Dead Man's Hand

Added May 18th, 2004 by Rishi

Introduction:

Dead Man’s Hand is not a high profile game to any extent. It is more of a standard shooter you would find at a run down arcade. The western theme was a good concept but terribly executed. You are El Tejon who along side his band of outlaws resort to killing women and children. Disappointed with himself, El Tejon wants out, as he hates what he has become. The rest of the outlaws realise he has become a potential threat, and therefore knock him out at the scene of the crime. El Tejon is caught and thrown into jail by the sheriff, revenge burns inside you. Hope you’re ready to blast your way through this wacky western first person shooter.

Gameplay:

There are a variety of Western-themed environments, from ghost towns to mining caverns. The gameplay is like any bog standard first person shooter, with a few miserable attempts to differentiate the title from other games in the genre. Each level is quite straight forward, traveling from A to B. Enemies pop out arcade style and take cover behind crates and so on. The A.I in this game is just plain stupid to say the least; you can go running around shooting and killing and not lose much health at all. Not only that, but the amount of health packs you find throughout a level, if you were ever low on health it wouldn’t be long till you could be charged up again to continue the slaughter of your dumb enemies.

There are a collection of interactive objects you will encounter in the environments, these can be used to perform trick shots, an example would be shooting an exploding barrel that rest besides a boulder which will cause it to flatten enemies. This is a clever addition to the game, with some trick shots being more obvious then others. It is a shame that the game as a whole does not compliment this feature.

What I found to be most annoying was Dead Man’s Hand’s hit detection. You expect to kill someone if your cross hair is lined up on their head, no matter what firearm you are using, at the least get their health extremely low. When playing the game I found it was as if you got lucky sometimes and the bullet hit the target where you aimed or it just far out missed. At close range the accuracy actually gets worst, I remember using a shotgun and needing 5 or 6 shots to kill one guy. Was he wearing a bullet proof vest? I think not since I shot him in the face! The enemies are pre-programmed so at times they will run right past you and stop at their instructed spots then turn around and shoot. Another glitch is that you can’t kill them till they have reached their required position; so much for being able to hit a moving target.

In addition, the game runs at ridiculously slow frame rates, and I believe this to be the reason for the hits to an enemy not getting registered. I found the easiest way to take out your opponent offline or online was to use the special weapon function, extremely effective with the peace maker pistol.

The weapons do not carry a great deal of choice, ranging from 3 each of the following, pistol, shotgun, rifles. Also you have the ability to use whiskey bombs and dynamite, or take your chances with a knife. When playing online, you start off with a peace maker pistol, this is my favorite weapon of the game, just shot an enemy once with it and you gain the ability to use the special function on the gun. Now you have fire of a clip rapidly leaving your opponent no chance of even firing back.

When I first went on the Xbox Live menu and searched for a server, I found 3. The game was quite laggy and the host had ‘one hit kills’ activated. I played in a few servers to get an idea of the online play, my first time playing I ended up top of the match using the peace marker pistol you spawn with. This brings me on to the point I want to make about how the weapons are extremely unfairly matched and unrealistic, the pistol is more effective than the shotgun at close range!

Between levels, you can opt to play a hand of Poker; winning will provide you with extra ammo for you current firearms. You can continue playing till you lose; winning quite a bit of ammo will come in handy due to the crazy hit detention on this game. There is no ability to save in-between a level. However, the levels are pretty short so it shouldn’t cause a problem.

Graphics:

The Dead Man’s Hand graphics in no way what so ever show the power of the Xbox. The game looks and feels like an average PS2 game. While the modeling is a disappointment, the physics for some parts of the game are actually pretty good. If you shoot someone from a balcony, what him tumble to the floor. This does a little good for the game, yet sadly not enough. There is no blood on the enemy models when you shoot them, and dead bodies disappear. Like I mentioned before the frame rate kills any enjoyable experience I could have received from playing this game.

Audio:

The generic sound and corny voice overs add to the Western flavor of the game. The music is what you would expect, but could be better, it consist with rock mixed in with repetitive western music. The weapon effects are satisfactory, which if improved could actually improve this game significantly. Sound effects of weapons do play a large part in making the game an enjoyable experience.

Controls:

The controls are relatively easy to pick up. The two triggers are using for primary and secondary fire. It is easy to aim at enemies, it’s a shame the hit detection is not up to par. The full controls are as follows:

Left thumb stick - Move around or navigate menus
Right thumb stick - Control view
A-button - Jump
B-button - Use
X-button - Reload
White-button - Scoreboard
Black-button - Cycle weapons
Left trigger - Secondary fire
Right trigger - Primary fire
Start-button - Pause or settings

Replay:

Well, I didn’t want to play through this game once, let alone again. The game lacks the magic and even struggles to meet the essentials which will make you coming back for more. Usually games with Xbox Live get a high replay score, but the online play is terrible and far from a great experience with so little players online. Why you play this game if you have any other first person shooter in your collection amazes me.

Summary:

There are many better shooters on the Xbox than Dead Man’s Hand, they may not be Western based, but at least they will be enjoyable. This game is a great example of a good concept which is produced poorly. The game overall falls below average mostly due to the few major flaws it has, mainly the hit detection issue I mentioned. My suggestion is to get a shotgun and blow this game to hell because that’s where it belongs. Don’t even rent this game to laugh at it. It’s bad enough to give your Xbox a disease.