About halfway into the campaign of Hard Reset Redux, I stepped out to an open area. The space was large, and there were a number of ammo & health pickups lying about. I found myself grinning in anticipation of the fight - of the absolute storm of chaos that I was about to unleash in the next minute.

Hard Reset Redux takes its inspirations from classic shooters such as Quake and Unreal Tournament. Each fight is an exercise in using the right weapon, dashing around the arena, and managing pickups. You have two modifiable weapons - one conventional and one energy-based. Both can be upgraded to add new modes, such as a shotgun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher etc.

There is a fair bit of enemy variety. The earliest enemies are small and skittish, but larger enemies are introduced later on. Regadless of size, all enemies are relentlessly aggressive. They'll chase you around the map or keep up an onslaught of ranged attacks. The only approach to combat is to charge into each firefight head-on.

Outside of the core combat, Hard Reset Redux has a narrative involving a man vs. machine war. It's somewhat dense, throwing all sorts of jargon around, and is not presented very well. After completing the game, I had to go back and re-watch the cutscenes to make sense of the overall story. This doesn't really affect the immediate objectives, as they usually make enough sense within each level.

Hard Reset Redux only has a singleplayer campaign. It took me about seven hours to complete it. Each mission is scored based on a number of aspects, which encourages replay to some extent. There is no multiplayer component, which may turn away some players. This is a bit unfortunate, because the combat system might have made for an enjoyable multiplayer experience.

To wrap things up, I would say that Hard Reset Redux is a good game. It does have problems that hold it back from being a great game. But in the heat of a firefight, when all of its combat mechanics come together, it feels brilliant.