Dead Mans Hand PC Review Columbus OH

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The Western shooter is quite an untapped genre for the FPS market. However, maybe this is for a reason, as the old style Western shooter with one dimensional primitive weaponry and basic tactics can't even survive in the action packed world of Hollywood these days, why would the gaming world be any different? Unfortunately for Human Head Studios, this reality might be all too accurate.

As expected, this is no wagon painting adventure, Dead Mans Hand is based on the classic story of vengeance. El Tejn, a member of the deadly gang "The Nine" and the player controlled character, has been betrayed by his former leader and now seeks revenge. He won't rest until every one of his former gang comrades is pushing up daisies. This isn't necessarily an original story by any means, but I guess not having to save the world is a nice change of pace for an FPS.

There is no question that Dead Mans Hand runs off arcade based gameplay. Besides the points system which rewards shot accuracy and kills amongst other statistics, you have your standard 'boss' character to face throughout some scenario endings, which, as expected, seem to feature life points much greater than your usual enemies. In fact, normal enemies are usually one shot one kill, which keeps the pace up and does create a reasonable amount of action. This also keeps the gameplay smooth, as you are almost always walking forward. Unfortunately, forward may not always be the right way though, because like many FPS titles in the past, Dead Mans Hand can sometimes fail to inform, leaving you with no real sense of which direction to go or what path to take. Although the levels are generally very linear, the environments are almost always maze like, so finding the correct door or tunnel is quite a challenge in itself, and can become quite tiresome.

Whilst I'd love to say the A.I. is solid, it is hard to describe the sense you get from this game when it comes to the computer controlled enemies. It is almost as if the game is a "Time Crisis" style shooter which automatically moves you through the levels, with enemies taking the same cover and undergoing the same animations if you were to do it over again. Of course, this isn't true exactly, you do control every movement of the player while he is on his feet, however with the one shot one kill style combined with easy aiming, you could practically tape the "W" key (i.e. forward) down on the keyboard as it is almost like your finger never leaves it. On the other hand, the levels which put you on horse back are indeed "Time Crisis" styled, all you have to do is aim and shoot, so in reality, while the A.I appears pretty solid, it is hard to find fault in something that isn't dynamic, all the enemies have to do is one basic animation, fire and in most cases, die an easy death.