Okay, so the game is a month old. I was slow to pick it up, because I thought I was done with FPS games. My video card is mediocre, I've experienced DOOM-sickness in first-person games since my mid-20's, and I'm really tired of drab brown environments and military themes.

Then, last night I got bored. I've been reading through a lot of Shadowrun material and I was in the mood for a cyberpunk-themed game. I downloaded the Hard Reset demo and...wow. The cut scenes aren't that great, but the atmosphere in-game is awesome, and I can see a lot of potential in the weapon upgrade system. Has anyone else played this? I'm kind of surprised that there isn't already a topic for the game.

There's a demo on Steam (that's where I got it from) and more general info on their site. I haven't bought the full version yet, as I've heard that the game is kind of short and I'm thinking about waiting for a Steam sale, but I highly recommend the demo.

Thank you for telling me about this, i will commence downloading the demo immediately!

I've had a LOT of discussion about this game at work, because me and the UI Lead both really love strange eastern european games. I like it for the atmosphere and the wierdness and how the world is interactable, but I don't like the Doom-ish/Quake-ish feeling that everything you see is an enemy. Same problem I have with a lot of FPSes, really, but most of them have running dialogue so I don't feel so utterly alone.

UI Lead? Where do you work, if I may ask?

WB Games Seattle. The aggregate studio made when Monolith, Snowblind, and Surreal merged. My team is part of a shared resource group called Hive that works on multiple projects at once, including stuff from the othe WB Games studios like Netherrealm and Rocksteady.

Neat, thanks.

Any chance of more cyberpunk-themed games on the way?

While I can't comment on any projects that are currently underway or in the early planning stages, I *can* tell you that myself, the UI team, at least 20 other people in the building are either old-school Shadowrun gamers or Cyberpunk 2020 gamers who are very, very intereted in doing some dystopian sci-fi games. While I don't know WHEN those ideas will come to fruition, I'm certain there will be more coming.

Good. The last one I bought (years ago) was this terrible German Diablo clone with a bunch of SR rip-offs called Restricted Area. So much potential awesomeness was wasted there. I'd kill for a quality random dungeon crawler in a dystopian future.

Oh god, I played that against my better judgement. A terrible and disappointing affair.

My actual dreamgame would be a GTA IV -style game in a futuristic city. The game already had the framework for shadowrunning (a commlink, a contact list, missions from your contacts, maintaining friendly relations with them, total freedom in exploring the city, police response to crimes), it just needs the chrome (heh, double-entendre)

So when's No One Lives Forever 3 coming out? Classic firearms get me all excited.

These are mysteries not known to me! I know we are supposedly drastically increasing our number of games we develop at once, but specifics are not things I can talk about if I know about them, unless we've already announced games - like Gotham City Imposters or something.

This, only with less bowling!

Darts are OK. Especially after drinking!

Ahah, yet another studio I need to mail a resume and portfolio to.




-k