I'd love to hear impressions from anyone that wasn't enamored with Hard Reset. Even though I love shooters like Doom and Serious Sam, I didn't really like that one. The levels were too linear and I found the combat rather dull. Not sure if it was the enemy behavior and animations or the anemic weapons.
In other news, the 10% off coupon I have for this game (expires in October) isn't applying in Steam even though others have said that it will stack with the launch 10% sale.
I genuinely *HATE* Hard Reset. Aside from the visuals there was absolutely nothing about the game that I found enjoyable. The combat, which is what the entire game was centered around, felt terrible and was simply no fun.
Shadow Warrior, however, is a lot of fun. Why?
1) Combat feels solid this time. This is the primary difference that separates the two. SW features a more traditional weapon set and each weapon feels excellent to use. On top of that, the melee system is deeper and more fun than expected. Slicing up or shooting enemies feels satisfying and engaging. Enemies come apart as you'd expect and react properly to shots (unlike HR).
2) Character - Lo Wang is quite fun in this game and the dialog works well, I think. Hard Reset had no personality or narrative worth following while Lo Wang and the spirit guide keep things flowing nicely.
3) Level design - The level design feels like a cross between a Shadow Warrior/Duke 3D stage mixed with Serious Sam. It's not just room after room of spawning enemies (the enemy count is lower than SS) but it's not full of elaborate mazes either. It's an interesting middle ground that, while not totally inspired, is still much more fun and interesting than Hard Reset OR Serious Sam, if you ask me.
It's simply a better game all around, I think. Rise of the Triad was more true to old school shooters, I think, but Shadow Warrior is really solid in its own right. ROTT suffered from terrible performance and average shooting mechanics which hurt an otherwise stellar old school experience.
Only complaint is strange performance issues. It's just like Hard Reset in that I keep running into small microstuttering in certain scenes despite counters reporting 60 fps. It does not LOOK like 60 fps to my eyes and it annoys me. It's sporadic, at least, but I had the same issues with HR on both nVidia and AMD hardware (using a 680 now). HR was never fixed and I don't expect this to be either but most people probably won't be able to see it.
