Hard Reset was a game that up until about two weeks ago, was logged firmly in my backlog. I was interested it its old school FPS gameplay from the first time I saw it, but like so many other games, I just never could budget the time for it. Hard to believe it’s been five years since it first came out and four years since the Extended Edition. The Extended Edition included all of the patches and balance tweaks as well as the Exile DLC that added five new levels, four new enemies, and new survival mode levels. Fast forward to last week, and we get Redux, which is based off of the Extended Edition but adds yet more content and tweaks to the game.
Having not played the original or extended versions, some of the changes in Redux are lost on me and I can only point to what I’m told by a few sources. Such details like revised enemy placement for the entire game as well as rebalanced pacing and difficulty are not something I can distinguish. Furthermore, the contents of the Exile DLC are now seamlessly integrated into the game as opposed to being content that was tacked on later.
Other more overt changes are readily apparent however, and include two major changes. The first of these is the Cyber Katana, a cool and fitting name for a weapon in a dystopian sci-fi game that is very much influenced by the classic lightsaber from Star Wars. This bad boy can make short work of most enemies in melee proximity, which, as you’ll notice early on, happens pretty often as smaller enemies tend to swarm. Another key change to the game with Redux is the ability to dash, perfect for dodging those charging robots like the Gorillas and for zipping right into the thick of things with the Cyber Katana. In sticking with the Cyber theme, a Cyber Zombie is the sole new enemy in Redux.
As far as other changes with Redux, they’re also significant: Hard Reset now runs on Flying Wild Hogs’ latest version of its 3D engine, RoadHog. This could be what Shadow Warrior 2 is being developed on, I’m not sure. I am more sure about how the game looks and plays on Xbox One though, and that is to say it looks very good, technically, and maintains a smooth frame rate. I’m less impressed with some of the art direction in a game that will likely remind you of Blade Runner from the opening moments. Dystopian future, dark rainy night in dirty metropolis, no one around other than your character and a deadly robot outbreak. Scattered about the firefight zones are numerous pickups from ammo that comes in two flavors (CLN and Energy) and healthpacks, as well as some upgrade machines at good intervals. Expect a lot of, well, I won’t say uninspired, but yet generic visuals from the big screens around the city featuring (bad) news to lots of neon signage for seedy strip clubs and the like.
Explosives and electrically-charged items are also scattered about constantly in Redux to almost a laughable degree. This game is hellbent on providing opportunities to show off its particle effects and explosive environments and to give the player lots of opportunity to thrash some robots around, and that’s cool. But the amount of explosive red barrels littered about just felt silly and like the game were trying too hard. In addition to those barrels, which are helpful in dispatching the enemy, don’t get me wrong, there are also electrical objects that you can shoot to create a cool lightning storm that zaps nearby foes. It’s a great visual effect and also a helpful aid to slow down the onslaught of enemies that come in waves during fairly predictable firefight sequences.
Pacing of Hard Reset Redux is pretty routine and predictable, but, you are playing a modern game that is more like an old school shooter than not (and there’s not a thing wrong with that). Level design for the most part is pretty flat, lots of hallways and funneling into arena type areas for combat, then pause while you fix a machine or retrieve some data or such (by pressing X), and then repeat. It’s comfortable, it’s familiar, and I’m not going to say there’s anything wrong with it because there isn’t — just know that going in and don’t expect to be pleasantly surprised at some new school elements. For me, especially after having spent a lot of time playing VR games lately, Hard Reset Redux has been a comfortable return to the familiar.
Anyway, getting back to the core game, it is based around a story, but it’s somewhat hard to follow and frankly even harder to invest in. You’re a dude, Major Fletcher, who is a CLN operative; you work for the local government or security corporation. You’re sector was breached and some robots have infiltrated and the game begins with you investigating how this happened. Before long, some trust issues arise between you and your employer thanks to the intervention of a mysterious third party, and now you’re beginning to doubt your role in this world. The story plays out via comicbook style cutscenes in between levels and you also get some intel and one-way dialog going via your commlink while in game. These messages help keep you on track with your objectives, but they’re never very complicated or out of the ordinary — power up the elevator, plant the tracking devices, collect x number of something, that type of thing. Again it’s all familiar territory, but that doesn’t make it inherently bad.
Weapon variety is definitely cool, as is the quantity — eleven total counting the new Cyber Kitana. The other ten weapons are split into two main groups, CLN and Energy, with red ammo going to the former and blue to the latter. CLN, the corporate or entity that you’re working for, has traditional weapons — assault rifle, shotgun, grenades, while Energy weapons include your plasmas, a railgun, and cool-looking lighting attacks like the generically-named Blaster that is like a short-range chained lightning attack. Secondary fire options add more intrigue to these weapons, and don’t forget some other goodies like the blackhole grenade which creates a mini blackhole to pull bad guys into oblivion, pretty awesome. The variety of weapons is nice, but oddly the appearance of these weapons are all based upon the default CLN and Energy weapons. When you change between them, you’ll see the gun do a small transformation to show it’s in the different mode. It’s feels a little bit like cutting corners, but, at the same time it kinda makes sense for a futuristic sci-fi game and it also helps explain the upgrade terminals you purchase weapon upgrades at. Anyway, the issue of appearance and believability is not much of an issue, but weapon-switching and the impact of these weapons is.
Weapon-switching is pretty clumsy in that you can either pause all of the action by pressing and holding left bumper while you cycle through what you have, or you can press left and right on the d-pad. Given the fast paced, room-filling frenzy of most of the encounters, it’s a letdown to have to halt the game just to change weapons. Furthermore, knowing which weapon you’re selecting is not as easy as it should be thanks to a faint visual cue that should have had higher contrast or some animation to make it instantly clear which gun you’re currently hovered over with the right stick. Using the d-pad is a little better, but still felt slow and it forces you to buy time taking extra steps around the enemy so you can select the specific weapon you want at the moment.
As far as weapon impact, part of this is a sight/sound issue, but I thought that several weapons lacked a good, visceral punch. The standard assault rifle for example looks too blocky and just didn’t feel or sound like it had enough punch behind it to make it very memorable. The railgun on the other hand, while not looking all that good, does pack a wallop and it felt more like the railguns from Quake II and III, which I’m not likely to ever forget. Of course, your preferences and mileage are likely to vary.
On the whole, Hard Reset Redux is a very competent and enjoyable old school shooter on a new school engine. The changes in Redux are significant between the previously released original and Extended Edition, and giving current-gen console players a go at it is a welcomed move. If you played Hard Reset before, there may not be quite enough here to make a return, but if you’re otherwise down for a good FPS experience, this is a pretty solid choice.
