Ashes: Hard Reset (2024)
Genres:Shooter
Themes:Action, Science fiction
Game modes:Single player
Story:Ashes: Hard Reset is the prequel expansion for Ashes: Afterglow and is a linear campaign in the style of 2063. Take the role of the veteran scav Walker as he guides a team of elite soldiers into The City. As events spiral out of control Walker finds out that a long forgotten foe has caught up with him... and that not all injuries are of the flesh.Show more
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Ashes 2063 is a mod, a total conversion for the Doom engine which transports the action from the haunted Mars base to the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Georgia. You are a scavver, stalker, junker, a man who ekes out a meager living by delving into the ruins of bygone eras.
One day during a routine job, you encounter a still-working radio which picks up a mysterious transmission and, lacking anything better to do with your time, decide to track down the source.
So begins Ashes 2063, the shortest and least impressive of the Ashes episodes. Of course, "least impressive" still leaves a better product than most AAA releases - some of the people who made Ashes also worked on Selaco, and that should tell you something!
The devs make amazing use of sound, lighting, and environment design which frequently leaves me with a real sense of unease while skulking through the subways and caverns in lit only by the solar lantern even though I've played the game like a dozen times and know most of it by heart.
The guns are well balanced and fun to use, except the machine pistol which is a waste of space, the enemies are recognizable at a distance and posses distinct attack patterns and counters, the levels are believable as real places that have fallen to disuse or war, and perhaps most impressive is the way that the game integrates NPCs with dialog trees that have to be navigated, side tracks you can embark on to earn some extra cash, which can then be spent on supplies in the safe zones. It's almost an immersive sim, done in Doom!
It is a better experience than a lot of AAA releases, and I would quite happily pay twenty or thirty Euros for a GOG release of the whole series even though it's available for free. That's how much I like it.
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