Much in the way the real-life frontier lands of 19th-century America were untapped territory for land developers, the Wild West remains largely untapped territory for game developers. Sure, there have been a few notable Western-themed action games over the years, from old ones like Capcom's 1985 arcade shoot-'em-up, Gun Smoke, to later ones like LucasArts' stylish 1997 first-person shooter, Outlaws. Be that as it may, gamers simply haven't had many chances to play as gunslinging cowboys over the years. Nevertheless, the Wild West is great material for a game, judging by the sorts of action and dramatic tension on display in some of the best movie Westerns--but a game needs more than just a good premise to succeed. Take Dead Man's Hand, a new first-person shooter from Atari and developer Human Head Studios: It's got a surly cast of characters, a selection of old firearms, and a good musical score, each befitting a Western. Yet in spite of a few noteworthy twists, the game's execution (especially its multiplayer component) leaves a lot to be desired. Still, Dead Man's Hand isn't a bad use of your $20, and for what it's worth, this PC version of the game is substantially better than the previously released Xbox version.

Dead Man's Hand features a single-player campaign and an online multiplayer mode, though neither portion is particularly impressive.

Dead Man's Hand is a conventional first-person shooter, so if you've played one of the countless number of similar such games in the past few years, you'll have no trouble picking it right up. The game features a fairly brief single-player campaign, playable on three different difficulty levels, and an online multiplayer mode for up to eight players. Online play includes your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, as well as a mode called bounty, in which one particular player becomes the target of everyone else, and another mode called posse, in which players join forces to hold their position against waves of computer-controlled bad guys.

There aren't many multiplayer maps to choose from (especially for posse mode), though what's more problematic is the overall feel of the action. There's little discernible feedback for when you're taking damage, and hit detection is generally flaky, making the core multiplayer gameplay rather unsatisfying. One way of squeezing a little value out of the game's multiplayer features is to start a "posse" session all by yourself, if you just want to shoot at some targets. That may be your best bet, as after several days' worth of attempts, we encountered only a handful of players running about in Dead Man's Hand's multiplayer offering.

The single-player portion of Dead Man's Hand casts you as El Tejón, a Mexican outlaw who's been double-crossed by his gang. You'll guide El Tejón through a linear series of missions (there are some optional bonus missions along the way) in which he'll track down and take revenge on his former allies one by one. For the most part, these are straightforward, by-the-numbers first-person shooter levels. They're all relatively short and noticeably scripted, meaning you can expect your enemies to pop out from exactly the same spots each time you play each mission. And, at least at the default difficulty, you'll often need to retry missions a few times, because it's quite possible to instantly get killed in many situations, such as by standing in the vicinity of a powder keg when it goes off. You'll also sometimes lose a great deal of health trying to shoot foes that, due to the game's somewhat flaky hit detection, you just won't be able to hit (though, for what it's worth, this problem isn't nearly as severe as in the Xbox version). Your occasional showdowns with boss opponents will yield mixed results, too. Some of them are tough, while others are total wimps just waiting to get shot full of lead.

There are some twists to the game, such as sequences that take place on horseback and lifelike physics modeling, but these can't make up for the lack of good, solid action.

Enemies demonstrate little in the way of convincing behavior, unless you count ducking behind some boxes as convincing. You'll sometimes see your foes do downright absurd things like go running right past you. This is not to say your foes are complete pushovers, since when it comes to shooting, their aim is just fine. There's no ability to save in the middle of a mission, so each time you die, you'll have to start from the beginning of that scenario. The scenarios themselves aren't that long, though, so this isn't necessarily as frustrating as it may seem. Some missions lay the bad guys on pretty thick, but Dead Man's Hand tempts you by allowing you to choose your difficulty setting on a per-mission basis. The easy mode, which really is easy, is always available if you just want to press on through.