- May 20, 2010
- 4,020
- 1
- 81
Being a big fan of old-school style shooters like Serious Sam and Painkiller, Hard Reset is a game I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately this game has some rather serious flaws. First the good news.
This game is great looking, and being a PC exclusive takes it advantage of having a good PC. Very nice lighting, textures, and models. The futuristic theme is fantastic. The enemy types while not too varied are well designed and interesting to look at. The game has an interesting weapon system where by you have the same 2 weapons for the duration of the game, and can buy various addons and upgrades at upgrade stations around the world. It doesn't always work great, but it's pretty interesting none the less.
Now where I feel this game really falls down. Quite simply; the level design. The thing that makes games like Serious Sam and Painkiller great is fighting hoards and hoards of enemies in big open arenas. Hard Reset on the other hand simply doesn't give you enough room to maneuver. Very often they will put you into a small area, shut the door behind you, and then swarm you from all directions. Due to how small most of the areas are you try to back away from, or strafe around the enemy and end up backed into a wall or into some piece of junk in the environment.
Another issue with the game is that everything is exploding constantly. They have littered the entire game with red exploding barrels and environmental hazards like nobody's business. What this is meant to do is give you a way of killing your enemy using the environment (the game even tracks "environmental" kills). More often than not however I found myself repeatedly being blown up by accidentally shooting some explosive object I couldn't see through (a) my own gunfire and (b) the hoards of enemies. I'm all for explosive barrels, but in this game it's just too much.
As for story it might as well not exist. What little story there is, is convoluted. It's all told though comic book style cut-scenes that just drone on and on for far too long. The dialogue is dry and painful to listen to.
For what it's worth I did play this game beyond the original ending, and only gave up in the DLC area. At that point the swarming and small arenas really got obnoxious, and the sparse checkpoint system didn't help either. At the end of the day it was worth $4 I spent. It's an interesting game, and nice to see a PC exclusive with nice production value. It's just unfortunate that it can also be very aggravating at times.
This game is great looking, and being a PC exclusive takes it advantage of having a good PC. Very nice lighting, textures, and models. The futuristic theme is fantastic. The enemy types while not too varied are well designed and interesting to look at. The game has an interesting weapon system where by you have the same 2 weapons for the duration of the game, and can buy various addons and upgrades at upgrade stations around the world. It doesn't always work great, but it's pretty interesting none the less.
Now where I feel this game really falls down. Quite simply; the level design. The thing that makes games like Serious Sam and Painkiller great is fighting hoards and hoards of enemies in big open arenas. Hard Reset on the other hand simply doesn't give you enough room to maneuver. Very often they will put you into a small area, shut the door behind you, and then swarm you from all directions. Due to how small most of the areas are you try to back away from, or strafe around the enemy and end up backed into a wall or into some piece of junk in the environment.
Another issue with the game is that everything is exploding constantly. They have littered the entire game with red exploding barrels and environmental hazards like nobody's business. What this is meant to do is give you a way of killing your enemy using the environment (the game even tracks "environmental" kills). More often than not however I found myself repeatedly being blown up by accidentally shooting some explosive object I couldn't see through (a) my own gunfire and (b) the hoards of enemies. I'm all for explosive barrels, but in this game it's just too much.
As for story it might as well not exist. What little story there is, is convoluted. It's all told though comic book style cut-scenes that just drone on and on for far too long. The dialogue is dry and painful to listen to.
For what it's worth I did play this game beyond the original ending, and only gave up in the DLC area. At that point the swarming and small arenas really got obnoxious, and the sparse checkpoint system didn't help either. At the end of the day it was worth $4 I spent. It's an interesting game, and nice to see a PC exclusive with nice production value. It's just unfortunate that it can also be very aggravating at times.