Critical Acclaim +: Open Mic

[Sly Reflex]

God Hand.

[HandsomeDead]

I dunno if anyone else has played God Hand so I guess I'll have to say something about this one.

Since we're in a time where Dark Souls is played by a few people I think people should be less put off by God Hand's reputation as a bastard hard game. It is hard, but I think it more immediately understandable than the Souls games. There is less stuff to get your head around before it gets fun.

I think the stand out thing in God Hand is probably the ability to customise and build your own combos, and you unlock more as the game progresses. When you first start the game and look at that menu its here you also start to understand the game better. You see that wind-up times for moves are important, you see that some moves have properties like guard breaking or have low or high properties, so in your first fight with a grunt you can tell how all this stuff comes together in practice as even the simplest grunts are better fighters than you expect in games like this. You are thrown right in, I suppose, but everything is there to get you to understand how things are going to go down.

You just need to bring the simplest understanding of Capcom fighting games to get a good understanding of God Hand's fighting system, and that will do you well for a chunk of the game.

It probably has the dodge mechanic to go with the fighting, too. Now, the camera is stuck to your shoulder like in Resident Evil 4 (I reckon Mikami probably brought some of the RE4 engine over for God Hand; it has a similar 'feel' all round) and a down tap of the right analogue stick will make your man do a back-flip out of harms way, but that move is for rubes. The back-flip puts a bit of distance between you and the enemy and really you want to stay close to them so you can counter attack quickly. You might use a tap to the left or right to slide to the side of them but that doesn't always work as some moves the enemies do do make them travel a bit so you still might not be in a good position. And it's still a little rube-y.

What the best do is with an up tap of the right analogue stick you do a small sway of the body but keeping your feet planted on the ground. The window of invulnerability is quite small so you have to be ready with another well timed dodge if there is a follow up attack (there will be) but when you dodge a whole combo the crowed will be cheering and your ongoing rank will fly up, and you're also ready to unleash your fists all over them.

A fight in God Hand is kind of like if Punch-Out was turned into a 3D brawler with elements of Street Fighter 3, basically.

It is low budget as fuck. There are some cool character designs but its lost in this really muddy, characterless western aesthetic. I reckon it should be remade with a Borderlands art style so the enemies look like 3D representations of Streets of Rage enemies and a bit more colour to the 'sort of Mexican' environments so then I think the visuals would compliment the game a bit better as that is the only sucky thing about God Hand: the visuals.

I'm trying to think what God Hand is in terms of being The ..... of Video Games but I can't think of one (apart from Fist of the North Star but that's too obvious, and also not really true as it only really represents part of it). Maybe it's because God Hand is video game as fuck. You only get the God Hand experience in video games.

[Sly Reflex]

This game is on PSN I believe. You ought to get it. It's super awesome. That's the bottom line.

The rest is mostly covered by DC. It's a 3rd person over the shoulder fighter where enemies don't wait for you like they do in other fighting game. I think the best way to describe it would be Streets of Rage. You cannot block, but because of the way the bad guys are trying to mob you I found dodging to the side or back and opening up on another enemy served me better than what DC described as shimmying through attack.

The difficulty is variable, the better you do, the harder the game gets, if you taken a few hits then you level down or at worst get killed. This is the only game I've ever played on the fly where you can beg at enemies to drop the difficulty. You can actually beg in game. You'll never want to resort to it and you'll feel like a twat if you do, but it's a funny mechanic to have in there if you start to bite off more than you can chew. God Hand is difficult. Not artificially difficult, just difficult in a way that forces you to get better or fuck off. There's nothing better than learning what an enemy is capable of, dancing round him chipping his health offr, then pummelling him is the stomach over and over before launching him into orbit. Literally orbit, not an exaggeration. It's one of those games where you are given all the tools you need to do the job right at the very beginning, you can alter how you play by building your own combos and stuff.

The general presentation of the games is totally mental. If I remember it rightly the game opens with too massively gay guys wearing bondage gear and been typically offensive in only the way Japan knows how to do. It gets to the point where it's genuinely funny but it can totally break your flow of play when a fat Mexican dude is bitch slapping you all over, it's then when it becomes annoying because of how silly it all is.

I guess thats the crux of God Hand. It is what it is and it's damn not going to apologise for it. If it offends you then go fuck yourself. If it's too hard for you then go fuck yourself. If you do like it it's still not going to let up with being obscene or difficuly.

God Hand is the Monkey Dust of videogames. Without a doubt Clover Studios best game. There's no fat here, just 100% game.

[HandsomeDead]

I didn't know you'd played it before, Sly.

