Flying Wild Hog creates game designed for computers

By Zach Walton

­­A PC gamer is a gentle creature that just wants one thing: He desires developers to stop making shoddy ports of console games and deliver an experience built for the PC.

Fortunately, Flying Wild Hog has heard the cry of the belittled PC gamer and has delivered the goods in the form of a PC-exclusive first-person shooter “Hard Reset.”

“Hard Reset” is a first-person shooter in its simplest form. There are things to shoot, blow up, destroy and shoot some more. There might even be some simple platforming thrown in to find secret areas, and to navigate obstructions in the environment.

Speaking of the environment, “Hard Reset” has some of the best environments seen this side of “Crysis.” The game takes place in a fully-realized “cyperpunk” world inspired by the likes of “Blade Runner” and “Ghost in the Shell.” While there is not much variety to the environments, the neon lights and ghostly monitors that illuminate the underbelly of this futuristic city never seem to get old.

Flying Wild Hog is comprised of former team members from People Can Fly, the studio behind “Painkiller” and more recently “Bulletstorm.” They know shooters and they bring this expertise to “Hard Reset” by sticking to what makes the genre so appealing. Ridding the game of the usual tropes of the genre, they were able to focus on a tight, entertaining experience that any fan of shooters from the 1990s will enjoy.

That does not mean that they did not bring any innovation to the table. There are only two guns in the game, but those two guns transform into five different weapons, expanding the armory to a total of 10 guns.

The guns and their transformations can be upgraded with “N.A.N.O.,” which can be found in secret areas. These upgrades range from simple — like adding a zoom function to the rifle — to more destructive, like allowing the rocket launcher to explode into smaller chain-explosions.

The story is admittedly the weakest part of the entire package. While it is very cool and refreshing to see the story presented in an animated graphic novel look with fantastic voice acting, it is at times annoying that the characters talk about places and events with no prior back story to fill the player in. The story is akin to the stories from shooters in the 1990s where the plot was only meant to provide context for the worlds the player would interact in.

While it did not bother me, some may be bothered by the game’s length. I easily completed the game in a little under five hours, but the developers wisely implemented a new “game plus” mode. This mode allows the player to take all upgraded weapons on a new playthrough to earn more upgrades or increase their score for a level.

As an aside, there is no multiplayer, as Flying Wild Hog wanted to focus on making the best single-player experience possible.

“Hard Reset” is a short game with a nonsensical story, but beyond that is a beautiful shooter diluted to its purest form. While it may not be everybody’s cup of slurm, those who remember “Doom” and “Quake” fondly, will get a lot of entertainment out of it.