Game Review: God Hand, for PS2

Nothing interesting enough has taken place in the 24 hours between the last post and this one to make note of here. So instead I'll go with the first game review, and that game is God Hand, for the Sony PlayStation 2.

God Hand is a traditional brawler, in the manner of Double Dragon or Final Fight or even the lamented Bad Dudes before it. ("The President has been captured by ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to save him?" - Verbatim quote from the game's intro.) You go from level to level, from area to area, find hordes of violent goons, and beat the tar out of them in the finest tradition of killing everything that looks at you funny that seems to prevail in most video games. There are bosses, and minibosses, but mostly the game is just a long string of beating people up in an amusing fashion.

So what distinguishes God Hand from the hundreds of other beat-em-ups before and after it? I think the best answer would be "style", although another answer could be "humor" or even "poisonous chihuahuas." God Hand does not take itself seriously in the slightest. It knows that it is perpetrating the stilted gameplay of a hackneyed genre, and uses that base to build a surprisingly solid game.

For one thing, it's very difficult. This is not in and of itself something that improves the quality of the game, but it keeps you on edge. During the earlier levels, you can afford to make a few mishaps, because it at least starts at a mildly forgiving tone. In the later areas, though, any one or two enemies is quite capable of knocking you from a full health bar to down on your ass in a matter of seconds. You must use all your considerable skills to fight, in some cases, as many as five or six of these foes at once. Oh, and you don't have a block button, so if they swing at you, you'd best hope your dodge doesn't take you into the threatened zone of another thug.

So how is a character supposed to survive in this hostile environment? Impressive martial arts skills, for one thing; your character (a sarcastic ruffian with a heart of gold named Gene) seems a master of every discipline from jeet kune do to drunken boxing. The fully customizable control system allows you to set the over 110 moves available to you to any button or button combination you feel comfortable with, giving the game a great level of depth and sidestepping the "Press B to kick" trope that makes all the rest of these games all seem the same. Want to play Gene as a quick-punching specialist that dances around and tags his opponents with rabbit punches? You can. Want to play him as a heavyweight who barely moves while he slugs his foes with powerful, but slow, attacks? Again, you can. Want to play him as an uncoordinated lout who uses seemingly random attacks and appears to win by sheer luck? You can, but this is an inadvisable strategy for later in the game, where the enemies will not even pause to laugh uproariously at your bumbling before beating the snot out of you.

An intriguing and well-executed feature of the game is the addition of situational special attacks, that is to say, attacks that become available after certain conditions are met. Hit an enemy enough times in a row and he will become staggered, temporarily dazed and unable to defend himself. Then, the option appears on the screen to press the O button to unleash one of several special attacks. These include Suplex, where Gene grabs the foe and, bending over backwards, smashes his head into the ground; Pummel, where pressing the O button rapidly results in Gene unleashing a torrent of rapid punches or kicks on the enemy, capping it off with a single, powerful strike that launches the enemy away; and Stinger, reserved for larger enemies, where Gene repeatedly smashes the enemy's face into his knee (again triggered by quick button presses) prior to crushing him into the ground. These are only a few; more are available and found by exploring the game and fighting different foes.

But simply punches and kicks wouldn't be enough to save Gene from the terrors that await him. As the story explains, demons are making their move now to seize control of the Earth (although their methods seem questionable and, indeed, outright laughable), and Gene must defeat their leaders to quell the uprising. Fortunately, he is not unaided in this endeavor. He has a magical right arm, the titular God Hand, that gives him a variety of interesting powers.

For starters, Gene has many special attacks known as God Reels or Roulettes (named for their selection process: when you wish to use one, you hit the button, and time slows down while you pick your choice from a spinning wheel of options). These range from the Divine Smash, a powerful punch that will break through any guard and deal heavy damage to one or two foes; to Kung Fu Samba, a combination of powerful (and stylish!) strikes to cripple a single enemy; to Home Run God, wherein Gene conjures a bat of shining divine energy to strike an enemy with such force that he flies far away into the air and disappears with a twinkle. My personal favorite, however, is the Ball Buster...Gene moves towards his opponent as if readying for a mighty strike, then simply wheels and kicks him in the...er, vitals...to the accompaniment of a humorous *ding!* and a smattering of laughter from the unseen audience. These attacks can be used only sparingly, as they consume "orbs" of power that you must scavenge from fallen foes, and it can be a long time between finding these orbs. Still, they are both amusing and powerful, and excellent ways to fight bosses or superlatively tough enemies.

But even these powers pale in comparison to the might that is revealed when Gene unleashes the true power of his God Hand. As you deal and receive damage in combat, a small meter below your health called the "Tension Gauge" slowly fills up. When it is full, Gene may activate the hidden potential of the God Hand. The brace around his arm restraining the God Hand shatters, and Gene becomes invulnerable, as well as moving faster and dealing greatly increased damage, for as long as the meter lasts. This is not permanent, or even particularly long-lasting, but it can be enough to deal with a group of particularly stubborn foes or take the edge off a boss fight. It is often thought of as a "panic button", for dealing with situations that are too much for even Gene's normal level of skill or to extricate oneself from a bad spot.

The difficulty, as has been remarked upon previously, is intense - punishing the casual player by soundly thrashing him before he can even reach the second stage. But it is not entirely unmerciful. Beginning the game, a player may choose between Easy - still tough by most standards, but certainly doable - and Normal - advanced difficulty, only for those who consider themselves skilled in the genre - but the final difficulty, Hard, is not for the faint of heart or the slow of button-pressing. Hard cannot be selected until the game has been beaten once already, and it provides a tremendous challenge to even the most seasoned veterans of these games. In the old style of games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden and similar, the game is entirely bent on destroying you and your fragile self-confidence (at least, in terms of game-playing) and is quite accomplished at fulfilling this goal.

But even more remarkable than the adjustable difficulty (admittedly, there is nothing truly remarkable about it, it seems a fairly standard feature in games today) is the dynamic difficulty that adjusts itself on the fly. This establishes itself in levels of challenge, of which there are four: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and the intimidating Level Die, which is represented by a flaming skull. As you successfully defeat enemies and avoid taking damage, the level increases...and when your level goes up, you do not increase in power, as is expected, but your enemies become stronger and faster accordingly. If you take damage and fail to beat up your opponents, your level decreases until you can resume the smackdown. So the game constantly keeps the experience at a level that will neither bore you through easiness or crush you through hardness. It is a well-implemented feature that should be seen in more games.

A review of God Hand cannot be complete without mentioning the humor permeating the game. The outright silliness of your enemies (Clowns? A wrestling ape? An enchantress who turns you into a puppy?) combines with the amusing story (the interactions between Gene and Olivia, the girl that follows him around, simply have to be seen to be appreciated) to provide an experience that will have you chuckling as often as pummeling. The experience of facing on a fearsome demon, adorned with spikes and wreathed in purple hellfires, and kicking it in the groin to watch it stagger about in pain, is one that typifies the sense of humor that suffuses God Hand. Oh, yes, one more thing: There really are poisonous chihuahuas in the game. You can see them race and bet on them to win money. You might think that this is a joke on my part; well, let me tell you, I'm not nearly that creative.

All in all, God Hand is a well-designed and extremely entertaining game. Some claim it is repetitive and boring, that the game never truly changes, that it does not provide an in-depth experience. To those people I say "Did you perhaps read the back of the box before you bought it?" It is not intended to be a deep and enriching experience, but a fun and mindless beat-em-up done in the old style that is so rarely seen these days. I bought it twice (I have a bad habit of losing game disks), but just once should be enough for anyone not so careless as me. It won't be regretted.