Hard Reset is well aware of its nonexistent plot - which relates to killer robots, or something (it's not that important) - and therefore goes all in with the shooting part. It's a throwback to a simpler time, when Serious Sam and Duke Nukem raged on, and the most complicated shooter was Return To Castle Wolfenstein, and it adds to the craziness of those games coupled with the raw power of Unreal Engine 3. The end product has gorgeus graphics and sickly fast gameplay, leaving little room for looking at cyberpunk-ish vistas. The enemies are relentless and will pursue you to the end of the world, if the need arises. The gameplay is as simple as it can possibly get - strafe around, shoot robots, collect points and parts to upgrade/unlock stuff and back to step one. What it lacks in complexity, it more than makes up for in hidden depth concerning said weapons and upgrades. The many diverse effects spewing from your weapons can be combined in rather interesting ways, in case your reflexes are fast enough. Unlike most entries on this list, Hard Reset isn't particularly smart nor touching, but it's awesome, just like Vanquish. Also, it's actually available on PC (Vanquish is a PS3 exclusive) so kudos for that.