And I didn't mention how good those special moves are and i should as they're great. The donkey kick to the nuts just tickles me every time. I love the bell ringing noise it makes, too. I'm a fucking idiot.

[Sly Reflex]

The special moves are ridiculous. The moves in general are really good or funny. That wrestling move where you throw them through the floor if you kill them always used to make me laugh. It's even funnier if you happen to do it to one of the bigger guys. There's a spanking move as well which is equally hilarious, the last hit where they fly across the room man.

The God Finger moves lets you shoot someone in the dick as well, if it kills them it turns them into dust.

[Sly Reflex]

Spelunky.

[Sly Reflex]

I've not really played it enough to say whether it deserves all the praise. I do like it a lot though. The only bad thing I can say about it is that sometimes it plays a cunts trick on you by dropping shit on top of you that is offscreen. I was playing it today, checking up and down to make sure I wasn't in any danger. When I walked out a big dirty spider fell on me. That feels a bit cheap. The rest of the game feels solid though, if you fuck up it lays it at your hands and not the games.

[Sly Reflex]

Okami.

I'll answer now with a cryptic way of explaining what I thought about Okami.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Yeah, that.

[Bob]

Too fucking long?

[Sly Reflex]

Yes. Too long. Other than that I think it deserves all the praise it gets.

[Hendo]

I remember watching a mate start it up - I bought it for him as a Christmas or birthday present.

It took fucking ages to get past the opening tutorial!

Spelunky I really like but never got round to putting in as much time as I'd like.

I'm waiting for the PC version to drop because I just don't boot up the 360 anymore, though I should due to my backlog and wanting to go back to Rocksmith.

[DANGERMAN]

Yes. Too long. Other than that I think it deserves all the praise it gets.

agree with Sly (and H about the opening), it is far too long, and made worse that they reuse boss fights a few times, very old design.

that said it['s the best Zelda game ever made. The combat is interesting, the way you interact with the world is genius, and it looks and sounds incredible. I feel like I'm doing it a disservice by not writing more, but other than to say it's also pretty funny there's not a lot more that needs to be said, it's genuinely one of the best games ever made.

It is a shame about the length though, I've got the HD version but I'll never put any time in to it because I'll never finish it

[dante76]

Yep. Agree about the length and its got more endings than Return Of The King. I did enjoy it but it was a bit go there, again, really?

[radiofloyd]

Yeah Okami is a brilliant game. It's unusual in that's it's not paced like a Zelda at all, I don't remember that many dungeons in the game, just doing a lot of exploring. But everything about it is inspired. One of my favourite parts of the game was the Catcall Tower which was a nice homage to Dragon Ball.

The length of the game is a bit hilarious. I definitely remember a wintery area towards the end that could have been cut from the game completely. But in spite of it's length you couldn't just give up on it, the game was too good.

[HandsomeDead]

Do I have to be the Negative Ned with this game? I guess so.

Now, don't get me wrong; I like Okami. I like those graphics, I like music, I definitely like hanging out in this Okami's world, for the most part. But, I just don't think it's a particularly great game.

It is too long, like people have said. What the problem is with its length is just how much of an empty length it is. There isn't a great deal to interact with so you sprint across large, albeit lovely looking, but still large and empty environments, just doing nothing much at all.

And I know. I have finished this long-arsed damn game two and three quarter times now, as well as finishing that sequel on the DS. I have played this game a lot. A LOT! And after this study I have come to the conclusion that it isn't that great. Pretty much all Zelda games are more interestingly made and I'd take beyond Good & Evil over it any time... maybe even Darksiders... probably not Darksiders... but still.

As well as there not being much to do, and far too much pointless dialogue to battle through, you have the games combat which I don't like much at all. It sounds interesting on paper, but the stop-start nature of it makes it a chore after lots of battles. The bosses do end up being pretty cool action based puzzles to solve but the rest of it has a really unsatisfying flow to it.

And when it is doing the Zelda-style dungeon thing it doesn't bring anything that interesting or surprising, or at least it's rarely as surprising as it could be, given the source material.

So sorry, Ammy. I'm not that into you, but it took me well over 100 hours to figure that out. So who wins?

[Sly Reflex]

Mass Effect 2.

[Sly Reflex]

I'm pretty sure nearly everyone here has played this.

[spatular]

Mass effect 2 is ace.

I've only played the first few hours of okami, want to get round to it one day but the main barrier is the length.

[radiofloyd]

Well, it's a Mass Effect game, so it's really good. It was my least favourite game in the series though. It seems like it just sidetracked the main story that was building in the first game (and resumed in the third game).

[Hendo]

I thought it was the best one!