. There is a survival game mode as well, so you can see just how long you last with a constant flow of enemies hurtling towards you.

In this Extended Edition, you also get some extra goodies. You have four new creature types, a new boss monster, five new campaign levels, with a total of about 3 additional hours playtime, as well as two new levels for the survival mode and an improved engine.

If you have not guessed yet, I love this game. I have already spent a long time playing it and I will defiantly be returning. I have even started again on a higher difficulty setting, it’s that addictive. As I have already said, if you like the ‘Serious Sam’ series then this is a game you will love.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.

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