14 DAY TRIAL // Hard Reset came out of nowhere a few months ago, impressing lots of PC gamers with its lovely graphics and promising to deliver a high quality experience from a new studio, called Flying Wild Hog, composed of veterans from other Polish developers like People Can Fly, the makers of Painkiller or Bulletstorm, or CD Projekt Red, the creators of The Witcher.
Now, as the game is getting ready for its release on Steam later this month, a demo has been deployed on Valve's online service to give those interested a taste of its sci-fi shooter action.
Is Hard Reset worth the bother or should you start playing older titles like Painkiller to satisfy your hunger for mindless first person shooters? Let's have a quick look.
While you can tell from the animated comic book cutscenes that Hard Reset isn't a blockbuster, triple-A game, once you actually begin playing, you're going to be impressed with pretty much everything within.
The graphics look extremely sharp and, while the dark atmosphere definitely impresses, it's the visual details that manage to make you feel a part of its virtual reality. Hard Reset is pretty much a standard sci-fi shooter, but its world feels alive with various ads and neon lights flickering and displaying all sorts of messages in bright colors, thus preventing the gritty nature from wearing down your eyes, unlike other shooters these days.
In terms of combat, things are also pretty good, especially since it's a bit more than just mindless shooting. You play as Major Fletcher, a former army veteran that must now protect humanity against legions of robots that want to destroy it.
While at first you deal with smaller machines, which can be taken down with your trusty rifle, things get quite hectic once bigger robots start showing up and highlight just how vulnerable you can be.
In order to easily dispatch of them. players need to use both their weapons (a rifle and a plasma gun in the demo) to shoot them down, as well as take advantage of environmental hazards like electric displays or explosive barrels to cripple the bots.
Exploration is also a key feature of Hard Reset, as the levels are pretty big and filled with all sorts of secrets, whether it's extra ammo behind a car or hidden areas in buildings that can be uncovered with the help of a trusty (and dangerous) explosive barrel.
As with most shooters these days, there's also an upgrade mechanic, with players visiting special stations. Here you can truly see that Hard Reset was made for the PC, as the interface doesn't change to a new window, instead you gain free reign to select options with your mouse. If you want to exit the station, you just move backward, instead of pressing the Escape key, like I did a few times in the video below.
Hard Reset is looking quite impressive, so, until it's released on September 13, check out the video below of our demo playthrough, or download it right now from Softpedia.