Dead Man's Hand

The Good
Westerns have a special place in my heart so I was stoked to play Dead Man's Hand. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to like this game.

Game play is about as linear as you can get. The level designer did a semi-admirable job hiding this fact, but after an hour of pure step-shoot-step-shoot, even the best level designer wouldnt' be able to hide the linearity of this game.

The protagonist is an ex-villain who did some really evil stuff, but then backed out of a gang when the gang expected him to shoot women and children. Of course the gang had other ideas. They shot him and left him for dead. Now he must go after the gang to reap his revenge.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the music and sound effects, however, you can tell that Michael Land (of LucasArts fame) did not score the music here. There are tracks that are pseudo-hip-hop with a country theme which, while a very cool tune to listen to, left me wondering if it was appropriate (thereby snapping me out of immersive gameplay).

One thing that scores this game some coolness factors is the nod, whether intentional or unintentional, to the other western FPS, "Outlaws" by LucasArts. The bad buys periodically taunt your character, and some of the taunts come straight from Outlaws.

The AI for this game, while not brilliant, was still very good.

The Bad
While leaving the gang was a good sentiment, the protagonist is still scum and I can't shake the feeling that he deserves whatever he gets. That thought gets in the way of the game play.

Not being able to save in the middle of a level is ... annoying. It's always annoying. I hated it in Hitman, and I hate it here. Mercifully, the levels are short and you start a new "mini-level" when you're about to battle a boss. However, the levels are sufficiently repetitive that not being able to save in the middle is a drag.

However, the worst part of the game was the engine. Every step I took, I kept thinking to myself that the developers picked the wrong engine. Movement is too clunky for a game like this. You can forgive a game like Outlaws which started out trying for a cartoony kitsch, and a LOVE kitsch (not to mention the age of the game!). But a game which attempts to use a pseudo-photo realistic environment really suffers from this kind of engine. I keep thinking that the Quake III engine would've been a better choice.

The Bottom Line
Repetitive. Pretty much a classic step-shoot-step-shoot-battle the boss kind of FPS. That formula worked for Serious Sam, but doesn't work here.

It's a shame. The game's concept had a lot of potential, the story was interesting, the weapons are neat, but the level designers and producers really dropped the ball. This game is simply not that fun to play. One reviewer said it best when he said this game was more appropriate as a console game than as a PC game.