Hard Reset: Redux isn’t exactly of the current generation of video game consoles, so it naturally doesn’t look as good as its contemporaries. However, if you go in knowing that, you will be pleased with what it brings to the table. At its best, the art design is evocative of Blade Runner. The city of Bezoar is a total stranger to good weather, and its streets are absolutely saturated with commercialization. Advertisements are somehow even more in-your-face than they are in reality; special kiosks light up with a discombobulating orgy of attention-grabbers, each more obnoxious than the last -- if you try to make sense of it all, your head will be hurting within moments. Enemy design is slightly campy, but in a good way. After all, you’re essentially fighting a robot uprising. Hard Reset features its share of visual shocks, especially later in the game. Story cutscenes are as visually striking as they are incomprehensible, and that’s saying a lot. A heavily-muted color palette combines with graphic novel aesthetics to present something that may not be terribly unique, but is no less intriguing for it. The action is where Hard Reset looks its best. Fletcher’s two primary weapons and all their assorted modules look fantastic, but they’re straight up magical when used. I’ll put it this way: Hard Reset almost does with electricity what BioShock does with water. The game unmistakably shows its age, but it’s never unattractive.
Since Hard Reset is a guns-blazing rampage through the ghettos of the future, it's only natural that the game pairs the sounds of high voltage and synthesized warblings of both weaponry and voices (yes, I said that) with the very best in urban decay. Everything you hear lends a sense of oppression and unrest, which makes the world extremely intriguing. Even though the story being told is incompetently-told, the voice acting is solid. All of this helps create a world that, again, might seem a bit derivative, but at least is cohesive in its vision. And for that, I give Flying Wild Hog kudos.
