Hard Reset Redux Review

This was a game I played years ago. I have hard time recalling it but I want to know why that is and having playing it again, I can see why. It's by no means a bad game just feels like a game that is just there. I'll give it credit in that it does invoke some weird nostalgia with it's whole "early 2010s PC look" and if you want a quick game to be in an afternoon, the game gets the job done.

If there was one novelty the game had is that at least with the original game, it was an FPS game in the early 2010s that didn't have regen health or a two weapon limit so it had that going for it.

There is some interesting ideas here like there is bullets and there is plasma weapons sort of like in Halo but the game never really encourages you heavily to use prioritize on certain enemies. Some enemies are seemingly weaker to either one but it was never I never felt like I had to use plasma on to get down a shield and then bullets to hurt flesh like in Halo. There's also environmental hazards to kill enemies with but even that is never encouraged either. Bulletstorm at least had the skill shot system that encouraged you to kill in different ways.

There's the katana from the reboot Shadow Warrior games but it didn't really serve much of an actual purpose during combat.

Bosses are a decent specticle at least with weak point shooting.

The big issue with the game is the arena design in which many of them feel like corridors that box you in and relying on the same idea of being so claustrophohic that the enemies will widdle away at your health. One later in a trash area was the worst since the enemies can hit you hard and the arena itself is so tight which made evasion really hard. It never got that hard again however. Being able to save anywhere does help at least.

Overally, I can see why I had a hard time recalling Hard Reset Redux, it's by no means terrible but Flying Wild Hog would later do much better than this especially with Shadow Warrior 3 and Evil West.