Hard Reset Redux Review

This doesn't change much from level to level either, to the point where you're never really sure where one stage ends and another begins in the base game, aside from when a boss pops up, complete with those glowing orange weak spots and weapons that can tear your non-regenerating health to shreds. You'll have to work out the boss's routine, and fast, because there are usually plenty of the normal enemies rolling towards you at the same time.

The weird part about the boss fights is they encourage you to hang back and ping at enemies when the rest of the game is all about movement and aggression. Forcing players to abandon all of the tactics they've learnt so far and hide away while they work out what's going on is tough and sometimes the difficulty spikes can be rough.


Hard Reset had a few issues with pacing, but Hard Reset Redux seems to have sorted this out. There's a new cyber-katana, if you're into that, and the additional levels give you more bang for your buck. Is it worth £14.99? Probably not; there's a lot of great FPS games out there for around the same price.

That's probably the problem with Hard Reset Redux. Back in 2011 when the original came out, we were in the middle of a shooter drought. It went over so well that the genre had a bit of a resurgence. With that in mind, Hard Reset Redux is a victim of its own success. There's a lot of great shooters about now and it's hard to recommend Hard Reset Redux over a lot of those.


One caveat here though: if you own Shadow Warrior or Hard Reset, you can get Hard Reset Redux for 85 percent off. This means it'll cost you around £2.25 and at that price it's a pretty spectacular amount of game for less than the price of a sandwich.

Hard Reset Redux isn't incredible, but it's a decent game and it's well put together. The design feels a bit tired, the environments aren't that interesting, but the arena shootouts are a lot of fun. If you've enjoyed the rest of Flying Wild Hog's output, you'll be hard pressed not to enjoy this.