sick humor,crazy music,mild profanity,ridiculous moves whats not to like?
Gameplay- 10/10
Presentation- 8/10
Design- 7/10
God hand is a game developed by clover studios exclusively for the playstation 2.
This was one of clover's last games and now this game belongs to capcom.
Story:
The story is told through the eyes of gene. A 23 year old loudmouth that ends up with the famous God hand after trying to save a damsel in distress named Olivia. Gene even though being a tough guy on the outside has a right sense of justice and as luck would have it he decided to help out this young girl (young being 19 years of age)
Olivia was the last of the fabled clan that protected the god hands from the demons.
All of Olivia's family was killed and she was left with one single god hand.
Olivia was being harassed/attacked by a couple of demons while our hero of the day gene steps up to protect her.
The demons proceed to let go of Olivia and chop off genes left arm
After getting their price the demons leave.
Olivia seeing tat she could no longer protect the god hand replaced gene's original left hand (which existed no more) with the god hand.
Gene who had passed out during the time of his "arms amputation" woke up in a hotel room to find a new arm in place of his "normal arm"
He later finds that that arm is the god hand and he learns to control and use it as a very reliable weapon. Gene has one task ahead of him to take out the 4 devas and angra himself.
The 4 devas are loyal followers of angra and they will do anything/everything in order to stop gene on his quest to defeat angra
There is also a "devil hand" the owner of the right god hand who turned to the "evil side" but doest seem very loyal to either sides.
The story while being not so interesting becomes very immersive as the voice acting and dialogues in the game is superb. Almost all Japanese games while being translated into English have lots of mistakes god hand has nailed it with very few if not any mistakes in dialogues.
The game offers up lots of laughs as enemies literally make an Ass out of themselves.
Gameplay:
God hand is everything you would expect a beat em up to be.
You are given a set of enemies. Take em out and move on to your next challenge. This would make the game sound very linear and boring but it isn't thanks to the variety of ways in which u can deal punishment to your enemies. You can even customize your own combos. Attacks are bought by the money you gain and can be set up in any way you want.
You can set up a fast combo or a damaging one.
The game also introduces roulette attacks. These attacks are a special power of the god hand and there are quite a few. All the attacks involve funny animations before and after the attack is done. While entering into roulette mode you are given a set no of attacks that you can customize to your liking. You have about 5 seconds to choose your attack. This makes the game immensely fun to play and you rarely get tired of this move list.
You are also able to unleash your god hand. This increases damage and speed to your attacks and also regenerates your health a bit. This makes you invincible to all your enemies for the 10-15 seconds it lasts.
There are also quite a no of weapons that you can pick up and use.
God hand is a surprisingly challenging game as well.
Where enemies lack in intelligence they make up for with brute strength and sheer no's.
Enemies have a wide variety of taunts. Some are funny and some are brutally annoying.
When an opponent is dazed by your constant attacks you have an option to plummel them.
This is you continuously pounding the circle button while knee's or punches your opponents (spanking for female enemies) and finally finish off with a blow that sends them flying across the room.
There are also a large no of minigames including Chihuahua races and some cannon launching. The music which plays during these segments remind you of old video games and brings you back memories of some good of n64 days.
Presentation:
As in many ps2 exclusives the graphics in God hand is not so amazing as I would put it but it gives you a sense of where you are and all objects that are around you.
Stripper cards and power up cards which are found throughout the game definitely get you attention as the glow and shine almost begging you to pick them up.
Whilst picking up a stripper card genes "god bar" which is used to unleash his god hand gets filled up and he whistles in an impressed manner which almost always puts a smile on your faces.
The voice acting is spectacularly done with corny dialogues and awkward moments being superbly set. The voice acting caste deserves an award.
Enemy voices are also entertaining but afer a while their taunts start to get a little annoying especially when there are 4 or 5 of them together at a time breathing down you neck. The humor as I said before make's the game very enjoyable and I cant stop praising the voice acting caste.
While clothing lacks texture it doesn't bother you too much as you wont care how bad the characters look as long as you defeat them.
Design:
Level design is very linear. Which is all you can expect from a beat em up game.
You enter one room. Clear all enemies, enter next room clear all enemies, enter next open space and defeat boss.
Nothing much to say about level design in this game.
A.I is pretty poor but as I said before sheer numbers and brute strength replace all the intelligence needed.
Enemies are displayed in the game as dumb and stupid so I think clover was keeping this in mind while developing the A.I
Final thoughts:
A beat em up that will never disappoint. Gives you 10 or more hours of play. There's much to do after the game is over gene and Olivia are rewarded new costumes and It is really fun when you take revenge on your enemies wearing that karate kid costume.
One disappointing thing is that you can never play through the game again with all the attacks you ended the game with.
God hand is a beat em up/mini game filled/funny/corny/amazing game that should be played at least once by every ps2 owner and every beat em up fan.
I have no other thoughts to put up as I am all thought out right now.
And that's it for my review.
Thanx 4 reading.
Rate with a thumbs up or down as you like.
Now.. to go and study for that math exam.. eeps
C ya in my next review everyone.
Thanx again