A perfectly decent and fun game, let down by an overall sense of blandness.

User Rating: 7.4 | Dead Man's Hand PC
Dead Man's Hand is your classic Western tale of revenge, greed, love, and making things go "BANG!" - all in one nicely priced computer game. The story is a familiar one - A hero (El Tejon) is left for dead by his gang, but survives and swears revenge, hunting down each one in turn. Along the way, you can unlock weapons, perform trick shots, ride horses, minecarts and trains, and generally act like your common-or-garden cowboy-on-a-mission. Perhaps the coolest thing about the game is the physics engine. There's a bundle of stuff in-game that can be shot, blown up, cut, smashed and broken - all with surprisingly realistic effect. The game's ragdoll models also work well. For all its cool points, the game just doesn't ever rise above the level of mediocraty. The game's linear, predictably scripted levels aren't terribly inspiring, and while there's an occasional flash of brilliance, you can pretty much walk through most levels without running into anything memorable. There's a problem with character as well. This type of game / story works better when the hero is at least likable or well developed but with El Tejon this just isn't the case. The Nine (the gang which you set out to kill) are nicely developed but ultimately rather cliched. Sound-wise, the game sports a remarkably decent soundtrack. The sounds are spot on and capture the atmosphere of the Old West. Unfortunately some of the dialogue in the game is pretty terrible. Graphically, the game isn't terribly exciting .. but then again a game set in the Old West is bound to have that handicap. For what it does, the graphics are quite good - however the character models could have used a bit more detail. All in all, Dead Man's Hand is a perfectly fun runaround in the Old West .. it's just a shame it isn't anything more than a simple linear 3rd-person shooter with an Old West setting. It's a good game ... it's just let down by an overall sense of blandness.