God Hand [PS2]

There's an extremely curious health system at work as well. To regain life, you need to pick up fruits from inside boxes, or more commonly, left behind by downed enemies. This part is fine, though your health doesn't refill between levels. This means that if you were near death at the end of the last stage, your only hope is to kill a few guys at the beginning of the next stage and hope they drop some grub. Generally the best course of action here is to simply let yourself be killed and choose to continue with a full life bar. It really doesn't make any sense that your health isn't refilled since you're very likely to die a minute later anyway and then restart with no penalty. And of course, you have to wait through a load screen when you continue.

Enemy design is extremely generic with demons and such that reek of early '90s arcade brawlers. While some of them have varying combat skills, like being able to quickly hop up when thrown to the ground or an affinity for dodging, you generally just run at them, punch away until they're about to attack and then flip away in cowardice. Rinse and repeat.

The most annoying aspect about this is that you'll often have to fight demon spirits that arise from fallen enemies. They take a while to kill and simply act as roadblocks to slow down your progression. After fighting them for the 3rd time you'll become bored, and by the 50th you'll be throwing your controller across the room.

Closing Comments
The bottom line is that God Hand quickly becomes a boring, annoying and frustrating game. Why should you be forced to try and complete a level with no starting health when you have no hope of survival and will just need to reload a minute later? What's fun in fighting the same annoying demon creatures over and over again when the fight was old the second time you tried it? Why, oh why, did Clover Studio put so much money into such a risky joke, and why did no one see that the joke didn't have a real punch line at any point in the development?

Here's a better joke for free: What's green and has wheels?

Grass. I lied about the wheels.

In my years of working here at IGN, no other game has earned the universal disdain God Hand generated among our editorial staff. Mention God Hand anywhere in the office west of my humble corner and in return faces scrunch up tight and moan. <p> God Hand is an obviously bad game. There's no hiding the abysmal voice acting, and no missing the oddly disappearing walls that seem to blink out of existence when the camera swings too near. The dialog hardly makes sense and, combined with the unquestionably strange scenarios of the game, elicits roars of mocking chuckles. It's too bad to be real, right? And it's from Clover Studios? <p> But the <I>obviously bad</I> covers up a game that's <I>actually</I> not awful. Under the rough exterior is a brawler with deep combat that, much like the qualities of the voice acting (which is brilliant, in a Snakes on a Plane sort of way), isn't instantly appreciable. But toy with the mechanics a bit and God Hand's depth surfaces; the combo system is flexible and rewarding, and the simple evasions allow for advanced cancels and combat techniques. <p> God Hand isn't the sort of game that everyone will appreciate because its best qualities are masked by a low-rent front. And while more scrutiny never reveals a truly upscale interior, God Hand is still worth playing--at least for a chuckle, and at most for a satisfying brawl.

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