After having the game God Hand running on my PS2 for a while, I have decided to write up what I think of it. I wasn’t really expecting a lot from this game really. For starters, I somehow got the impression it was a first person shooter, which I am not really a fan of. Running around going PIEWPIEWPIEW isn’t really my style, I like violence and plenty of it. God Hand does indeed have some nice fighting in it, but I had no idea what to expect when I put the disc in. Constant fighting with soft-porn references was NOT what I saw when I looked at the cover. All I knew about the game, was that it’s set in a Western gunslinger area, involved some kind of ‘Roulette’ move and had some special attacks. With this in mind, I checked the buttons and went on my merry little way.

Gameplay

The first thing I noticed when the first level loaded was, why the hell is the camera so close to the character. I haven’t paid enough attention to know the characters name so from here on in I will call him George. So, George sits pretty damn close to the camera. This has a few drawbacks as he takes up a fair chunk of your visible area, and the closer he is to the camera, the less you can see happening behind you. In a combo-based game like this one, you really need that extra area because when you start in one direction and fire off a big combo you can move forward quickly, letting the mobs swarm around pretty easily. This could have easily been rectified by including a ‘Focus on Attacker’ button, which would have made things a hell of a lot cleaner. There is a turn around button which helps, but when fighting a big group, there is a chance you will move on the wrong ‘line’ and combo the air. Best thing to do here is finish the combo so you keep moving.

In other games this can usually be handled by a crowd clearing move, in God Hand, we have Roulette maneuvers. There may be unlockable attacks that can handle this sort of thing for you later in the game, but starting out, George has 1 attack capable of doing it, and it takes forever to pull off. Even as a combo ender I wouldn’t use it. Roulette maneuvers are limited by a certain type of coin you can collect during the level. If you don’t have any, get ready to die a few times. They can range from George attacking 1 person or clearing house moves, but in the heat of the fighting I tend to forget them.

George’s other nice ability is to unleash the power of his ‘God Hand’. A few games have this kind of feature, in God of War, you could unleash massive attacks when your ‘Rage-o-meter’ was full, also in Spartan: Total Warrior you could become unstoppable for a limited amount of time. George has the same kind of skills. He gains speed, power and can’t be hurt for a while. This skill has bailed me out on quite a few situations and since it rebuilds at a fairly decent rate, you can use it a few times per level. The basic combo mechanics are easy to handle. You do a combo, then another, then keep going till they’re dead. If they block you can use a guard breaking move, then combo again. When you break a guard you can usually pull off a finishing move, which is just some button bashing then a quick automated sequence of a big hit. Unless you are fighting a boss or hillbilly demon, this will kill a mob whoever is in your way.

This game plays a lot like old school side scrolling action games like Final Fight, Streets of Rage or Double Dragon. There isn’t a hell of a lot to it, but you’re here to slug your way through the entire game. The bosses I have fought so far each have their own weaknesses and strengths and the way to kill them becomes pretty clear after the first death or two. If you fight smart, you could probably get through this game pretty easily and any bosses without losing many lives at all, but I tend to fight with as much brutality as possible and get in way over my head.

Sound

For some reason I really like the sound in this game. Although, for the sheer amount of fighting, a heavy metal soundtrack may have worked, sticking with the Western theme the developers chose a Blues soundtrack. Its very fitting and almost made me laugh when I was pummeling a redneck into oblivion to the strains of banjo strumming. God Hand also has the matrix-esque sounds when preparing for a Roulette move, some big crunching sounds and nice cheesy kung fu movie punching sounds. The voice of George is the stereotypical ‘arrogant-Japanese-anime fighter’ and the actual dialog is pretty ordinary, but I will openly admit I don’t really care about the story with games like this, it’s more of a bonus than a requirement.

Survivability

For fans of the genre, this game has potential. I can’t stress enough that all you do it fight. No puzzles, no areas where you need to grapple and jump across pits of spikes(there isn’t even a jump button). As for unlockables, there are moves to add to your combos, and I have noticed there are pictures to unlock. You see for some reason, you go around with a girl. Sister, girlfriend, it doesn’t really matter. The pics you can unlock are of her. Im not sure how far these pics will go, but in most fighting games that feature a girl, I’m kinda assuming theres some sort of full-back nudity or even anime side boob. I’m not 13 anymore so this isn’t really a driving feature to get me to finish the game. I can see myself finishing the game, providing nothing else comes out thats better in between now and God of War 2, but for people that are looking for a bit more than a straight beat-em-up I wouldn’t recommend anything other than hiring it.

Score:

Gameplay 7.5

Graphics 6.5

Sound 7.0

Survivability 6.5

Overall 7.0 – Meh, salright…